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Investous is a relatively new forex and CFD broker that is regulated and licensed by the International Financial Services Commission of Belize. It has been operating out of Cyprus and is regulated in Europe via the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). Investous is owned and operated by IOS Investments Limited, which is located at 5 Cork street, Belize City, Belize. It offers a competitive access to markets, allowing the user to invest in over 270 tradeable assets. In addition, Investous has CFD trading options across an array of different assets and classes, including forex, indices, stocks and commodities. Investous gives users access to two trading platforms, one being the well-known MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform, which allows for seamless mobile trading via iOS, Android or Windows, and the other the familiar WebTrader platform, which is downloaded and incorporated into its portal. It offers four different account levels depending on the amount that the trader wishes to deposit each month. There is also a Professional account, which may appeal to very experienced traders who wish to take advantage of a significant leverage option.
Features
It is important to get an understanding of where Investous enables a trader to invest. Investous offers 46 forex pairs with a good selection of exotic currencies, including the Indian rupee, South African rand, Singapore dollar, Turkish lira, Swedish krona, Russian ruble, Polish zloty, Norwegian krone, Mexican peso, Hungarian forint, Hong Kong dollar and Danish krone.
Within equities, stocks on American, European and Asian exchanges are available to trade. Stock indices also feature with a global offering. With commodities, Investous has a strong suite of coverage, including gold, silver and copper as well as soft commodities such as oranges, coffee and soybeans. Lastly, for cryptocurrency traders, the major names are, as you would expect, on the portal – these include bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, DSH and Ripple among others. All of these coins can be crossed with the three major currencies – euro, United States dollar and British pound.
Spreads and leverage
There are different spreads depending on the account that the end user has set up. The best rates are with a VIP account, which offers floating spreads as low as 0.9 pips for EUR/USD, 1.1 pips for GBP/USD, 5 dollar cents for crude oil and just 22 dollar cents for gold. For Platinum accounts, the spreads can be as low as 1.4 pips, 1.6 pips, 6 cents and 39 cents respectively. Gold accounts enjoy spreads of 1.8 pips, 2.2 pips, 6 cents and 49 cents, respectively. Finally, it is worth noting that Basic accounts will still get competitive market levels with floating spreads as low as 2.3 pips for EUR/USD, 2.5 pips for EUR/USD, 8 cents for crude oil and 59 cents for gold. In other asset classes, Investous applies some of the smallest spreads available in the market on crypto trading. These spread rates will differ depending on which account the client has set up.
The maximum leverage permitted on forex transactions with Investous is 1:30. This applies across all the account levels highlighted above and is in line with the latest European Securities & Markets Authority (ESNA) regulations. For very experienced clients, it may be interesting to note that Investous offers a Professional account. These accounts remove the ESMA restrictions so that users can enjoy higher leverage up to 1:200. They would, however, lose the negative balance protection. Additional criteria would be required for traders to ensure that they have the requisite experience and capital at their disposal before opening the Professional account. All account types have 100% margin calls and are not subject to additional commission fees.
The trading platform
Investous offers two trading platforms on its portal. The web-based Web Trader platform is well known and user-friendly, while the MT4 platform enables seamless mobile trading via iOS, Android and Windows. Both offer users the ability to quickly and transparently execute trades. Each platform offers important metrics, educational tips, technical indicators and advice to help all types of traders to come to a more informed decision before investing.
WebTrader can be opened without logging in or creating an account by selecting ‘Trade’ in the main navigation bar. There are risk management options on the Web Trader platform to take advantage of placing ‘Stop Loss’ and ‘Take Profit’ levels.
MT4 is a well-regarded and popular trading platform. Within MT4 on the Investous portal, there is the ability to customise it to suit the user’s needs. MT4 is a third-party software product developed by MetaQuotes.
This is available to use on iOS and Android, thus enabling mobile trading. Investous ensures that MT4 gives you the most advanced technical analysis tools and charting capabilities, though it is not easy to navigate for beginners. MT4 is also connected directly to the Investous trading servers to allow for pretty seamless execution.
Deposits and withdrawals
You can start trading at Investous with a minimum deposit of USD250 when opening a Basic account. This is pretty much in line with many of its online peers. You can fund your account with the major credit and debit cards, by bank transfer, or by using Skrill (electronic payment). In total, there are four account types available with Investous, with your account dependent on the size of your deposit and, to some extent, your experience as a trader.
As discussed, the starter level is a Basic account – this requires a USD250 deposit. Gold accounts require a USD5,000 deposit, while Platinum accounts require a USD10,000 deposit and VIP Accounts require a USD50,000 deposit. It is important to be aware that there are differences in terms of the number of free withdrawals that each account type receives. VIP account holders pay no fees on withdrawals, whereas Platinum account holders get three free withdrawals per month, Gold account holders get one per month and Basic account holders get just one free withdrawal.
There is, of course, in keeping with international regulations a requirement to verify your account. This is all part of any broker’s compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. In order to complete the verification process, a confirmation is required that you own the bank account that is connected to the broker. In addition, a proof of identity and address must be submitted. This is a standard procedure normally requiring a valid government-issued ID and a bank statement or utility bill dated within the past six months as a proof of address. A client can deposit funds and start trading without the verification process, but will not be able to withdraw funds until the process is completed. Keep in mind that the client must withdraw their funds via the method that they have deposited them. All withdrawal and deposit transactions can be monitored through the ‘Pending Requests’ tab on the Investous website. This can be found on the ‘Banking’ page. There are no deposit fees charged by Investous. However, the broker does charge a withdrawal fee for credit and debit cards of up to 3.5%, while withdrawing through an electronic payment will cost 2%. For Platinum or VIP accounts, these fees will be waived. All users will find that the transparency in the transactions is high and that both deposits and withdrawals are quick.
Beginners and customer support
Investous has excellent customer support. This is a key metric when choosing the right broker for the client’s needs, especially if they are starting out as a trader. As with many of its peers, Investous has a live chat feature. Investous customer support can be reached by telephone on +357 2526 2513, or via email at [email protected].
Investous offers in-depth educational and training material with its package – this is accessible under the ‘Education Centre’ tab. It is important to note that more educational resources become available depending on the account type that the trader has set up. However, for all account types, there is a glossary that includes a number of important definitions for CFDs and forex trading. There is an explanatory page as an introduction to CFD trading on how to calculate gains and losses and setting out the risks to utilising more complex asset classes. This is also useful for beginners. Each main asset class is explained under a CFD approach. Forex, commodities and stocks all have a specific approach when engaged in trading via CFDs. However, the underlying risks and opportunities are pretty similar for all asset classes and are well explained on the Investous portal. Within the same section, Investous offers easy-to-understand and practical advice on how to develop a CFD trading strategy. This includes establishing a trading plan, setting relevant alerts around stop loss, using risk management tools, and staying regularly informed around the trading position that a CFD investor may have or wish to establish. Alongside the CFD explanatory notes, there is a clear message of the overriding importance of using leverage responsibly.
Investous also has an educational page on leverage and margins and how best to take advantage of them while taking into the account the risks. As we would expect, there is a section that is dedicated to explaining technical analysis. There is an overview and short briefing on how to use technical indicators to support beginners with their burgeoning investment portfolio. The section also broadens out to explain more advanced technical tools such as Fibonacci retracement, the relative strength index (RSI) and also moving averages. All of these can be applied when working with the graph analysis on the Investous portal.
There is a particularly useful Economic Calendar on the Investous website to offer additional support to its clients, experienced or otherwise, and this is a differentiated feature. For every key event on the Economic Calendar, the educational tool enables the user to see forecasts, actual data, historical data and market impact. There is also a section focused on fundamental analysis within the portal and how to get the best out of this when trading.
Helpfully, Investous has an extensive video library for educational support. There are daily market update videos available that are published at the beginning of the trading day. It is labelled ‘Videos on Demand’ (VOD) and is split into the categories of Forex Intro, Forex Beginners and Forex Intermediate. In total, there are over 20 Forex Intro videos and four Forex Beginners videos. Topics are wide and helpful for beginners, in such areas as the glossary of concepts, types of orders, the forex market, long and short, trends, currency pairs and basic forex terms. The Forex Intermediate video library covers areas such as advanced technical analysis, trading psychology, capital management and the world of global trading.
There is an explanatory page as an introduction to CFD trading on how to calculate gains and losses and setting out the risks of utilising more complex asset classes. This is also useful for beginners. Each main asset class is explained under a CFD approach. Forex, commodities and stocks all have a specific approach when engaged in trading via CFDs. However, the underlying risks and opportunities are pretty similar for all asset classes and are well explained on the Investous portal. Within the same section, Investous offers easy-to-understand and practical advice on how to develop a CFD trading strategy. This includes establishing a trading plan, setting relevant alerts around stop loss, using risk management tools, and staying regularly informed around the trading position that a CFD investor may have or wish to establish. Alongside the CFD explanatory notes, there is a clear message of the overriding importance of using leverage responsibly.
Investous conclusion
Investous has an underlying theme of transparency, particularly with its deposit and withdrawal process, and a number of market-leading features that enable this online trading portal to offer strong competition with existing peers. It has a good breadth of asset coverage on a global stage.
The regulation to the International Financial Services Commission of Belize is important to be aware of, and it implies that Investous must maintain at least USD750,000 in operating capital in its accounts. The broker is also expected to keep regular financial statements and update the regulators about any potentially relevant changes. In addition, protecting funds and client information is supported by very high standards for firewalls, security and data encryption, so a prospective client can rest assured that Investous follows internationally recognised practices for the protection and security of funds.
Investous offers multiple types of accounts depending on the deposit amount placed with the broker. There is also a professional option for some very experienced traders. There is a free demo account, which is recommended as a starting point to fully appreciate what the portal has to offer – this allows users to trade with USD100,000 of virtual currency. Unlike some of its peers, Investous demo accounts have access to the same prices and functionality as live accounts.
Access to educational support is one of its differentiating strengths and is helpful for both beginner and intermediate traders, but this will depend on which account you have chosen. Spreads are fairly competitive at the basic account levels but again improve markedly with the higher-ranked accounts.
It is fair to say that the 3.5% withdrawal fee on credit and debit cards that is charged by Investous is higher than many of its competitors, though the service itself is very transparent. In addition, some of the spreads, particularly on cryptocurrency trading or pairs, are pretty high, and in part it may be because there is a currency execution embedded in the transaction.
In its short existence, Investous has won a number of awards. It has already been awarded the Best Trading Platform in 2018 and Best Execution broker in the same year at the annual Forex Awards. In addition, the company behind Investous, IOS Investments Limited, has a strong history and is well regarded in the financial industry.
Investous has certainly made some considerable progress in a short period of time. It is fully regulated and operates a technologically advanced trading platform. It also has a market-leading, easily accessible library of educational and technical analysis tips to aid the user when making those key trading decisions. Importantly, this option is being updated regularly and is adapting to the needs and demands of the trading marketplace.
Please be advised that certain products and/or multiplier levels may not be available for traders from EEA countries due to legal restrictions.
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