The global market for forex and commodity trading is a complicated place to gain success. People new to the world of trading financial instruments cannot tread these waters and earn profits by themselves. They need brokers who can assist them in their journey to financial freedom. In this category, XM Group, or XM, has emerged as a next-generation broker that offers a range of services in online forex and commodity trading. XM Global is an incubator for helping beginners become seasoned traders. In 2021, the XM ecosystem will be one of the world’s largest networks of traders, having millions of active trading software users around the world.
XM Overview
Official Website | https://www.xm.com/ |
Headquarters | Republic of Cyprus |
Found in | 2009 |
Regulators | CySEC, ASIC, IFSC |
Products Offered | Forex, Stock CFDs, Commodities, Equity Indices, Precious Metals, Energies, Shares |
Minimum Initial Deposit | 5$ or more depending on account type |
MetaTrader 4 (MT4) | Yes |
MetaTrader 5 (MT5) | Yes |
Trading Fees | Low |
Inactivity fee | Low |
Withdrawal fee | Low |
Supported currencies | USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, CHF, AUD, HUF, PLN, RUB, SGD, ZAR, and more |
Customer Support | 24/5 Live Help |
RISK WARNING: YOUR CAPITAL MIGHT BE AT RISK
There are several reasons why XM is one of the best-regulated brokers and trading service providers. One can test the XM brokering experience with a demo account to its trading platforms and services. But, before you invest your thousands of dollars with this particular broker service, it is essential to know the ins and outs of it. From auto trading services to commissions spread, this XM review explores how this CFD and FX broker service registers its proclaimed 99.35% efficiency across its activities. This XM review will also highlight this broker service’s drawbacks to put forth a transparent and unbiased assessment. Let’s find out all the features of XM & dig deeper into the XM review.
What is XM?
XM Group is a community of regulated online brokers offering their services since 2009. It was registered as a service provider in 2015 under the company Trading Point of Financial Instruments Pty Ltd. However, XM is currently regulated by two securities commissions – Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Reg. – CySec 120/10) and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Reg. – ASIC 443670). In 2017, the group established XM Global, which is now regulated by the International Financial Services Commission (Reg. – IFSC/60/354/TS/19). It also has awards under its bag as The Best Crypto CFDs, which was awarded by Financial Expo Egypt in 2022.
XM is a platform that provides its brokering services to a large clientele of online traders. As of 2021, the platform has registered over 1.5 million XM traders across more than 190 countries. The XM trade ethos focuses on expanding its clients with fair practices. The company emphasizes trade personalization and excellent customer service. XM helps its clients with various trading platforms, tools, and services to deliver a successful trade. These services are aimed at meeting the tailor-made investment goals of every client.
The Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd is an umbrella for multiple XM broker entities. These services adopt the regulatory status of XM under various jurisdictions. Headquartered in the Republic of Cyprus, the XM Group now runs its entities in Sydney, Australia, and the United Kingdom. XM has a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) -regulated entity in London with license number 705428, registered under Trading Point of Financial Instruments UK Ltd. In 2017, the company’s latest entity XM Global Limited gained regulatory status in Belize.
XM Group Brokers – How They Work?
Before going further into the review, it is important to understand the complex nature of CFDs. A “contract for differences” is a complex instrument holding a high risk, where traders could lose money in the event of rapid leverage. The market for CFD trading is highly volatile, as nearly 75% of investor accounts tend to lose money when trading CFDs. Traders are more likely to lose money if they do not have brokers’ guidance, such as XM, that illustrates the power of effective CFD trading.
XM runs its services across multiple tiers of trading categories. There are four types of user accounts that XM offers for its users. The following accounts allow up to 200 open or pending positions for each client.
- XM Micro Account: Micro user accounts gain access to trading in USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CHF, HUF, JPY, and PLN currencies. The base currency trading in this account starts with a minimum deposit of $5. There are 1,000 units of the base currency in one Micro lot.
- XM Standard Account: The base currencies for a Standard account include AUD, USD, GBP, CHF, EUR, JPY, PLN, and HUF. The base currency trading in this account starts at a deposit of $5. There are 100,000 units of the base currency in one Standard lot.
- XM Zero Account: Zero trading account base currencies include EUR, USD, and JPY. A minimum deposit of $10 activates this account. There are 100,000 units of the base currency in one Zero lot.
- XM Ultra-Low Account: For Ultra-Low trading accounts, users can trade in GBP, EUR, USD, AUD, SGD, and ZAR base currencies. They need to make a minimum deposit of $50 to enable Ultra-Low trading. There are 100,000 units of the base currency in One Standard Ultra lot and 1,000 units of the base currency in One Micro Ultra lot. The XM Ultra-Low account applies to only limited entities of the XM Group.
Across these four accounts, XM can broker its client’s investments during the global working hours of the Forex market. While XM phone trading is available 24 hours every day, the official XM working hours start from 22:05 GMT Sunday to 21:50 GMT Friday.
One can set up a demo account to experience a simulated working of XM broker services. The XM demo account allows users to use virtual broker services on their trades. The platform also offers a virtual base currency balance of $100,000 for demo account users. With its unique algorithmic processing, the XM demo account provides the trade’s exact features and outcomes under real market conditions for the users. In addition to this, the platform does not limit the usage time of a demo account. There is no trial period for using an XM demo account.
A free virtual private server runs the XM services and boosts the speed of trades. This VPS is accessible to users from anywhere and has a 24/7 uptime. Due to this server, XM works efficiently and can broker without any technical downtime. The VPS also improves the XM services provided across the globe. Being regulated by the European Union, XM works under ESMA’s compliance, which is why it no longer offers the $30 deposit bonus to EU traders. XM broker can trade with 1000 financial instruments through its platforms. It can broker the trades for Stocks CFDs, Equity Indices CFDs, Commodities CFDs, Forex, Energies CFDs, and Precious Metals CFDs. The platform can broker your Forex trading on over 55 currency pairs, from USD and GBP to EUR & JPY pairs. However, XM does not broker any futures or binary options.
Services Offered by XM Group
The XM forex review breaks down the services this broker company provides, which primarily categorizes into research, training, and platforms. The company offers a list of services under its market research category. Similar services are also offered to educate traders on how to become successful in the game. The company further provides its software services with the licensing of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms.
- XM TV: This service broadcasts a precise real-time commentary of in-house markets to its users every day. The broadcast is developed with the industry leaders of trading video broadcasting created by CMC Markets and Saxo Bank. The market research video content is broadcasted outside of trading platforms, and the group also offers an end-to-end high-quality video content package to its most traders. This service satisfies users by delivering credible and authentic daily forex news. The videos provide market analysis, which is televised in the style of an interview. Audio from these video content is further uploaded in a podcast to help traders get syndicated access to such content in multiple media formats.
- Research and Educational Articles: Apart from videos, the group delivers its market news content in documented articles. The news on the group’s official website showcases a list of updated articles on market research. Users can filter the content of these articles based on asset classes and find the most relevant pieces of information with ease. Research articles about stocks, forex, indices, and cryptocurrencies are made available to the users. These articles improve market research content assessment, which helps the group deliver better services as a broker. The articles are also educational, providing daily market recaps supported by fundamental and technical analysis. A series of 53 written articles structured progressively in six chapters help the traders experience best-in-class training. These articles cover 13 important lessons on forex trading, helping traders with basics and advanced aspects of the domains. However, the group has a scope of adding some more content on CFD education through these articles.
- Webinars: This service is developed and orchestrated by 49 professional webinar instructors. These sessions are conducted across 19 languages and scheduled repeatedly every week. The group takes extensive care of delivering webinars by adjusting to the time-zones and planning a detailed schedule to meet the organization and experience levels for subscribers and traders.
- Market Trading Signals: The group offers its insightful services by creating market intelligence data under the “Trade Ideas and Technical Summaries” section. Only live user accounts get access to the trading signals services. These signals are streamed live from Analyzzer and Autochartist tools. The broker also shares trading ideas offered by the Trading Central platform. Along with the MetaTrader signals, the group also enabled automated trade duplication by supporting a social trading duplication from related experts and trading advisors from Analyzzer.
- Tradepedia: This is a unique service the broker offers by sharing an in-house video course to provide high-end Forex and CFD trading education. The series of 39 videos covers seven chapters to help a beginner trader gain tricks of advanced practices. The course instructor runs a demonstration of using the group’s proprietary indicators, namely the Avramis River indicator, to interpret the outcomes of different market conditions.
This review gives the broker group a high score for offering such high-quality and diversified content on education and research. From those in-house videos to the trading signals, XM Group marks its niche against competitors such as FXCM and IG, among others.
Besides the services mentioned above, XM is best known for providing access to two trading platforms – MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. These platforms are the instruments that drive the success of live and demo accounts of the company. The group gives users complete access to the winning MetaTrader 4 & 5 platforms. These forex trading platforms have been instrumental in managing the multi-asset trading activities of XM clients for years. These platforms not only enable access to trading stock indices, stocks indices, and precious metals but also allow the on-the-go mobility of users with their mobile applications.
The following section offers a summarized review of the full MetaTrader suite (MT4 & MT5) to provide additional information. The broker group updates these platforms with the latest add-ons and establishes its exclusive community as the best MetaTrader broker. These platforms help XM Group tick all the boxes in offering the top-level technologies to its clients through the multiple proprietary indicators of the MetaTrader suite.
XM Platforms – MetaTrader 4 Overview
Being one of the world’s most popular and commonly-used trading platforms, MetaTrader 4 is designed to help new Forex traders with excellent broker estimations. More than 85% of brokers use the platform as an essential tool to understand and explore trade brokering activities. The layout of this trading platform is very intuitive. Features are easy to navigate, and several sections are unified under one dashboard. The upper left panel showcases the real-time market status and helps traders use the navigator window by viewing the market developments. The right panel displays a chart window where different types of charts reveal market statistics. Below that panel, a terminal window indicates the market positions, trading balances, latest news, and emails from the broker. Besides its web application, MetaTrader 4 is available for desktop and mobile operating systems of platforms, namely, Windows, iOS, and Android.
XM Platforms – MetaTrader 5 Overview
Next in the series is MetaTrader 5, the advanced multi-asset trading platform developed for institutions. Large trading companies use this multi-functional trading platform to run their stock and commodities trading. It is not as forex market-centric as MetaTrader 5; however, there are a few factors common between the two platforms. MetaTrader 5 is available on the web, desktop, and mobile app versions. It is easy to navigate and has all the features provided by MetaTrader 5. In addition to those, the trading platform has built-in trading robots and an open-source database of trade strategies.
The platform offers a virtual hosting and copies trading service, and runs its UI into 31 languages. MetaTrader 5 is suitable for advanced traders and day-time traders. It’s a smart interface, and a suite of advanced analytical tools makes it a sought-after platform for XM clients under all account types. It also allows 21 timeframes across eight different types of pending orders. It delivers a new breadth of asset classes and has an economic calendar that tracks main market developments. Between MT4 and MT5, this trading platform may be intimidating for beginners due to its complex programming and advanced tools.
XM Reviews – Pros and Cons
The XM review has further assessed XM based on its benefits and shortcomings. The pros and cons of using the broker’s trading account have been summarized below.
Pros | Cons |
The platform charges low fees for CFD trading and withdrawals. | The platform has a limited product portfolio for traders. |
Opening a new account is fast and very user-friendly. | It deals with trading CFDs and forex and does not accurately support cryptocurrency or other financial instruments. |
The platform offers multiple educational tools and hosts webinars regularly. | The forex fees are average and not necessarily affordable for all types of users. |
Users get access to a demo account with simulations of all features and no time limit. | There is no protection for investors onboarded as non-EU clients. |
The platform runs a full-service package on educational content for all users, beginners as well as experts. | The customer support is available only from Monday to Friday. |
It is best for forex trading and creates strong foundations for new users’ first steps into forex trading. | There is very little diversity between the account types for users, creating a degree of low personalization for traders. |
It offers relatively affordable access to expert analysis and advanced market tracking tools. | The Micro, Standard, and Zero trading accounts are more or less similar. |
It maintains robust customer service. | Currently, the platform does not allow users to deposit money via PayPal. |
Users from different regions get technical support with the platform’s multi-linguistic support. | Users from certain regions, particularly Canada and the United States, are restricted from using the platform due to regulatory non-compliance and regional licensing limitations. |
The XM.com review observes the plus points of the group have a higher weightage than their downsides.
XM Fees & Commission Structure
The fees and commission structure review of XM offer in-depth details on how users can make money from different account types. XM brokers have their payment and commissions process developed according to the conventional KYC regulations. For identification, the users have to produce a color copy of their official ID proof, either a valid passport or a valid driver’s license. In addition to this, the users must submit proof of their permanent address by providing a copy of the utility bills for the last three months.
- Deposit: When the registration of the new account is completed, every user is eligible to make money by adding a minimum deposit of $5 or more, depending on the account types. Micro and Standard accounts require a $5 deposit, while Zero user accounts are enabled on a minimum deposit of $100. These deposits serve as fees for the broker services and cannot be refunded. The group also allows users to add money using electronic payment gateways, credit cards, wire transfer services, and local bank transfer services. The XM fees can be deposited only as per the rates of the currencies supported by the platform. The broker can also allow users to automatically convert their regional currencies into the supported base currency for opening the account.
- Account Commissions: The group charges its commissions and fees based on the type of account. It also depends on the entity involved with the client’s account. The Micro and Standard accounts are commission-free but expensive while the Zero account is more competitive and charges commissions.
- Spreads & Commissions: The XM Zero account is commission-based, where the average spreads on the USD/EUR exchange stand at 0.1 pips. This makes the spread effective at 0.8 pips when the users include the $7 commission for every round-trip. The Standard and Micro accounts are commission-free, where the average spreads on the EUR/USD currency pairs ranges from 1.6 to 1.7 pips, becoming relatively less attractive for XM Group clients. Since XM practices a robust “no hidden fees” or “no extra commission” policies, these commissions guarantee all the fund transfers and same-day withdrawals and cover the fees involved.
- Leverage: Based on the instrument, the users get a leverage range from 2:1 to 30:1. This range stays flexible, and the group offers its users some opportunities for leverage risk management. The margin requirements for these leverages remain thoroughly constant for every week. The group does not widen the requirements at night or over the weekends. The leverage applies to the clients registered with an EU-regulated XM entity only.
- Shares trading: Brokers from XM Group provide a Shares trading facility to users. The client has to make a $10,000 deposit to invest directly in the non-CFD trade shares without any leverage. This Shares trading account is available at limited the entities of the group.
- Execution: XM Group is the sole proprietary dealer and the principal market-maker for the trades it brokers and executes. It executes the trades for up to $50 million worth of the base currency at a single time. It also permits such trades for 200 open positions simultaneously, which is quite reasonable compared to other forex broker groups in the market.
- Withdrawals: The XM broker processes the withdrawals within 24 hours of the request. There are no additional fees charged for withdrawing the money. Users can take the money or store it in the XM wallet or other eWallets. For the instant execution of withdrawals, users must not requote their withdrawals. In special cases, XM also offers commission and fee-free deposits and withdrawals.
Mobile Trading with XM
A quick review of the XM mobile apps uncovered why this broker service is much appreciated in the global trading community. XM Group allows its clients to run the MetaTrader platforms’ user versions on their smartphone and mobile devices, MT4 and MT5 mobile apps drive the mobile trading abilities of the users. The MetaTrader-only broker mobile apps are also available. All these applications are compatible with iOS and Android platforms. The MT4 and MT5 mobile apps also come in their standard native development package at the Google Play Store and Apple App Store, respectively. There is no proprietary mobile app for XM Group but is expected to reach the market in the coming years.
XM services are available on Android as well as iOS users. These apps can run on Apple iPhones, Apple iPads, and all Android-supported mobile devices. The apps are regularly updated and provide an authentic login process to protect account privacy. XM mobile trading also helps clients in monitoring their trades remotely. The web-based version of MetaTrader platforms is also functional on mobile web browser apps and supports one-click XM trading.
Is XM Safe for Trading?
Almost every review on XM Group labels the service with an average risk. The XM forex broker is not a high-risk service compared to several other peers. Out of 99, the overall trust score of XM is 84. While XM Group is not publicly-traded, it also does not operate as a bank or any financial organization. The XM Group, however, is authorized by multiple-tier regulators. It has two tier-1 regulatory authentications that label it with high trust. It also has one tier-2 and one tier-3 regulatory authentications for denoting average trust and low trust, respectively. The XM Group and the Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd. are safe under the ASIC and FCA regulators.
As noted in the initial sections of this review, the XM Group and the Trading Point of Financial Instruments Ltd. are primarily regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. The company – Trading Point of Financial Instruments Pty Ltd – has been safely operating since 2015, with no regulatory implications from the commissions. As a trusted broker, XM operates in countries namely, Australia, the United Kingdom, Thailand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, France, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and India, among others. The users must also note that XM is not safe for trading in the United States, Canada, Israel, Iraq, and Iran.
XM Review – Key Takeaways
Based on the above XM broker review, the financial service called XM Group has emerged to be quite a leader in its industry. Since 2009, the group has expanded its financial services across multiple domains and regions. The XM review finds that the group has evolved pragmatically over the years. It poses an average-risk to the trader with its two tier-1 jurisdiction authentications. It is an essentially safe broker for trading forex and CFDs.
The XM trading review also observed that XM Group runs exceptional customer support. The live chat service ensures that new traders evolve in their profession with optimum help. In addition to the live chat, the group gains its success in customer support by educating users with MetaTrader platforms. The client can deposit the required fees, access the complete MetaTrader suite offered by the broker, and use it as per their need.
The overall pricing at XM Group depends on the account type but is affordable. The broker turns out to be a low-cost solution compared to IG or CMC Markets. You can know more about the CMC market review from our post. Setting aside its drawbacks, the XM group of brokers will remain a strong choice for beginners and expert traders in the years to come.
While there are a few limitations to using XM’s financial services in certain regions or under some market restrictions, the broker does not miss making notable upgrades to its user experience. It offers tools with custom indicators to adapt to the needs of every trader. Among all the brokers, XM Group puts forth profound market research.
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