Forex Trading – Vantage FX Review

Review Summary:

Review Detail: VantageFX Australia

• Vantage FX is a Forex ECN broker with great customer service and low cost trading.
  This is combined with high quality execution, reliable trading infrastructure, and the ability to earn interest on account balance (T&Cs apply) makes for a great trading experience.
• Although Vantage FX’s ECN account has a commission of $3.00, their average spreads (which is critical when calculating the average cost of trading with any broker) are higher than some other ECN brokers listed on our site.
  See our Forex Account Comparisons to see how their FX accounts compare to the competitors.
• Australian regulated.
  Vantage FX Pty Ltd (ACN: 140 903 886) is a Corporate Authorised Representative of Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd (AFSL 428901) Representative Number: 343547.
  Vantage Global Prime Pty Ltd (ACN: 157 768 566) holds an Australian financial services licence (AFSL) No. 428901 and is regulated by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). They are an Australian online broker with headquarters in Sydney, Australia and audited by Walker Wayland.Vantage FX Pty Ltd is a member of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) complaints resolution scheme and their membership number is 14926.
• In addition to the regular licensing requirements of ASIC regulated foreign exchange brokers, Vantage FX’s indemnity insurance is provided by a consortium with specialist insurance group Lloyd’s of London, generally known simply as Lloyd’s, and XL Catlin
  The benefits are that the insurance would cover some unforeseen business risk Vantage FX might face and therefore helps to increase the stability of Vantage FX
• Vantage FX deposits all client funds in Segregated Client Trust Accounts with the National Australia Bank (NAB). Vantage FX cannot use client funds for any business purpose, they are kept on trust for clients and segregated from the business, however client money can be used to maintain margin that is needed to cover positions opened by clients
• While Vantage FX is primarily a specialist forex broker, they also have a key range of products in addition to Forex. At the time of writing this review VantageFX’s range of instruments include:
  • 40 Foreign Exchange (FX) Pairs
  • 8 Major Global Stock Index DMA CFDs (including ASX S&P 200, DAX 30, Dow Jones 30, US S&P 500)
  • 5 Metals Commodity DMA CFDs (spot Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium & Copper)
  • 4 Energy DMA CFDs (Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Gasoline & Heating Oil).

  All the above instruments are available in MT4, WebTrader and mobile trading apps.

• Standard STP account runs a transparent Forex rebate program… get 10% forex rebate credit which you can convert to cash live as you trade
• Vantage FX have a unique offering that will particularly suit active Forex traders with larger account balances. Just meet the monthly volume target and you get cash interest of 8.88% per annum into your trading account. This is a very unique offering among Forex brokers!Please refer to the table below to see the required volume traded to receive the 8.88% interest on your account balance…
  
  The interest payment is calculated based on the FX accounts end of month Free Margin applied with the rate of 8.88% per annum. Payments are calculated after the end of the month and paid directly to the clients MT4 trading account by or around the 15th of the following month.
• All funded accounts receive FREE access to the SmartTrader Tools Package. The SmartTrader Tools Package takes the Vantage FX MT4 platform to a higher level than the standard MT4 platform many foreign exchange traders would be used to. Best trading platform upgrades include:
  1. Alarm Manager – Receive alerts via SMS, email, pop-up, sound, or broadcast to Twitter. Automatically trigger market or pending orders, close some or all trades based on Alarm Manager rules and triggers
  2. Correlation Matrix – The Correlation Matrix shows the correlation between a grid of selected symbols from the Forex, Commodities and Indices markets, over a configurable timeframe and number of bars. The Trade List button shows the average correlation, and also marks any symbols which have strong correlation with another symbol on the list
  3. Correlation Trader – The Correlation Trader shows the correlation between trading symbols over a configurable timeframe, e.g. recent H1 bars. Traders can also open and close orders, place stop loss and take profit orders, in both hedging/non-hedging mode, directly from your charts
  4. Excel RTD App/Link – In simple terms, this platform upgrade lets you do two things… 1) Put real-time data into Excel using just Excel’s RTD() function and 2) Send simple trading commands from VBA code in Excel. The app is supplied with an example spreadsheet which lets you enter up to 5 trading account numbers, and then automatically displays a dashboard of equity and account balance etc; symbol prices; and a consolidated list of open positions
  5. Market Manager – If you’ve ever wanted to edit the MT4 market watch panel, this one’s for you… now forex traders can completely customise it with full control over your order activity and symbol watch-lists all from one convenient window. This MT4 add-on does four main functions: a “watch list” of open positions & symbol prices, headline account information, all open tickets and graphical summary of recent price activity.
  6. Mini Terminal – Designed for active FX traders who require speed when entering and exiting positions in the market. This upgrade brings the added flexibility of trading complex order types, including OCO orders, with a single click. Sophisticated currency traders can multitask multiple positions from a single MT4 frame. For traders who like trading directly from a chart, the Mini Terminal also allows this functionality!
  7. Sentiment Trader – See the general trading sentiment mood & directions of all your symbols quickly right from your MT4 trading platform. This MT4 upgrade displays information about current and historic long/short sentiment: the percentage of traders who currently have (or had) an open buy or sell position in a symbol. The figures displayed are calculated from real-money accounts which are being published to FX Blue (previously named MT4i | www.mt4i.com)
  8. Session Map – The Session Map shows your current local time in relation to forex “sessions” during the trading day, i.e. the core trading hours when institutional dealers are most active in Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. It also shows markers for future forex news events; information about your floating P/L and equity; and price activity during each trading session
  9. Trade Terminal – An advanced trade execution and analysis tool for fast scalpers. In essence it is a sophisticated one-click trade manager with a plethora of built-in functions. This MT4 update is probably not suited to all traders but certainly valuable for traders looking for an institutional grade tool for quick trading! Includes quick access to all orders (opening and modifying existing trades), create templates commonly used complex order preferences, trade & risk calculators, analysis functions, alerts and much more.

  Comprehensive user guides, 4 to 10 pages each, are provided for each of the above MT4 trading platform upgrades.
  The SmartTrader Tools Package for MT4 is FREE for funded live accounts (minimum of $1,000) at Vantage FX.

• Non expiry demo account available to a live account holders – great way to sharpen your trading skills for free without constant subscribing to new demo after 30 days
• Anyone who trades using EAs and runs a VPS can get their VPS costs reimbursed up to $50 AUD per month. Traders must trade a minimum of 10 standard FX lots round turn per month on your Vantage FX standard account or 20 standard FX lots round turn on a Vantage Pro Trader account to obtain this free service
• For clients who like to trade Social, Vantage FX offer Myfxbook and ZuluTrade
• Daily Markets updates from Dane Williams
• Great variety of account funding options including:
  • Credit / Debit Card (Currencies Available: AUD, USD, CAD, EUR, GBP, SGD, NZD & JPY). Please note that all NAB Transact payments (MasterCard & Visa payments) will incur a fee
  • POLi – Instant Bank Transfers (Australia Only – AUD)
  • Bank Transfer – Domestic (AUD) & International (Currencies Available: AUD, USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, SGD, NZD & JPY)
  • BPay (Australia Only – AUD)
  • Skrill Moneybookers (Currencies Available: USD, EUR & GBP)
  • Neteller (Currencies Available: AUD, USD, EUR, GBP & SGD)
  • B2B – Broker to Broker (Currencies Available: AUD, USD, EUR, GBP, SGD, NZD & JPY)

  Vantage FX do not charge internal fees on deposits or withdrawals. Please note however, payments to and/or from international banking institutions can attract intermediary bank transfer fees, which are independent and out of the control of Vantage FX brokers.

• Clients can withdraw funds online by following an easy Online Withdrawal Procedure.
  For withdrawal requests received prior to 12:00 AEST (02:00 GMT), normal procedures will see that the withdrawal request will be processed the same business day. If your request is received after 12:00 AEST (02:00 GMT), or is received during periods where there are higher than expected withdrawal volumes, Vantage advise your request will be processed the following business day
• Vantage FX, sometimes also referred to as VFX, has received many industry excellence awards from 2011 onwards, including for best ECN / STP Forex Broker, Client Service and best Forex execution. Examples of these awards include:
  • Winner: Best ECN Broker 2015 & 2016 – TheForexAwards.com
  • Winner: Best Customer Support, 2016 – TheForexAwards.com
  • Winner: Best Forex Broker & Forex Execution – South East Asia – DealMakers Annual Banking Awards, 2012
  • Recommended for Forex – Financial Review Smart Investor (Australia’s leading investment magazine) Blue Ribbon Awards, 2011

Compare Forex Trading Accounts

Vantage FX have 2 account types available.
The Standard STP trading account is a good solution for MT4 platform traders and includes rebates, tight spreads and STP (straight through processing) trade execution.
The Raw ECN trading account is ideal for high volume and EA forex traders as it offers good raw ECN spreads, ECN trade execution and extremely low $3.00 commission per standard FX lot (industry average is normally $3.50).

Compare between Vantage FX’s Standard STP vs RAW ECN style Forex trading accounts below.

If you feel that Vantage FX Australia may not have all the features you’re looking for, please view our additional forex broker reviews and comparison tables.

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