Is ckmarkets.com scam or good forex broker?

CK Markets is a forex and CFD broker offering over 60 currency pairs and a good choice of CFDs on spot metals, energy commodities and indices, on the MetaTrader4 platform. If you are considering opening an account with them be sure to read this review first.

CK Markets Advantages:

Lots of exotic currency pairs

CK Markets offers over 60 forex pairs, some with exotic currencies like South African Rand, Russian Rubble, Israeli Shekel, Honk Kong Dollar, Swedish Krona, Chinese Yuan, Norwegian Krone, Danish Krone, Hungarian Forint, Czech Krona, Mexican Peso, Turkish Lira, Singapore Dollar, Polish Zloty and Thai Baht.

Testing a demo account we also found a choice of CFDs on various assets, including 11 indices, spot metals like silver, gold, platinum, palladium and copper and energy commodities like natural gas and oil. Still, as all crypto assets are getting more and more popular in the past months, here you may want to check our list of brokers, offering Bitcoin CFDs.

Leverage up to 1:500

Leverage of up to 1:500 as offered by CK Markets is basically as good as it can get. It can surely fit any trading style and can be quite useful, if you have a clear strategy to score some reasonable profit with relatively low deposit. Still, keep in mind that higher leverage is associated with higher risk of depleting your funds with the slightest market fluctuation.

It is not a surprise, that in the beginning of August the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) caped the maximum leverage allowed with forex trade in the European Union at 1:30.

We should note that similar restrictions are already in place in USA and Japan, where the maximum leverage is caped respectively at 1:50 and 1:25.

Skrill and Neteller accepted as payment methods

CK Markets accepts payments with Neteller and Skrill – probably the most popular e-wallets on the market. Other payment methods include major credit or debit cards like VISA and MasterCard and bank wire transfer. Besides, here you may check our list of brokers, accepting payments with Bitcoins

You can open a trading account with 100 USD

This is another positive aspect about CK Markets – you can start trading with just 100 USD. Yet, have in mind that with some big, well established names like FBS and IG you can open a trading account with as little as 5 USD.

Reasonable spreads

As tested with a demo account the benchmark EURUSD spread fluctuated between 1,5 pips and 1,7 pips, which is generally in line with what may pass for acceptable.

Besides, the conditions advertise by the broker are better. CK Markets promises spreads starting from 1 pip with its Standard Account and form 0,2 pips with its ECN Account. With the latter, however, there is a trade commission in the amount of 5 USD per traded lot, which basically adds another 0,5 pips to the spread, when the second currency of the pair is USD. Here you may check our list of brokers, offering tighter spreads

MetaTrader4 supported

The presence of the platform has always been a good news. It is well known to most traders and features a variety of useful tools, including over 50 in-build market indicators, charting instruments and the option to run automated trading sessions with the help of specially designed, customizable trading bots or Expert Advisors. Here you may also want to check our list of brokers, offering MetaTrader4

CK Markets Disadvantages:

Lack of regulation

Unfortunately it turned out CK Markets dos not have a license to provide financial services and that is a major drawback.

CK Markets is owned and operated by CK Markets Ltd – a company based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which claims to be registered by the local Financial Services Authority (FSA). The problem here is that FSA of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines simply does not provide regulation for forex and CFD brokers.

That means the safety of your investment with CK Markets will depend solely on the integrity of the broker, because CK Markets is not bound by any fiscal and ethical rules, as is the practice with all properly regulated brokers.

That is the reason we strongly advise traders to deal only with brokers, licensed by one of the respected financial watchdogs, such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) or the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

Besides, traders with all FCA regulated brokers are end to a compensation of up to 50 000 GBP in case something with their broker goes wrong. A similar compensation scheme with all CySEC brokers guarantees traders up to 20 000 EUR of their trading capital. Here you may check our list of FCA regulated brokers

Conclusion:

The lack of proper license makes CK Markets one of the many unreliable, offshore brokers, which unfortunately too often turn out to be run by scammers. As we have already discussed, our advise is to invest only with brokers, holding a reliable license.