GFT Global Markets UK Ltd., the full name of GFT, is related to Global Forex Trading in the US, a Forex dealer, and therefore although it was only launched in the UK in 2006 it has a much longer heritage. GFT Markets has offices in London, Dubai, New Jersey, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo and allows clients to speculate and trade in a broad range of markets. GFT boasts tight spreads and nearly 3000 products, including indices, stocks, commodities, currencies, and interest rates – including more than 120 currency pairs.
The DealBook 360 software is free, and comes in several different versions. The DealBook 360 as such is a downloadable software application, but you can also trade with DealBook WEB, a browser based version usable on any computer, and with the iPhone or Mobile DealBook applications. DealBook also offers a number of popular technical indicators and chart types, as well as analytics and real-time news.
The GFT UK trading platform includes a range of order types, including trailing stops which are good for locking in profits, and guaranteed stops which prevent any loss beyond that anticipated when placing the order. While we only consider guaranteed stop losses to be useful in certain circumstances, because you are charged for them whether or not they are needed, you may find that your trading plan or the security you are interested in needs them.
Trading can be accomplished with one click, and the trading platforms are easy to use and intuitive. Some reviews have mentioned a slowness in response, and unfortunately they do not say whether this is with the downloadable software or the browser based version. The speed of Internet connection could make a substantial difference to the response rate.
“Most known for its award-winning DealBook® platform available for desktop, the web, or mobile phone, GFT also provides options for automated trading, 24/7 customer service, and competitive spreads even in times of market volatility.”
The spreads are tight, and spreads as low as 0.1% either side are offered on particular securities such as the FTSE and small-cap. Even with 24 hour trading on indices the spreads can be as low as 0.3 points. The margin requirements have been kept around 10%. The GFT charts are also good and include an extensive range of technical analysis tools and indicators (which includes all the usual tools like Pivot points, Gann and Fibonacci retracements and fans, and moving averages) but on the downside some traders don’t like the platform from a trading viewpoint. Having said that the GFT trading platform also supports the setting of alarms and alerts for certain price points or technical indicators and traders can even trade off chart levels. In fact, GFT’s DealBook platform allows clients to trade and modify orders direct from the charts. News feeds and other trading tools, such as Autochartist are also available.
We give GFT UK a Rating of: for range of markets, margins, spread sizes and general client satisfaction (ratings are from 1 to 5 with 5 being highest).
GFT has recently added binaries to its products range which comes with the inherent ability to know your maximum profit and loss from the outset.. These include short-term trades at five-minute, 20-minute and hourly intervals, as well as mid-session and daily markets. The binary platform puts a lot of emphasis on visual trading. The revolutionary deal-wheel is one example of this here – it consists of a count down tool that display the seconds before expiry of markets.
In addition to offering a free practice account, there are several different types of account available at GFT, and they come with different levels of facilities and support. The minimum Green account can be opened for £150, but this only comes with 13 technical indicators and one newsfeed. The upgrade to the Bronze account requires a deposit of £1500, and increases the number of indicators to 85. You need to deposit at least £6500 to get other trading tools, discounts, and for the complete range of premium services.
It’s useful to know that if you fund your account by credit card, you should send only £5000 at a time, as then GFT take care of any fees. If you send more than this amount, then you are liable for your credit card fees. Honestly, it seems that they have this policy backwards, as you would think they would want to attract higher deposits, but this rule helps the small trader, and a large trader just has to remember to make multiple deposits. There is an inactivity fee of $50 if you do not trade once every 60 days.
GFT offers videos, trading guides, seminars and webinars to help educate clients. The seminars and webinars have tutorials covering such topics from placing your first spread trade to technical analysis and advanced trading tools. This coupled with comprehensive trading education from GFT’s own trading experts and up-to-the minute news, analysis and market commentary from their sister site FX360.com should cater for the needs of most traders.
Mobile Trading: Yes! GFT’s DealBook software supports the iPhone, BlackBerry, WAP-enabled phones and Windows Mobile operating systems amongst others. Clients who download the DealBook application can access their forex trading, CFD and spread betting accounts all through a single interface. We are told that DealBook’s mobile platforms support price alarms, charting tools and technical indicators as well as real-time pricing and a full range of order types.
Mobile Trading Experience: DealBook Mobile offering is particularly advanced with the quote screen displaying the present price as well as the open, high, low and close market data and a daily bar chart. You can open or close trades as well as access streaming Dow Jones news. To switch to the order screen simply tap the trade button – here you can set limits, stops and even contingent orders to manage your trading. This is complemented by a charting package with numerous technical indicators and price alerts and the ability to set different timescales. The latest rollout is DealBook for the iPad. You can access your spread betting, CFD and forex accounts easily. The interface is quite flexible and contains such tools as full-screen charting with drawing tools, live streaming CNBC video and a multi-view interface.
Overall, GFT UK spread betting is a broker which is well worth investigating; spreads good, margins same as IG, no rolling charges for shorts. I have noticed some slippage at very busy times but that’s why I have IG. GFT’s charts are especially good, although not everyone thinks highly of their trading platform. The only hesitation we have is about the slow dealing speeds which a few clients have noticed, and you should make sure you use a practice account first to see whether it is a problem with your particular setup.
