Date:Thu Nov 21 2024Tokyo:5:12Sydney:7:12New York:15:12London:20:12CET:21:12
BinaryOptions.net Forums› General
MIFID II, It's Impact & The Future of Binaries
As a quick into. I've been trading binaries successfully for a good living and I'm in my 5th year. Not saying its been plain sailing and I've learnt a lot in that time. I've been working in investment banks for 20+ years prior to trading my own book so I wasn't exactly inexperienced when I started.
I could choose whatever product I wanted but I chose Binaries for some simple reasons. I needed to develop a trading algo and with a binary trade all you care about is direction over a given timeframe. With other products, physical, CFD's, etc. you not only have to get the direction and timeframe your algo also has to understand how big the movement will be so binaries only need half the effort in terms of algo development. Of course there are other risk / financial management factors such as you know exactly what the profit / loss will be before entering the trade. I would never use leverage but if you do you also then have fees, etc. to also factor in. Unless you have $1m to risk you can't make a living from physicals / CFD's / etc. without leverage. In short binaries are technically far easier and easier to quantify from a risk / financial management perspective. Of course if you don't know what you are doing or don't do things properly you are going to loose money - doesn't matter what product you use to trade. I suppose it's simplicity is the problem as this leads people to think its easy and it attracts the "shortcut" crowd who are never going to put in the effort / discipline to be a successful trader.
As I'm sure you all know MIFID II came into play this month. It's intention to protect the "shortcut" crowd from their own stupidity I presume. I've discussed with brokers and the FCA and the part they are getting hit by is the "Best Execution" part of MIFID II. What have I noticed ? A lot of the decent binary platforms (regulated) have shutdown starting last summer (Stockpair is just one example - I used them for 4 years with only minor issues). The ones that are left have made changes post Jan 2018 which are hitting my bottom line (example ETX Capital, you can't get a more solid binary broker than this, had to remove all assets except FX and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the execution of trades for these assets they had to remove). We now see a massive increase in scam brokers popping up (outside of the EU of course). In the binary world the impact of MIFID II is squeezing hard working, proper traders from making an honest living (I have 4 really great algo's I can't find a platform to execute the trades on) whilst encouraging the spread of scam brokers. The less good brokers there are the less motivation there is for them to provide a good service, offer fair returns or innovate.
During my in-depth review of newer sites, you can probably tell I wouldn't give anyone my money or personal details without doing a lot of research, here are some of the obvious scam sites I've found; ATEH.com (a real shame as its the best binary trading platform I've ever seen, all the assets and good return %'s), Verum Option, RBinnary.com to mention just a few. Whereas in the past on my semi-annual review of the binary platforms out there maybe 20% were scammers now its more like 20% of brokers / platforms are legitimate and of those they have limited assets, low percentages, limited expiries, etc.
So as usual regulations are stopping real traders from earning a living to protect idiots from themselves. Shutting down legitimate business whilst encouraging scammers to setup where they can't be touched. There is a consultation at the moment to discuss the banning of binaries, to me the only trading product that individuals could trade profitably (if done properly) whilst physicals and CFD's, see comments above about leverage and risk / funding, are freely available for any muppet to trade.
I could choose whatever product I wanted but I chose Binaries for some simple reasons. I needed to develop a trading algo and with a binary trade all you care about is direction over a given timeframe. With other products, physical, CFD's, etc. you not only have to get the direction and timeframe your algo also has to understand how big the movement will be so binaries only need half the effort in terms of algo development. Of course there are other risk / financial management factors such as you know exactly what the profit / loss will be before entering the trade. I would never use leverage but if you do you also then have fees, etc. to also factor in. Unless you have $1m to risk you can't make a living from physicals / CFD's / etc. without leverage. In short binaries are technically far easier and easier to quantify from a risk / financial management perspective. Of course if you don't know what you are doing or don't do things properly you are going to loose money - doesn't matter what product you use to trade. I suppose it's simplicity is the problem as this leads people to think its easy and it attracts the "shortcut" crowd who are never going to put in the effort / discipline to be a successful trader.
As I'm sure you all know MIFID II came into play this month. It's intention to protect the "shortcut" crowd from their own stupidity I presume. I've discussed with brokers and the FCA and the part they are getting hit by is the "Best Execution" part of MIFID II. What have I noticed ? A lot of the decent binary platforms (regulated) have shutdown starting last summer (Stockpair is just one example - I used them for 4 years with only minor issues). The ones that are left have made changes post Jan 2018 which are hitting my bottom line (example ETX Capital, you can't get a more solid binary broker than this, had to remove all assets except FX and there was absolutely nothing wrong with the execution of trades for these assets they had to remove). We now see a massive increase in scam brokers popping up (outside of the EU of course). In the binary world the impact of MIFID II is squeezing hard working, proper traders from making an honest living (I have 4 really great algo's I can't find a platform to execute the trades on) whilst encouraging the spread of scam brokers. The less good brokers there are the less motivation there is for them to provide a good service, offer fair returns or innovate.
During my in-depth review of newer sites, you can probably tell I wouldn't give anyone my money or personal details without doing a lot of research, here are some of the obvious scam sites I've found; ATEH.com (a real shame as its the best binary trading platform I've ever seen, all the assets and good return %'s), Verum Option, RBinnary.com to mention just a few. Whereas in the past on my semi-annual review of the binary platforms out there maybe 20% were scammers now its more like 20% of brokers / platforms are legitimate and of those they have limited assets, low percentages, limited expiries, etc.
So as usual regulations are stopping real traders from earning a living to protect idiots from themselves. Shutting down legitimate business whilst encouraging scammers to setup where they can't be touched. There is a consultation at the moment to discuss the banning of binaries, to me the only trading product that individuals could trade profitably (if done properly) whilst physicals and CFD's, see comments above about leverage and risk / funding, are freely available for any muppet to trade.
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