Helena Izotova
Not so long ago ibtimes.com published the results of its six-month-long survey (Sep 2010- March 2011). 6400 traders from 82 countries cast their votes to choose and award the best online brokers (30 nominations). Some of those 30 brokers are definitely of Russian origin. How to evaluate the awards given to these Russian dealing centers? How did it affect their standings in the rating of Forex brokers by Masterforex-V?
Who are the awardees?
The awards were distributed the following way:
Now compare these awards to the standings in the Masterforex-V rating:
· AvaFX - the 3rd, minor league of the rating by
· FXDD - the 3rd, minor league
· GFT - the 2nd (intermediate) league
· GO MARKETS - the 3rd, minor league
· HENYEP Capital Markets - the 3rd, minor league
· Interbank - the 3rd, minor league
· MB Trading - the 3rd, minor league
· VFX - the 3rd, minor league
· FXOpen - the 3rd, minor league
· Alpari (UK) - the premier league of the rating of foreign brokers by
How did the “winners” celebrate their awards?
On June 9th 2011 Alpari (UK) was “delighted to announce that the company has won the Best UK Forex Broker Award and the Forex Broker Europe – Excellence Award at the 2011 IBTimes Trading Awards”.
According to the release , Andrey Vedikhin, CEO of Alpari (UK), said, ”Winning Best UK Forex Broker and the Forex Broker Europe – Excellence Award is a very special recognition from our industry. Alpari (UK) always strives to exceed client expectations, be it through the widest possible choice of products and trading platforms or our excellent trading terms and client services. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our clients for their trust in Alpari (UK) and everyone who voted for us in the IBTimes Trading Awards.”
The same thing is about FXOpen and its press release:
“FXOpen is honoured to receive IBTimes awards again”, commented Denis Peganov, Development Director of FXOpen. “We have always strived to provide the best for our clients and we hope to bring more improvement to our services.”
However these brokers didn’t say a world about the fact that OANDA had been recognized the “Best Global Forex Broker”.
Why did refused to take into account these awards in its rating of Forex brokers?
According to Evgeny Olkhovsky, one of the leading Canadian experts and a juryman of the Masterforex-V rating, 29 out of 30 awards were considered “questionable” and weren’t taken into account when considering the standings of those brokers because these awards are close to absurd:
If there are slightly over 100 Forex brokers then how can one call every 4th broker the “best broker”?
The “Methodology” page of the website says:
“The FX market is an unregulated OTC market and there are no reliable, aggregated, global statistics made available against which to benchmark the survey outside the tri-annual BIS studies….
IBTimes Trading Awards is divided into two sections: qualitative measures (recognizing brokers by client satisfaction at the continent and country level) and by panel of experts (based on the judges' proven expertise).”
Obviously, the “judges” are IBTimesFX and Forex Magnates.
The official press release says: “The IBTimes Trading Awards fall into two major sections, one that recognizes brokers through quantitative measures (or relative market shares) and one through qualitative rankings (or client satisfaction) at the continent and country level”.
Comments by Evgeny Olkhovsky:
1. Why did ibtimes.com start the survey if “there are no reliable, aggregated, global statistics made available against which to benchmark the survey outside the tri-annual BIS studies”? How can it be reliable?
2. How can one use the criteria like “relative market shares” or “no reliable, aggregated, global statistics” when every second broker claims it controls 5%-40% of the market.
3. A rating of FX brokers should help traders and investors to tell reliable brokers from unreliable ones instead of confusing them (the potential clients). To make myself clear I’d like to cite an example: let’s assume you want to find out what kind of apples is the best (we have 100 kinds to choose from). Some “experts” name 30 kinds of apples, saying that if you taste apples in Germany then the best one will be kind “A”, if you do it in France, then kind “B” will be the most delicious, in the UK – kind “C”, in the EU(!!) – kind “D”, in the entire world (!!!) – kind “E” etc. What would you call such “experts”?
4. That is the methodology that is used by ibtimes.com. And it looks relatively subjective. As a result we have controversial results and controversial awards, Evgeny Olkhovsky said in an interview with Market Leader.
For comparison sake, in ’s rating of foreign brokers all the 16 criteria are transparent and objective (including spreads, licenses, the year of foundation, awards, the amount of complaints and positive opinions etc.) If brokers want to move higher in the rating they know perfectly well their week and strong sides in comparison to their rivals and consequently know what to do in order to outpace them (to narrow the spread, to expand the branch network etc.)
It seems that only the “judges” of ibtimes.com know what is necessary to advance and get an award from “The IBTimes Trading Awards”.
1. The criteria of choosing the winners are few, subjective and unclear. For example:
How and why did OANDA become the best global Forex broker?
Can it offer its clients the best spreads? No, it can’t (EUR/USD – 1 point, GBP/USD – 2.4 pts while EXNESS can offer spreads that are 4 times (!) as low). Can OANDA boast any “major” licenses? No, it can’t. Can it boast a wide branch network? No, it can’t (It has only 4 branches while FOREX.com has 14, FXCM – 43, Forex club – 47, Teletrade – 96). Do traders evaluate its services better than the services rendered by other brokers? No, they don’t (1.7-2 points out of 5 on average while Nord FX’s services score 4.4-4.8 points). That is why in ’s rating of FX brokers OANDA is… the outsider of the premier league, with clear distribution of points (scores) for each of the 16 criteria. Yet, ibitimes.com somehow makes it the “best of the best” without explaining the reasons why (by analogy, if a kind of apples isn’t recognized the best in any particular country how on earth can it be the best kind of apple in the entire world?)
2. Another question is how did MB Trading manage to gain “Forex Broker North America – Excellence Award”?
According to the US-Canadian Association of Traders and Investors under , the most popular online brokers are: Forex.com, FXCM, GFT (Global Futures & Forex, Ltd.), CitiFX Pro (Citibank N.A.), OANDA. MB Trading and Alpari come next (the latter has been increasingly popular in the USA over the last few years). So, it is unclear why ibtimes.com suddenly recognized MB Trading (the 3rd, minor league of the rating by Masterforex-V) the most popular broker in North America. That is another mystery or nonsense.
3. Another surprise is that Alpari (UK) somehow became the “Best Forex broker UK” and received the “Forex Broker Europe – Excellence Award”. How can it be that British and other EU traders trust Alpari more than Dukascopy Bank SA (Switzerland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Saxo Bank (Denmark ), FOREX.com (UK)?
The only award decided to approve and take into account in the rating is OANDA’s Best Global Forex Broker, as a mark of respect to ibtimes.com for their 6-month work. As a result OANDA got 10 points and managed to enter the premier league after scoring 300 pts.
Market Leader and would appreciate it if you could participate in a survey. Please, visit the Academy’s forum and answer the question given below:
If you, as a trader or investor, cannot understand the criteria of a certain rating of FX brokers will you trust it?
· Yes, I will if this is a well-respected and competent source
· No, I won’t trust anything I cannot understand (that looks unclear and confusing)
· Your own opinion
Helena Izotova
