Stratton Markets Review

strattonmarkets.com briefly

Stratton Markets is a brand of F1Markets Ltd, which was founded in 2014 and is authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). In June 2020, the CySEC partially suspended the Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) license of F1Markets and several other forex brokerages that promoted their services in the UK. The license was suspended for a month because F1Markets Ltd (trading like Investous, Stratton Markets and Europrime) uses fake celebrity recommendations for its products on social media. One month later the suspension was withdrawn, and the company is again authorized by the CySEC. Customers can trade CFDs on currency pairs, indices, commodities, shares and cryptocurrencies via the world’s most popular trading terminal – MetaTrader 4 (MT4). In addition, a company’s own terminal is also available. The minimum initial deposit is EUR250.

Regulation

One of the most important things to check when choosing a brokerage company for online trading is its regulation. This website www.strattonmarkets.com/eu is operated by F1Markets Limited, a Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF), authorized and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) under license number 267/15. The company complies with EU and local regulations such as the European Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II). F1Markets Limited offers services within the European Economic Area excluding Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Account Types

There are five types of live accounts you can open with Stratton Markets. However, according to the data on the website, they offer similar features, and the small differences are the minimum volume per trade and access to some VIP webinars and VIP room podcasts.

The accounts have the following names: Basic, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. The company makes no mention of the initial deposit requirements on each account. Instead, the FAQ section states that the minimum deposit is EUR250. The spread of the instruments is also not mentioned, so before you open an account with this broker, you need to clarify the terms.

What Type of Broker the Company is?

The Order Execution Policy document shows that the company does not execute client orders in CFDs as a principal to principal against the client and the company is not the execution venue for the execution of the client orders. The company arranges the execution of client orders with the execution venue. The Execution Venues section states: The company does not execute client orders in financial instruments on an own account basis as principal to principal against the client. F1Markets uses third party financial institutions as execution venues. This means that F1Markets uses the Straight Through Processing (STP) model to execute customer orders, hedging all risk with its liquidity providers. Therefore, there is no conflict of interest, and the company earns money only from the spread and commissions.

The same file warns about the occurrence of slippage. This is the situation when at the time that an order is presented for execution, the specific price shown on the client’s terminal may not be available and the order will be executed close to or a number of pips away from the requested price. Slippage may appear in all types of accounts the company offers. All types of orders (including stop loss orders) are subject to slippage and the company claims it is a normal phenomenon during the period of low liquidity or high volatility. The orders will be filled at the next available market price. This also means that stop loss orders are not guaranteed.

The Client Agreement file confirms that the company guarantees on a non discretionary basis “Negative Balance Protection” for the client. This means that the company ensures that losses/costs of the client will never exceed the total balance held in the client’s trading account.

Fees

In addition to usual fees there also is an inactivity fee. If there are no transactions (deposits, withdrawals, or trading activity) on a client’s account for a period of at least two (2) months or more, the company reserves the right to charge a monthly inactivity fee. The monthly inactivity fee increases as the total period of inactivity increases. It starts at EUR80 in the third month and reaches EUR200 after the sixth month.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Customers can use several deposit methods such as wire transfer, credit/debit cards, and alternative payment methods such as Neteller and Skrill. The minimum first deposit is USD250. The maximum daily deposit by credit card is EUR10,000 and the maximum monthly deposit is limited to EUR40,000.

Withdrawals must be made by the same payment method with which the customer’s trading account is credited. For example, if the customer uses Skrill for a deposit, the withdrawal will only be made to his Skrill account. Bank transfers, once processed by the company, take 3-5 days to be credited to the customer’s account. However, it may take up to 10 business days for the customer’s debit/credit card to be refunded.

Minimum withdrawal amounts depend on the method. Through wire transfer the minimum amount is EUR100. Through credit or debit cards the minimum withdrawal is EUR10. Through e-wallets there is no minimum withdrawal amount and traders can withdraw up to EUR750 of profits. There are withdrawal fees as a percentage of the withdrawal amount.

Trading Platforms

Customers can trade through one of the most universal trading terminals in the world – MetaTrader 4 (MT4). The interface is customizable and user friendly. There are 30 built-in technical indicators and more than 30 graphical objects for technical analysis. Charts are interactive and have 9 time periods. The platform is ready for automated trading mode using available and custom expert advisors (EAs).

The company offers its own trading platform entitled StrattonTrader. It is web based and can be launched in any major browser. It is also available as a mobile application for iOS and Android devices.

Assets

Stratton Markets offers near 300 instruments for online trading.

Forex – Nearly 50 popular major, minor, and exotic currency pairs can be traded. The typical spread for the EUR/USD pair is 1 pip.

Indices – Clients can trade 19 of the major and minor indices globally, such as DAX, NASDAQ100, IBEX35, CAC40 etc. The average value of the spread for the DAX index is about 3 points and for the DJIA index it is 4 points.

Commodities – 23 of the most traded commodities are available such as Oil and Copper, as well as agricultural and grain products. The average spread for the Gold is USD0.50 and for the Crude Oil it is USD0.05.

Shares – You can trade over 200 various shares from all popular markets globally. The average spread for the Apple share is USD0.55 and for the Amazon share it is USD22.

Cryptocurrencies – 42 cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum etc. are available as CFDs for online trading. They are listed against USD, EUR, and GBP.

Summary

Stratton Markets is a brand of F1Markets Ltd, which has a CySEC regulation. It allows the company to provide financial services across European Union. It uses the STP model for client orders, transmitting each of them to its liquidity providers for execution. The company provides a wide range of trading instruments via the most popular trading terminal MT4 and its own web-based platform. There are 5 different types of accounts but differences amid them are not clear. The minimum withdrawal amount is EUR10 (by card) and EUR100 (by bank transfer) and there is a commission as a percentage of the withdrawal amount. The minimum initial deposit is USD250.