Forex Brokers Go Binary – A New Beginning, a New Way to Look at Binary Options
Trading Binary Options with Traditional Forex Brokers
Binary Options are a relatively new trading instrument, available to the wide public since 2008. The impact on the retail trading world was huge and the momentum is still going strong, with more and more traders joining the arena. Until recently we were used to trade through Binary Options service providers, also known as brokers or brokerages who offered binaries exclusively, but now there’s a new trend developing: some Forex brokers are starting to offer Binary Options trading in more than one way. This is only the beginning and probably many changes will come along the road but at the moment we see things moving in a new direction: Binary Options and Forex are coming closer together and this ultimately brings more control to the trader.
FX Brokers go Binary – Trade Binary Options with a Forex Broker
I told you that Forex brokers are starting to offer Binary Options in more than one way so it might be a good idea to elaborate on that. One type of approach is to establish a partnership with a Binary Options platform provider and to offer binaries the old fashioned way: in a separate platform, used entirely and exclusively for Binary Options. At the moment Alpari is the most well known Forex broker who chose to enter the Binary Options market using this approach. But it seems one platform is not enough for the Forex giant so they decided to go for 2 platforms which will be offered to clients depending on region: MarketPulse will be offered to clients from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and for UK traders, a SpotOption platform will be made available. Other Forex brokers gone Binary – Markets.com, with TopOption and HotForex, for those who know this Forex brokers.
If you are familiar with the two platforms, you will find all the normal features and Binary Options trading will be just as you know it. No spectacular changes are made but we have a new face in town in the form of a reliable and well known Forex broker who is now stepping into the binary arena. As an extra feature I can mention the fact that Alpari’s Binary platform allows you to trade with an expiry time of 30 seconds. That’s the fastest expiration available to date and it will probably appeal to thrill seekers or to guys who get bored waiting for 60 seconds to pass… yea, 60 seconds trading is so not cool anymore. Just joking but anyway, it’s good to know we now have an even faster expiry time.
Trading Binary… MT4 Style – Trading Binary Options on MetaTrader4
The second innovation hitting the Binary Options industry is the possibility to trade directly from Meta Trader 4, the well known Forex platform. For a long time binary options traders used this platform for conducting technical analysis and then placing the actual trade on their binary broker platform. But as you can imagine, this way of trading will get you a lot of headaches especially when trading very short expiry times because the price displayed on the Meta Trader 4 platform is different than the one offered by the binary options broker. This is actually normal because different brokers have different price feeds and more than that, Binary Options use their own calculation method. I am sure more brokers will follow this path eventually but as I mentioned before, it’s only the beginning of this new trend and just timid steps are made.
One of the first Forex brokers to offer Binary Options directly from Meta Trader 4 is Direct FX, a regulated and reputable Australian broker. I often complained about the fact that Binary Options traders are denied access to the necessary tools needed to conduct proper technical analysis; well, now all that is over and the full arsenal of Meta Trader 4 can be used, without having to open a demo account with another broker and without switching between platforms to place the actual trade. The major downside of this platform is that traders can only trade Forex assets, no Indices, Commodities or Stocks are available to trade. Another well known Provider, Leverate, will now offer binary options solution to its clients. In the future we will fully review this new way of trading Binary Options and we will give you all the details regarding its functionality, benefits and drawbacks so you can decide if this new way of trading fits your style or you would rather stick to the old and well known Binary platforms.
Is Newer always Better?
There you have it: two big innovations in the field of Binary Options which can change the way traders think about binaries. The fact that reputable Forex brokers like Alpari reach out to Binary traders is not an innovation in the true sense of the word, but it definitely shows that binary options are starting to gain more popularity and the hype behind them was not just a soap bubble waiting to burst. Also, the fact that binaries made their way into Meta Trader 4 is a breath of fresh air for traders who need technical tools, chart analysis and candlestick patterns, things that were not available before due to the limitations of the classic binary platforms.
However, some traders will still choose the simplicity of the normal platforms and will continue to use those because the attractiveness of Binary Options comes from their accessibility and ease of use. Furthermore, there may be some concerns regarding the ability of Forex brokers to provide the best Binary Options service. Even if those brokers are good at what they currently do (Forex) will they be able to really understand the needs of a Binary Options trader? That is a question that still remains unanswered but we will keep digging to bring you an answer.