Broker comparison – who is the best? In this article, we are introducing GKFX (AKFX).
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GKFX (AKFX) – who is behind it?
This article is about an online broker known under the name of GKFX on the internet. The provider is a brand of a company named AKFX Financial Services Ltd.
The online broker’s staff make their know-how directly available to local customers from Germany and Austria. Established in the year 2013, the provider has been registering rapid growth ever since. One of GKFX’s declared aims, amongst others, consisted of expanding their own product range to more than 600 trading products in the areas of forex, index, commodity, cryptocurrency, bund and stock CFDs.
Specializing in Forex and CFD trading, the online broker offers private and institutional clients various services and platforms, enabling their effective trading with a great variety of financial instruments.
Regulation of GKFX (AKFX) and deposit protection
If you are looking for a suitable online broker, their due regulation and protection of your deposits always number amongst the key requirements.
AKFX Financial Services Ltd., the company that owns the GKFX brand, is regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA). This also means that the online broker is authorized as an EU-regulated provider under MiFID II, and thus required to stick to that directive’s stringent guidelines.
In addition to this, the company is also a member of the Investor Compensation Scheme (ICS), which will compensate clients should it go insolvent. This covers up to 90 % and a maximum amount of 20,000 euros each.
Funds deposited by clients are furthermore also kept in segregated accounts, in accordance with the MFSA requirements. This means that they will not be at risk if the company goes insolvent, because they are held separately from its own assets at correspondingly authorized banks.
Which tradable assets are on offer at GKFX?
This is where we get to the actual service contents of the online broker. Which primarily also includes the range of tradable assets provided to GKFX clients to choose from. Interested investors and traders can use the provider to trade currencies, cryptocurrencies, so-called bunds, shares, indices, and commodities in the form of CFDs.
The various assets on offer at GKFX shall be briefly outlined in some greater detail below.
Cryptocurrencies
First of all, GKFX gives you the option of trading cryptocurrencies as CFDs, both long and short. The digital currencies bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Dash and Litecoin help interested investors diversify their portfolios with a 50 % margin deposit and small position sizes starting from 0.1 lot.
Bunds
Another option available for trading at GKFX are German federal bonds – so-called bunds. The online broker offers a CFD on the ten-year BUND Future.
Forex
Currency trading enjoys ever greater popularity amongst private investors, too, and numbers amongst the most liquid markets altogether with a daily trading volume of around US$ 5 trillion.
The range available for forex trading at GKFX embraces over 40 currency pairs, with low spreads starting from as little as 0.6 pips.
Shares
The range of stock CFDs at GKFX is also of interest to many investors. For a more detailed overview of all tradable stock CFDs, the online broker supplies a list of all assets and conditions on its website.
Indices
Added to this is an extensive selection of indices available to the online broker’s clients for trading. Index CFD trading enables them to benefit from rising as well as falling prices. Besides the popular major indices such as the DAX 30, SP 500 or NASDAQ 100, for example, a selection of minor indices can also be traded GKFX.
Commodities
Finally the provider also affords the option of trading in commodities. Besides crude oil, GKFX will also let you trade precious metals such as gold, silver and copper from as little as 0.1 lot at favourable conditions.
Which account types can I choose from at this online broker?
Having taken a closer look at the various tradable assets in the online broker’s product range in the last section, this one is dedicated to the various account types available at GKFX. There are three basic options here: Standard, Premium and Corporate. Depending on your individual requirements, you should also go for a corresponding account type that suits your trading style best.
Standard
Let us start with the services available to clients in a Standard account. To keep this manageable, they are briefly listed in a corresponding table below.
| Forex spreads | from 1.2 pips |
| Min. trade size (FX) | 0.01 lot |
| Max. trade size (FX) | 100 lots |
| Trading platforms | MT4, WebTrader |
| Forex assets | 50 |
| Commodity assets | 11 |
| Indices | 19 |
| Shares | 250+ |
| Minimum deposit | – |
Premium
Here follows the table with the Premium account services:
| Forex spreads | RAW spreads + commissions starting from 6 euros per lot |
| Min. trade size (FX) | 0.10 lot |
| Max. trade size (FX) | 100 lots |
| Trading platforms | WebTrader, TradAir |
| Forex assets | 42 |
| Commodity assets | 14 |
| Indices | 19 |
| Minimum deposit | 20,000 euros |
Corporate
The third option available is the Corporate account, which is particularly recommended for institutional clients. The services in this account comprise the following:
| Forex spreads | from 0.6 (?) |
| Trading platforms | MT4, WebTrader |
| Forex assets | 50 |
| Commodity assets | 11 |
| Indices | 19 |
| Minimum deposit | 25,000 euros |
The account currencies available in all three account types are EUR, USD and GBP.
The trading platforms available at GKFX
Another aspect that always has an important role to play for selecting a suitable online broker are the trading platforms on offer there. GKFX meanwhile keeps its selection of trading platforms rather manageable. Which basically means that you will always be trading with the MetaTrader 4 platform as a client of this provider. The only choices concern the WebTrader variant, and whether you want the MT4 Desktop or Mobile version.
MT4 WebTrader
The first variant available to GKFX clients is the MT4 WebTrader. This enables them to trade directly from their browser at all times and places without needing to download a corresponding software. All you have to do as a client is register with MyGKFX.
MetaTrader 4 is meanwhile not the world’s most popular trading platform for no reason. The software has a user-friendly and intuitive design. Investors benefit from interactive charting, real-time prices and an extensive range of technical analysis tools. In addition to which automated trading is also possible using expert advisors.
MT4 Desktop & Mobile
The other choice you have is between downloading the MT4 software directly to your desktop or smartphone. The desktop version of the software offers three different chart types, over 50 pre-installed technical indicators, nine time levels, and a freely customizable user interface.
The MT4 software for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will also provide you with all these standard functions to choose from. GKFX clients can manage their positions and track important market developments from anywhere around the clock. In addition to which users can access over 30 pre-installed technical indicators for technical analysis on their mobile devices.
Trading conditions at GKFX
Let us now turn to the trading conditions of this online broker, with special attention paid to the spreads, leverages and margins, as well as the swap fees for the respective assets.
Spreads
The spreads at GKFX are principally variable, subjecting them to permanent fluctuations. But the provider lists target spreads for its assets on its website. These are composed as follows for trading the available major currency pairs (majors):
Spreads for the forex pairs at GKFX
As you can see, the EUR/USD currency pair can be traded with spreads from 0.6 pips. And the spreads for the other majors are also relatively low and fair.
Whereas the spreads for the Minor currency pairs are something of a mixed bag. If you are interested in the details, you can also look them up on the GKFX website. The same is the case with the target spreads for the other tradable instruments. As listing the spreads for all assets would be impossible here for reasons of space, the table below is limited to the target spreads of some popular trade instruments.
| Asset | Target spread |
| DAX30 | 6.0 |
| AUS200 | 1.0 |
| NAS100 | 0.8 |
| SP500 | 0.4 |
| Gold | 0.3 |
| BTC/USD | 35 |
| ETH/USD | 6 |
| LTC/USD | 5 |
| XRP/USD | 0.1 |
Leverages and margins
Another important role for the trading conditions is played by the leverages and margins of the respective trade instruments. They vary at GKFX, depending on the trade instrument. See the following table for more details of the various leverages and margins at GKFX:
| Trade instrument | Leverage | Margin |
| Major FX | 30:1 | 3.33% |
| Minor FX | 20:1 | 5.00% |
| Major indices | 20:1 | 5.00% |
| Minor indices | 10:1 | 10.00% |
| Gold | 20:1 | 5.00% |
| Commodities | 10:1 | 10.00% |
| Bunds | 5:1 | 20.00% |
| Cryptocurrencies | 2:1 | 50.00% |
Swap fees
If clients want to hold their positions overnight, the online broker will charge them so-called financing costs (Swap fees).
The overnight financing rate for DAX30 CFD long positions, for example, comes to 2 % plus the customary market interest for the respective currency. The following example should make the swap fees at GKFX somewhat more transparent:
Trade instrument: DAX30 CFD
Account currency: EUR
Interest rate: 2%
Holding period: 4 days
Quantity: 1 lot (1 CFD)
Direction: long
Price: 11,000 (what?)
Calculation: (quantity x price x interest rate x holding period) / (360) = (1 x 11,000 x 0.02 x 4) / (360) = 2.44
The financing costs for a holding period of 4 days would thus amount to 2.44 euros.
The forex trading is meanwhile subject to a so-called swap rate, also known as short-term FX-swaps. These differ depending on the currency pair and can always be looked up on the GKFX website and/or in the MT4 trading platform. Here follows another brief example for calculating this swap rate.
Trade instrument: EUR/USD
Account currency: EUR
Swap rate: -8.18 pips
Holding period: 2 days
Quantity: 0.3 lot (30,000)
Direction: short
Exchange rate: 1.1750
Pip: 0,00001
Calculation: (pip x lot x swap rate x holding period) / EUR/USD exchange rate = (0.00001 x 30,000 x -8.18 x 2) / (1.1750) = – 4.18 euros
The financing costs for a holding period of 2 days would thus amount to 4.18 euros.
Analyses and tools at GKFX
To support their trading processes, GKFX also provides its clients with a range of analyses and tools. With this online broker, investors can principally rely on the functions of three analyses and four tools, which shall be briefly outline below.
Analyses
Let us first take a quick glance at the contents in analysis terms.
MarktBlog
In the MarktBlog, interested investors can read and keep track of the market comments regularly published by GKFX. This is where they will find many reports on current topics, clearly arranged and accessible to everyone free of charge.
Economic calendar
In addition to this, GKFX also features an integrated Economic calendar that summarizes important events and filters them by relevance for the various markets. Besides the daily market movements, the economic calendar also provides information on global business data, as well as historic publications.
Apart from this, GKFX also offers a subpage where the economic calendar and its services are explained in detail.
Calculator
The Calculators provided by GKFX will help you compute potential profits & losses, margin requirements and the latest exchange rates of various currencies quickly and easily.
Tools
Let us now turn to the tools available for use at GKFX.
MT4 Booster Pack
The MT4 Booster Pack includes 9 additional applications for the MetaTrader 4 platform to support GKFX clients with greater efficiency and transparency. The pack is available to all clients depositing 1,000 euros as a minimum.
The central applications meanwhile feature the following:
- Alarm Manager
- Trade Terminal
- Correlation Matrix
- Correlation Trader
- Sentiment Trader
- Market Manager
- Session Map
- Excel RTD
- Mini Terminal
Trading Central
With Trading Central, GKFX offers a further tool enabling clients to benefit from the technical market analyses by selected experts. In addition, investors can access further tools and indicators that have been „tailor-made“ by the respective expert. The plug-in is easily installed directly in MetaTrader.
VPS
GKFX clients can furthermore use a virtual private server (VPS) with a pre-installed MT4 platform that is active 24/7 and accessible from any PC.
Autochartist
Not least of all, GKFX also features an Autochartist that enables automated market scanning and provides price alarms in real time.
The GKFX demo account
Interested investors wishing to try out the online broker without running any financial risks at first can also opt for their Demo account. This will let them test the services and tools of GKFX totally risk-free with a virtual credit of up to 100,000 euros. Registering for this demo account only requires the entry of a few personal data, whereupon you can get started immediately.
Training and upskilling options at GKFX
To advance the trading processes of its clients, the online broker supplies them with a number of training and upskilling options on its website. These for example include various video tutorials and webinars with easy-to-understand explanations of the trading basics. In addition to which they also host events with renowned trading referents at regular intervals. And last but not least there is also a so-called Forex and CFD Glossary with brief and easy-to-follow explanations of the most important trading terms.
The customer service at GKFX
Not to be neglected on top of all this is their customer service. The GKFX customer support can be contacted in various ways, should you have any questions or problems. One option for this is to call them on the telephone, naturally, but you can also reach it by e-mail. The GKFX customer service is available 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday.
Another way to ask questions is their live chat function, which will yield answers in the shortest of times.
Experiences with the online broker as reviewed on the internet
In conclusion, let us take a brief look at the online reviews of GKFX. Although opinions on the online broker’s services vary, they basically tend to the positive on the bottom line.
Many reviewers highlight the competent and reliable customer support, but the selection of assets also leaves no wishes unanswered. There are also some voice on the internet saying that they have run into problems with pay-outs in the past, however.
But all-in-all, this regulated provider is a respectable online broker with a broad product range and comparably fair conditions.
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