Australian Forex Brokers

What Forex Trading Platforms Does Pepperstone Offer?

Pepperstone offers Australians the choice of the two most popular fx trading platforms globally.

1) MetaTrader

The MT4 forex trading platform is the most popular worldwide due to its ease of use, charting and the ability to execute trades easily. Pepperstone also announced in 2018 the release of MT5, both of which offer:

• Navigator & Market Watch Windows with 85 indicators
• Unlimited chart configurations and analysis tools
• The ability for automated trading (Expert Advisors)

2) cTrader

Primarily used by expert Australian forex traders, this fx trading platform is commonly used by day-traders. Expert strategies that utilise automation are executed for financial services with other features:

• Detachable next-generation charting with level II pricing
• Fast execution entry speeds to make quick trades online
• Automated options through the cTrader dedicated platform

The forex platform comparison table below shows the functionality of these two platforms.

Platform Enhancements Made By Pepperstone

What makes Pepperstone exceed other Australian forex brokers is their smart trader tools. This is available to all traders who choose MetaTrader 4 as their forex trading platform and have a deposit of at least AUD 500.

The 10 smart trading applications shown below give Pepperstone MT4 trader the edge, helping trade smarter with detailed insights into currency and CFD markets. These tools assist forex trading with expert trade execution and management, advanced alarms, decision assistance as well as broadcast features providing market information to traders. These tools are designed for both those new to trading and the most experienced traders.

The ‘top 10’ Pepperstone smart trading tools designed for currency trading are:

1. MT4 Alarm Manager
   This feature helps set up notification and alerts of events that may impact currency markets. This tool can be automated to send alerts via SMS or e-mail.
2. MT4 Connect
   Get quick access to RSS news feeds, trading guides and an economic calendar through this centralised portal. The portal also allows trades to get access and fund their account.
3. MT4 Correlation Trader
   This tool shows the correlation of an asset vs other markets to provide insight into exposure to the market. This helps determine the position of open trades based on the correlation of those trades.
4. MT4 Market Manager
   This compact tool helps traders get access to features without opening the MT4 program. This includes account information, the ability to make orders and advanced monitoring tools.
5. MT4 Excel Real-Time Data (RTD)
   RTD is an excel tool that allows spreadsheets to be generated and analysed through a connection to MT4. Both price and account data can be accessed and VBA programming can build financial models.
6. MT4 Trade Terminal
   Position analysis combined with fast trade execution combined with advanced stop-loss orders are features of this all-in-one application. This allows fast advanced trading for that on-the-go.
7. MT4 Sentiment Trading
   This tool allows individual markets to be read through their sentiment rating. Historical sentiment features can also be viewed against market prices to further understand markets.
8. MT4 Session Map
   This tool allows traders to view market sessions in real-time to see what markets are open when overlap occurs and events/news related to those markets. This can help identify peak liquidity in markets.
9. MT4 Stealth Orders
   Using this trading feature, pending order trades can be hidden from the market. This means that rather than make a standard limit or stop order, only once the price is reached the trade is executed.
10. MT4 Trade Simulator
    Get Profit and Loss results combined with analysis of forex trading strategies. A trader can simulate how this trade would have performed based on historical market data and can be manual or automated trades.

Demo Accounts

Both MetaTrader 4 and cTrader offer a Demo account through Pepperstone. This is a free demo account loaded with $50,000 of virtual funds to practise forex trading. This demo account can be transitioned to a live account at any time.

Overall, Pepperstone Offers The Best Forex Trading Platform Features

The combination of offering the two most popular forex trading platforms combined with the enhanced functionality of “smart trading tools” led to Pepperstone winning the category.

Pepperstone’s Execution Speeds

Pepperstone achieves up to 10x latency reduction and 12x improvements in Australia execution speeds when trading forex and CFD online due to:

1) Optic Fibre From Sydney To Wall Street

One of the key issues for Australian traders is the distance between the country and the trading hubs either in New York or London. Slow internet connections between continents mean that latency can be experienced when fx trading leading to ‘slippage’ which is the difference between the order made and the actual order received.

Pepperstone has overcome this issue by adopting infrastructure that offers a direct fibre optic cable from their Sydney data-centre to New York.

This has minimised the latency for Australian forex traders which is why advanced traders who make split-second decisions choose their ECN platform. This makes the platform perfect for traders that adopt both technical and fundamental analysis.

2) Edge Technology Including The Leading Servers

Optic fibre isn’t enough to ensure the fastest trades for an Australian forex trader as the server it connects to is just as important. To maximise server speeds Pepperstone partnered with Equinix which not only has one of the world’s best high-performance data-centre but is also less than 18 kilometres from Wall Street.

Edge technology also has created new tools for existing platforms such as MetaTrader such as ‘one-click-trading’ which ensures that as soon as a trade is made it goes straight to the market with no dealer or other external interference which may delay the trade.

Using MT4 or cTrader with the fastest infrastructure available for either platform and features to speed up trades led them to receive the maximum execution speed score of the forex brokers

Pepperstone’s ECN Spreads And Fees

Pepperstone’s popularity is not solely due to their technology but their ECN currency trading environment. This is matched by IC Markets which also offer RAW ECN spread across their currency trading environments. The results are razor trading account spreads are one of the lowest.

It should be noted there are two accounts. The standard account has a larger spread determined by the forex broker and the market and is normally selected by beginner forex traders. The Razor is a market maker account with market-level spreads and a flat commission of $3.50. This Pepperstone review focused on this Razor ECN forex broker account.

Razor Is A Market Maker Account With No Dealer Intervention

It’s important to understand that Razor is a true ECN forex trading account. This is because Pepperstone allows traders to directly trade with liquidity pools making it a market maker with prices set by the market. The deep liquidity pools the account has access to are in New York for MetaTrader or London for cTrader. Overall, quotes come from up to 22 major banks and ECNs which allow during liquid periods spreads to be as low as 0.1 pips for AUD USD.

2) Their Price Improvement Technology (PPI)

PPI technology intelligently routes currency trading orders to detect liquidity hot-spots to ensure optimal pricing for Australian traders. In simple terms, when you place a trade and the market moves in your favour (between placing the trade and it’s execution) the PPI technology detects the movement and when possible, fills the order at the improved level. This does not involve re-quoting but rather the traders just receives the improved price.

You can learn more about these accounts on the Pepperstone fx broker account type page. There is also the option for CFD trading across 13 stock indices. There are no commissions on CFD trading and no dealing desk.

The Razor market maker account (ECN forex broker account) is recommended due market-based spreads and low commissions leading to lower brokerage costs. This account also provides the fastest execution speeds offered by the FX broker

Pepperstone Offers The Highest Forex Broker Leverage

Pepperstone offers the maximum Australian forex broker leverage of 500:1.

What Does Leverage Mean When It Comes To Forex Brokers?

Leverage is similar to borrowing where you can ‘borrow’ a multiple from a forex broker to maximise their exposure to the market. For example, Pepperstone’s leverage of 500:1 means you can borrow 500 times the deposit. So for example, a $300 deposit can lead to $150,000 been traded on currency markets.

Understand Your Risk Appetite When Choosing Forex Brokers

Leverage amplifies movements on currency markets which are traditionally modest. For example, leverage of 100:1 will mean a movement in a currency pairing such as AUD USD of just 0.1% will lead to a 100% profit or complete loss of funds. It’s critical to understand your risk appetite when determining leverage levels. It should be noted that most brokers like Pepperstone will allow you to select a lower leverage level. Make sure also ASIC regulated the broker chosen.

If you feel forex trading still exceeds your risk appetite you should consider additional features such as:

• Guaranteed Stop Loss Orders
• DealCancellation
• Negative Balance Protection

Pepperstone doesn’t offer guaranteed negative protection but it’s sophisticated ‘margin stop out’ works to exit a forex trader before they exceed their balance. For MetaTrader, this is triggered when the margin falls below 90%. cTrader has a ‘stop-out’ system that is activated at a 50% percentage (or below). This helps those with a lower risk appetite when it comes to losing more than their deposit.

Pepperstone also doesn’t offer guaranteed stop-loss orders but does offer standard orders. This means that a trader can pre-set the price (and/or amount) they are willing to lose on a trade and want to exit the market at. In the majority of occasions, the forex trading platform will exist the trader close to this level but it’s not guaranteed. Extreme events such as rate decisions when extreme movements may occur can lead losses to exceed the stop loss amount. Only a guaranteed stop-loss that has a premium cost attached to it can ensure this is the case.

Pepperstone’s Aubiz.net Australian company search details show the Australian public company has an ABN 12147055703. The site also states that they have an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) 389931.

Those who require high leverage would be satisfied with the 500:1 offered by Pepperstone. Pepperstone also offers lower leverage when setting up an account for those with a lower risk appetite.

Cryptocurrency Trading With Pepperstone

Pepperstone’s MetaTrader 4 forex trading platform also allows cryptocurrency trading with:

1. No commissions
2. Low spreads at institutional grades
3. Fast execution speeds
4. Leverage of up to 5:1

Bitcoin

The most popular cryptocurrency in 2019, this blockchain technology allows diversification from traditional financial markets. The market capitalisation in 2019 is over $65 billion USD and has become one of the most traded elements on the markets.

Learn more on this Bitcoin website.

Ethereum

Now the third most valuable cryptocurrency (Ripple is 2nd at the start of 2019), this serves more industries and purposes giving it a competitive edge. Key uses of Ethereum include blockchain application platforms through to smart contracts.

Learn more on this Ethereum Project website.

Dash

“Digital Cash” (shortened to Dash) focuses on enhancing anonymity and processing speeds of cryptocurrency. Dash is used worldwide as an efficient payment system. This popular use has led to increased liquidity and volatility within the asset class.

Discover more on the official Dash website.

Litecoin

This was launched after Bitcoin in 2011. The aim was to speed up transactions with the use of a simpler algorithm. The result has led to its increase in popularity and market capitalisation. This has made it a great alternative to Bitcoin to trade. More can be found on their P2P site.

By offering 5:1 leverage on mainstream cryptocurrencies, Pepperstone enhances the potential profits or losses of this volatile sector.

Customer Service & Client Satisfaction Of Pepperstone

Pepperstone is a relatively new Australian forex broker compared to some global players but in Australia has quickly gained a dominant market share. They have a strong customer service team in Australia of individuals who actually trade themselves making them an excellent choice of intermediate to expert traders.

This was acknowledged in when Investment trends survey of 15,000 Australian forex traders ranked Pepperstone number 1 in:

• Overall Client Satisfaction
• Customer Service
• Spreads
• Execution Speeds

Pepperstone’s Australia customer support team is based out of Melbourne.  There can be the possibility of talking to an overseas customer support team during off-peak periods such as Friday night.

The main forms of customer support including:

1) Live Chat

Pepperstone uses the Zendesk live chat interface to communicate with customers. This is available during the same hours as the call centre team. Our team used Pepperstone’s live chat several times and found that we could engage with an agent within 5 minutes and the operator was helpful with in-depth knowledge. Overall, live chat was the fastest was to get the answer and assistance we needed when making this forex broker review.

2) Telephone

There is 24-hour support via a 1300 number (or an international number for traders outside of Australia). This is available from Monday through to Friday. There is also a telephone number for their Shanghai and Dallas office.

3) E-mail

Each Pepperstone call-centre location also has an e-mail contact. This is the slowest way to send enquiries and get a response but it’s useful for long enquiries that require attachments.

The award-winning customer service offered by Pepperstone is ideally suited for intermediate or advanced Australian forex traders. Those new to forex on the other hand may want to consider EasyMarkets (formally EasyForex).

Learning With Pepperstone

Pepperstone has a dedicated section for those looking to learn how to play forex. There are 30 free webinars and 50 trading guides for those who favour self-learning. The webinars focus on trading strategies while the trading guides target those learning how to trade a range of markets. Learning doesn’t stop with the online webinars as the phone and online support are there to help those learning Pepperstone or forex for the first time.

Traders can also learn about market events through the news that is sent via e-mail daily. News through routers is also integrated through Pepperstone forex trading platforms through their advanced trader tools. There is also a market review section within the website which is updated several times a day with the latest news that impacts currency markets.