AvaFX is based in Dublin, Ireland. They do not seem to have a U.S. presence, so they do not comply with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the National Futures Association (NFA) regulations that went into effect October 18, 2010. The do not limit leverage to 50:1 on major currency pairs and 20:1 on exotic pairs like U.S. Based brokerages are compelled to do. Remember that high leverage can work against you as well as for you.
They are regulated European Union directives including Market In Financial Instruments (MiFiD) established in 2007.
The FAQ section of the AvaFX website is the source for the fact that they consider themselves a market maker, or dealer broker, as opposed to an Electronic Communication Network (ECN) broker. Someone new to trading foreign currency would be diligent to understand the distinction. Anyone familiar with some of the tactics some market makers sometimes engage in should investigate thoroughly to make an objective determination whether or not AvaFX falls into this category. The Market Maker or ECN decision offers pros and cons for each choice, and these need to be completely understood, as broker type is one of the foremost and critical decisions to be made by anyone trading forex.
There are four different types of accounts offered by AvaFx: Silver, which can be opened for $100, Gold, requiring a minimum of $1000, Platinum at $10,000, and Ava Premium for a $50,000 deposit.
They offer a new account bonus of $75 for the Silver account, $150-$1000 depending on the initial deposit for the Gold account, $1200 for the Platinum account, and an undisclosed amount for the Premium account. The web site does not specify a bonus range on the platinum account, and all the bonuses have trading volume requirements.
The web site’s home page proclaims fixed spreads, but one short conversation with a customer service representative was all it took to discover that all spreads are not fixed. A fairly thorough search of their web site did not uncover a chart listing typical spreads, and the same customer service representative told me how to locate this page, but I think that navigating to this page would necessitate either a demo or a live account.
AvaFX has Ava Auto Trader, and Zulutrade for automated trading, as well as Application Program Interface (API) platforms for trading system development.
They also offer MetaTrader 4 and AvaTrader for monitored trading.
Accounts can be funded via wire transfer, credit card, PayPal, paper check, Net Teller, Web Money, and ACH transfer.
http://www.avafx.com/
