City Index Review
Whether one has recently stepped into the world of forex trading or even if they’re a highly experienced and professional trader, traders require the services of an able and efficient forex broker in order to trade profitably. A reputed and established forex broker not only provides traders with appropriate forex quotes but also executes all the buying and selling orders on their behalf, allowing them to focus more on placing profitable trades on a consistent basis.
Thus, your forex broker should be capable of providing you with exceptional trading options, platform and customer support services. However, before opening an account with their desired broker, traders must assess their service quality, overall efficiency, performance as well as credibility in the market. While, traders can conduct a reference or background check on their own, they must consult someone who has adequate knowledge around trading and can further provide them with in-depth information about the broker. This is exactly where traders need the professional advice and guidance of an expert forex trader. An experienced forex trader can analyze a broker’s performance from different angles and further determine their pros and cons to provide traders with an accurate and transparent picture about the broker. This also allows traders in determining whether the broker is reliable and worth their time and money or not.
Here, we have reviewed the performance of the United Kingdom based forex broker City Index. As one of the leading online trading services providers, City Index allows traders to trade forex and CFDs through its highly intuitive and easy to use portal.
The broker came into existence in 1983 and since then has been catering to the trading requirements of hundreds and thousands of individuals, around the globe. City Index is also renowned for offering spread betting services. With more than thirty three years of trading experience and knowledge behind them, the broker is well aware of the trader needs and challenges, which is precisely why they offer best in class trading services and support to its clients.
While, reviewing the broker’s performance in six different categories, we also discovered that City Index has expanded its operation in various other cities including Dubai, London, Sydney, Shanghai, New Jersey, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong and has more than eight hundred employees on board. The broker is also regulated and monitored by the United Kingdom’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority). We also learnt that the broker offers tight yet competitive spreads and has won several awards and recognitions for their CFD, forex and spread betting services.
Our team of professional traders also created a demo account with City Index to analyze how their platform works and whether they were capable of offering appropriate trading services and solutions or not. During our review process, we discovered a lot about the broker in terms of their customer services, products, trading features and more. Here, learn more about the broker and also find out how they’ve faired in our review.
Trading Platforms
When it comes to choosing the right broker, traders must first determine whether they have an efficient and easy to comprehend trading platform or not. Remember, trading through a quick, easy to use and feature rich platform would only help you in placing your transactions carefully and efficiently. It is also impertinent for online traders to choose a platform that is stable and offers a range of fundamental and technical analysis features and tools. This not only enables them in entering and exiting trades easily but also helps them in placing successful trades on a regular basis.
Apart from this, the broker should also provide its traders with demo account opening facility. Demo accounts allow traders to test the broker’s services and offerings beforehand, which further helps them in determining whether it’s safe to open a trading account with the broker or not. With City Index, you’ll never have to worry around trading forex, commodities, indices and CFDs. The broker basically offers the extremely popular Meta Trader 4 platform as well as two other proprietary platforms including Advantage Web and At Pro. Apart from this, City Index also has an extremely handy and user-friendly mobile trading platform for its traders spread across fifty different countries. Below, learn more about the broker’s trading platforms and their unique features.
AT Pro is yet another innovative platform from City Index that is packed with some of the most exciting and handy features. However, this platform is ideal for the professional or highly experienced trader. With AT Pro, traders can easily customize their platform and create their very own and unique templates using Visual Basic, .NET and C#. This platform also offers trading charts with over hundred unique technical indicators, which makes trading simple and hassle-free. AT Pro also offers a back testing tool, which enables traders in comparing and analyzing trading signals with historical data. Professional traders can easily use the platform for implementing their trading plans and using a wide range of strategies such as signal line cross system, MACD fast line system and moving average cross system as well as the Heikin-Ashi candlestick system.
Our forex experts found AT Pro to be a highly intuitive and easy to operate trading platform. They also felt that the platform was ideal for experienced traders, as it allows them to design and implement their own trading strategies with ease and perfection.
Apart from the above two platforms, City Index also offers the extremely popular MT4 trading platform to its clients. The broker has combined its unique trading features and tools with the platform, which further enables traders to transact profitably. With MT4 trading platform, traders also have the option of customizing their technical indicators and use the extremely popular EA (Expert Advisor) feature, which further enables them in automating their strategies. City Index also processes orders on behalf of their traders as and when the price movements are in their favor, allowing them to earn profits easily.
Brokers today are realizing that they must offer mobile trading apps and platform to their clients as it further allows them to transact through their smartphone, tablets and other mobile communication devices as per their convenience. This is one of the primary reasons why City Index too provides its traders with innovative and easy to use mobile trading apps. The broker has designed mobile trading apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, tablet and Blackberry users.
Their mobile trading app offers secure and fast trading services in addition to spread betting, forex and CFD trading options. As a result, traders can place their trades anytime, anywhere. City Index’s Windows mobile trading app allows traders to keep a track of the latest market moves, prices and further transact or place trades, from the comfort of their homes or anywhere else. Traders can also use the app to access live streaming charts and keep an eye on the watch lists. They can also keep a track of their trading activities on a daily basis.
The broker has also gone a step ahead to offer their highly innovative spread betting app, known as the City Trader to iPhone users. This unique app enables traders to check the market pricing, close and open orders, set stop losses and edit their trading/signal charts using their iPhones anytime, anywhere.
Trading Conditions
Traders must never ignore trading conditions when it comes to opening an account with any broker. Trading conditions are typically assessed through the spreads, leverage and speed of execution provided by a broker. As the pioneer of CFD trading and spread betting, City Index offers tight spreads to its traders. Also, they’re quite adept at executing orders and thus traders enjoy hassle-free, smooth and quick executions.
The broker offers tight and competitive spreads to its traders. In fact, they provide both variable and fixed spreads, based on the market that the trader wishes to trade. While, fixed spreads do not change in accordance with the conditions of the market (i.e. liquidity or volatility), the variable spreads can fluctuate anytime during the day. For instance, the UK 100 spread is fixed at 1 point from 8 to 4.30 p.m.
The broker allows traders to trade and speculate on as many as 12000 trading markets including commodities, shares, options, rolling dailies, currencies, binaries and the leading indices such as S&P 500, FTSE 100 and DAX among others. As far as spreads are concerned, traders get around 0.3-0.4% on UK FTSE 350 whereas spreads for FTSE 100 and Wall Street is 1 point.
Deposits and Withdrawals
When you select a broker, make sure that they offer adequate deposit and withdrawal services. Remember, as a trader you don’t want any hassles in terms of depositing and withdrawal of funds. However, while brokers accept money readily, they create a lot of problems when it comes to releasing funds. In fact, most of the brokers have a tedious and lengthy withdrawal process in place, which only causes a lot of delay and disappointment for the traders. In City Index’s case, you won’t face any issues at all. Below, find out what our experts have to say about the broker’s deposit and withdrawal procedures.
Traders who’re looking to open their trading accounts with City Index can do it conveniently in just a couple of steps. The broker offers clear and accurate instructions through its website, which further allows traders to complete and fill in their application forms and create an account with ease. In fact, to simplify things for their new clients/traders, the broker provides them with numerous trading options, which only helps them in creating their accounts quickly and effortlessly. Additionally, traders can easily deposit funds into their newly created accounts via their debit or credit cards. City Index requires its traders to deposit a minimum deposit amount of £100, which easily covers their margin requirements. Apart from this, traders can also use Visa, Maestro or Electron, Visa for depositing money into their accounts.
As far as withdrawals are concerned, traders are allowed to withdraw a minimum of $50 or the balance amount that is remaining in their accounts, whichever is less. Also, the maximum one time withdrawal limits is $20,000.
Financial Regulation
It is always beneficial for traders to trade through a regulated broker. This not only ensures the safety of their funds but also allows them to trade with complete peace of mind. While, most of the brokers today are regulated and monitored by their country’s respective regulatory bodies, there are some who’re still not regulated and thus it is always advisable that you first check whether your broker is duly regulated or not. With City Index, however, you’ll enjoy safe and secure trading, as the trader is regulated by nine different regulatory authorities including NFA and CFTC of United States, FSA of Japan, IIRO of Canada, FCA of the United Kingdom, SFC from Hong Kong, MAS from Singapore, CIMA from Cayman Islands and ASIC from Australia.
Customer Support
The customer support team of any broker should be capable of offering quick and hassle-free assistance. As a trader, you’re always having questions and concerns around trading, placing of orders, margin requirements, deposit and withdrawals of funds and similar other queries. Hence, you must always opt for a broker that can provide you with instant answers and support. When our team of professional traders approached City Index’s customer support team, we found that they had adequate answers to all our technical as well as account opening related queries.
In fact, contacting the broker’s customer support team was simple and convenient. Remember, brokers usually create no issues when it comes to opening an account with them. However, they are not as efficient or agile when it comes to answering or resolving customer queries and problems. City Index, however, does an excellent job here. The broker is easily approachable through phone, fax and email, which only allows traders to trade peacefully. Additionally, their customer support team offers assistance in multiple languages including English, German, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Polish.
When we tried contacting City Index’s customer support team through live chat, we found that the process was both quick and simple. Their customer support team provided answers to all our queries instantly. In fact, our experts had no issues in contacting their customer support members who further provided us with adequate answers to our technical and account opening related queries.
What’s even more fascinating about City Index is that their customer support facility is available 24 hours and 5 days in a week and their chat support feature can be accessed through all the pages on their website. Additionally, traders can chat in different languages, depending upon their convenience, which makes trading convenient and hassle-free.
Trading Education
Although not that crucial but trading education does play a vital role in the selection of a broker. Traders, especially the ones who’re new to the world of online trading are always having certain questions around trading. As a result, they need someone to provide them with adequate answers to all their queries and concerns. In fact, novice traders must first acquire adequate knowledge and information around the basics of trading, as it enables them in treading cautiously and entering and exiting trades in accordance with the market conditions. When we reviewed City Index’s performance with regard to trading education, we discovered that the broker does an excellent job of keeping their traders informed and updated around trading strategies, methods, terminologies and updates.
The broker offers a host of educational information and materials around trading, thereby providing both professional and new traders with adequate trading knowledge, data and information. Through the City Index Trading Academy, traders can access a number of online videos that further offers ample information around trading technicalities and market developments.
Traders can also access City Index’s files and a video library and expand their knowledge around forex, CFD, indices and commodities trading. The City Index academy also organizes free of cost seminars, which provide traders with a great deal of information around trading strategies and techniques. These seminars are conducted by trading experts and are held at City Index’s main office situated in London.
City Index offers offers news, updates and market analysis around different markets and assets including forex, indices, shares and commodities.Traders can also access the broker’s webinars that are recorded every alternate week and focuses on both trading education and market analysis.
To conclude, City Index is one of the most reliable and efficient brokers in the market today. With more than thirty three years in the field of CFD, forex, commodities and indices trading, the broker understands trader demands and challenges quite well. In fact, City Index is also renowned for offering prompt customer support, wide range of trading assets and markets as well as tight spreads.
The broker offers outstanding educational information and materials to both experienced and new traders, allowing them to trade and learn at their own pace. City Index’s trading platform can be easily customized and is very easy to access and operate. However, our experts felt that the search functionality on the broker’s trading platform could be improved to allow traders to search for companies quickly and conveniently. In a nutshell, if you’re looking to trade forex and CFDs, then you wouldn’t find a better option than City Index.