Who is The Collective FX?
We are a group of traders who created a Brokerage for ourselves to get the absolute best Institutional pricing and spreads, plus have complete control over our quotes.
 

Why was The Collective FX created?
Frankly, it's the only way to make money trading Forex, on pure quotes and razor thin spreads.

Since we couldn't find these prices anywhere else, we decided to create our own Brokerage so we could get Institutional pricing for ourselves.

We are all traders here, and we use the exact same spreads and pricing for our own autotrading and system trades.

By sharing with other traders, our bargaining power goes up, and we negotiate our spreads down even more.
 

What are the key differences between The Collective FX and other Brokerages?
The key difference is that we ourselves are traders, and trade everyday on the same system you would. So there is no "us" and "them", it's all "us".

We are in the same boat you are, and we are all working for the same goal which is to constantly lower our spreads by banding together as a collective.
 

How are you able to offer this type of Brokerage and others don’t?
Others have a completely different profit motive.

They are focused on making money by charging you fees, commissions and widening the spread so they make money on every trade you place.

Our profit motive comes from our own trading.

The more we lower our spreads, the more money we make from every trade.

So the more of us there are banding together in the collective, the lower we can negotiate our spreads, and the more we all make.

Do you have a demo platform with demo trading account?
Yes, there is a free demo platform that you can download.

The prices and quotes are identical to the live platform, the only difference is that demo trades are not sent to the Banks/Liquidity Providers.

Where are you based?
The Collective FX LLC is a Delaware Limited Liability Company, whose principal office is based out of Cape Coral, Florida, United States.

 Are you regulated, and if so by whom and where?
We've actually gone to great legal lengths to make sure everything is forthright. The US regulations mandate that any firm that is counterparty to client trades be registered.

This was done to protect clients, since when the broker is counterparty to the clients trades, if the client wins, the broker has to pay. They want to make sure the broker can pay the client.

We ourselves are traders, and had no intention of being involved with our clients trades. We just want to trade ourselves. So our Brokerage has been designed with multiple SEC aware law firms in the US, to make sure it is completely legal.

We are never, ever, ever, not even for an instant or a moment, never ever a counterparty to anyone's trades. Don't want to be, don't need to be, and make sure we never are. All trades are executed AT the counterparty, in the absolute purest sense of the word. We don't profit from getting in the middle of trader's trades.

The bottom line is that we are truly more a COLLECTIVE than a BROKERAGE. After a great deal of study of the laws involved, we weren't actually going to say it out loud, but the truth is that registering as a FCM is the legal license to profit from a trader's losses.

WE DON'T WANT THAT LICENSE. So we abstain. No counterparty for us. And in fact, now we are legally barred from taking the other side of our members' trades.

We feel we are truly unique, and there isn't anyone else like us. The reason is that THEY have to be commercial. They have to make their money by widening the spread, trading against you and hoping you lose, running stops, etc, etc, etc.
 
We can't do any of those things, we aren't allowed to. If we did, then the SEC would shut us down.

So you aren't regulated, so are my funds safe?
We don't hold your trading funds. Your funds are held by a FULLY regulated Liquidity Provider. They are are all top tier providers, so rest assured they are as good as it gets.

So my funds are held by a regulated Liquidity Provider, but you just implied that that gives them the right to 'play' with my trades. How does that help?
You are right. The difference though is that our relationships with the Liquidity Providers are not at the Retail level. We deal with them at the Institutional level. These providers don't tend to take on retail clients, and if they do then the retail accounts are managed completely differently. It's a sad fact but the more volume and cash that you control the better and more reliable terms that you can negotiate. Hence the whole thinking behind The Collective FX.

Do you have an IB Program?
We'd love to, there's nothing better than having new members introduced to our Collective.

Unfortunately though we don't have an IB programme simply because we have no means to pay an IB any fees. Our spreads have no padding in them, so there is no way to compensate an IB. Sorry.
 

Can I have more than one trading account?
Yes, you may have as many trading accounts as you need.

The first two accounts are included, and there is a small one-time fee of $50 to cover our labor in setting up additional accounts.

Are the spreads really likely to reduce?
Yes indeed! Some are already partially pre-negotiated based on the volume we produce.

There is certainly room for improvement! So the more members of the collective we have, the better pricing we can achieve.

Does The Collective FX offer online reporting to members?
Yes. Access to each individual member’s trading records is available to the member online via the reporting functionality of the MT4 trading platform.

Does The Collective FX charge commissions on trades?
All costs of trading are clearly defined in our service offerings.

In summary, all of our 'Tiers' offer a single flat fee service.

Does The Collective FX offer micro lot trading?

Yes, you can now trade Microlots.

Does The Collective FX have a Dealing Desk?
Absolutely NOT.

Our Pledge guarantees that we never trade against our members; that we ALL trade the same price at the same time.

To us, as traders, the Dealing Desk model is abhorrent.

How do I open a demo account?
The demo accounts are a great way to get a feel for live trading.

We want you to feel comfortable trading with our platform.

We also want you to prove to yourself that what we have told you is correct. Simply request access to our demo platform from our main homepage.

How long is the demo active?
A demo account is good for 14 days, beginning the first day of sign-up. On the 14th day, your account will become inactive.

You can always create a new one though.

How does the demo account compare to a live account?
The pricing and spreads are the same in demo and in live accounts.

Obviously there is no back-end real money market execution being performed and thus we cannot 100% guarantee that the demo and live accounts will perform precisely the same.

However, given that there is no Dealing Desk, we feel that the demo platform is in fact a very fair representation of the live platform.

Certainly the spreads and prices displayed will not differ across the two accounts.

I've downloaded the MetaTrader platform. Now, how do I sign up for a demo to begin trading?
Once the platform is downloaded, simply go to:

FILE then click Open an Account (note the Open An Account screen may appear automatically when logging in).

Fill in the brief information required and click on the box I agree to subscribe to your newsletters. Click NEXT two times.

After clicking NEXT the second time, LOGIN and PASSWORD are provided. Write down this information for your records. The information, however, is not required.

After clicking FINISH, the system will automatically log you into the new demo account to begin trading.

On the top left corner of MetaTrader, your demo account number will be displayed.

Is demo trading available on the weekend?
Demo trading is only available during regular trading hours (Sunday 5 p.m. thru Friday 4 p.m. EST).

What is an Expert Advisor?
An Expert Advisor is a scripting tool offered in the MetaTrader platform.

The tool allows a user to program and implement their own trading algorithm.

For more information about this feature, please visit http://www.metaquotes.net/experts/mql4/

Does The Collective FX offer webinars or any other informational services?
The nature of The Traders Collective FX is that we are a specialist Boutique Brokerage.

There are many educational resources available with elementary Internet searches.

We would really like to cultivate a self help type environment.

Spreads

A spread is the difference between what you can buy and sell at. Each currency quotes two prices the Ask(your buy price) and the Bid(your sell price). The difference between the two is the amount that you need to earn before your trade becomes profitable.

In the main trading sessions our typical EURUSD spreads are in the average range of around 0.5 pips. This is the average and by watching the spreads for yourself you will see the spreads even get as low as 0.

In other times the EURUSD spread may average around 1.1 pips or so. Again, you can check this for yourself.

Depending upon your level of experience the spread may or may not appear significant. However, please take our word for it that the spread is a huge factor when trading and trading with the thinnest spreads possible is vital.

Here at The Collective FX we are constantly striving to reduce the spread by renegotiating our arrangements with the various large Banks and Liquidity providers.

When looking at the prices flashed up on the MT4 platform its very difficult to visually eyeball the spread, the prices simply move too fast. To overcome this and to help you see how tight our spreads really are we've created a simple 'Expert Advisor' or 'EA' as they are known. This EA simply plots the current spread on the chart that it is applied to. As well as doing this it saves the complete price information for that quote to a file for your review later.

You can download the free 'ShowSpreads' EA here.

Here is a tiny snippet of the data collected using this EA.

SymbolName, AskPrice, BidPrice, Spread, TimeStamp

EURUSD_fx,1.34940000,1.34935000, 0.50 ,3/25/2009 14:09:49
EURUSD_fx,1.34944000,1.34940000, 0.40 ,3/25/2009 14:09:50
EURUSD_fx,1.34942000,1.34935000, 0.70 ,3/25/2009 14:09:52
EURUSD_fx,1.34942000,1.34940000, 0.20 ,3/25/2009 14:09:55
EURUSD_fx,1.34938000,1.34935000, 0.30 ,3/25/2009 14:09:56
EURUSD_fx,1.34935000,1.34935000, 0.00 ,3/25/2009 14:09:57
EURUSD_fx,1.34933000,1.34930000, 0.30 ,3/25/2009 14:09:58
EURUSD_fx,1.34931000,1.34930000, 0.10 ,3/25/2009 14:09:59
EURUSD_fx,1.34928000,1.34925000, 0.30 ,3/25/2009 14:10:02
EURUSD_fx,1.34930000,1.34930000, 0.00 ,3/25/2009 14:10:03
EURUSD_fx,1.34930000,1.34925000, 0.50 ,3/25/2009 14:10:06
EURUSD_fx,1.34930000,1.34930000, 0.00 ,3/25/2009 14:10:07
EURUSD_fx,1.34928000,1.34925000, 0.30 ,3/25/2009 14:10:07
EURUSD_fx,1.34927000,1.34920000, 0.70 ,3/25/2009 14:10:08
EURUSD_fx,1.34928000,1.34920000, 0.80 ,3/25/2009 14:10:08
EURUSD_fx,1.34922000,1.34915000, 0.70 ,3/25/2009 14:10:09

Spreads are in bold. Please notice that even in this tiny example there are a couple of spreads at 0.

You can apply this to any chart within MT4, not just using our platform.
Please feel free to use it with your existing Broker, it really does make the comparison easier.

We really believe our spreads are the best out there, yet we are still striving to reduce them.

What is Rollover or Swaps?
Rollover and Swaps are the same. For now we'll just use the term rollover.

Rollover is the interest earned or paid for holding a position overnight. Each currency has an interest rate associated with it set by the local government, and because FOREX is traded in pairs, every trade involves not only 2 different currencies, but their two different interest rates.

If the interest rate on the currency you bought is higher than the interest rate of the currency you sold, then you will earn rollover (positive roll).

If the interest rate on the currency you bought is lower than the interest rate on the currency you sold, then you will pay rollover (negative roll).

When is rollover booked?
The beginning and end of the FOREX trading day is 5PM in New York.

Any positions that are open at 5PM sharp are considered to be held overnight, and are subject to rollover.

A position opened at 5:01PM is not subject to rollover until the next day, while a position opened at 4:59PM is subject to rollover at 5PM.

Weekends and Holidays
Most banks across the world are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, so there is no rollover on these days, but most banks still apply interest for those two days.

To account for that, the FOREX market books 3 days of rollover on Wednesdays, which makes a typical Wednesday rollover three times the amount on Tuesday.

There is no rollover on holidays, but an extra days worth of rollover 2 business days before the holiday.

Typically, holiday rollover happens if any of the currencies traded has a major holiday.  Therefore, Independence Day in the USA, July 4, closes American banks, and an extra day of rollover is added at 5PM on July 1 for all US dollar pairs.

How is rollover charged/credited?
Rollover is automatically credited/debited from your trade account based on the prevailing rollover rates. This will appear in the MT4 platform in the 'Swap' column of the trade tab.

Rollover rates are adjusted automatically each day in line with the prevailing respective interest rates.

Is rollover applied to all of your different account types?
Yes. Each and every account at The Collective FX is treated the same as each an every other account and therefore rollover is applied to each and every account.

Margin

What is leverage or margin?
"Trading on Margin," and "Trading with Leverage" are the same thing. In simple terms it is the ability to trade a position larger than the amount of money in your account.

Leverage is expressed as a ratio, for example 50:1 or 100:1 whilst Margin is expressed as a percentage of position size, for example 5% or 1%.

The Collective FX sets margin in terms of required margin per lot. The maximum margin available from our Interbank Liquidity providers is 1% or 100:1 and therefore this is the maximum margin level that we are able to make available to you.

For simplicity The Collective FX requires $100 in your account for each and every mini lot, and $1000 for each and every full lot, regardless of the pair traded.

Please remember this is a FLAT margin rate and that other Brokers may well charge you your margin based on the underlying currency, so when trading anything other than USD denominated pairs you will have considerably less leverage than the 'quoted' margin requirement may lead you to believe.

You can of course choose to use less margin than this but no more.

Your margin is trackable within the MT4 platform as 'Used Margin' and 'Available Margin'.