Dukascopy Review 2024

Trust

Dukascopy Regulators

In our reviews, we examine the regulatory status of each entity operated by a broker. This allows us to compare the different levels of client protection. We rank regulators using a three-tier system, where Tier-1 licensing reflects the highest level of regulation.

Here are my findings on Dukascopy various entities:

• Dukascopy Bank S.A. is licensed and regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) both as a bank and as a securities firm. We rank FINMA as a Tier-1 regulator.
• Dukascopy Europe IBS AS is licensed and regulated by the Bank of Latvia, which we rank as a Tier-1 regulator in our system.
• Dukascopy Japan K.K. is licensed and regulated by the Financial Services Agency of Japan (JFSA) under licensing number 3010401095833. We rank JFSA as a Tier-1 regulator.

Why is It Important to Know Where Your Broker Subsidiary (Entity) is Regulated?

To serve clients worldwide, brokers must have multiple regional entities. The level of client protection guaranteed by regional regulators varies widely. Here are some of the key features to check on at your broker`s regional entity:

• Segregation of client funds. Segregating client funds from the operating capital of a broker prevents misuse, ensuring that traders’ funds can not be used for operational expenses or speculative investments. At Dukascopy, all client funds are held in segregated accounts away from the company’s funds.
• Negative balance protection. This is a guarantee that clients cannot lose more than their account balance, even if the market unexpectedly makes a massive move or gaps. Dukascopy Europe is the only entity that ensures negative balance protection.
• Compensation scheme. A compensation scheme protects client funds in the unlikely event that the broker becomes insolvent. Clients of Dukascopy Bank S.A. are covered up to CHF 100,000 under esisuisse. Clients of Dukascopy Europe IBS AS are insured under the Investor Compensation Fund (ICF) for up to EUR 20,000. Dukascopy Japan K.K. does not have a compensation scheme.
• Maximum leverage. Limiting leverage controls the level of risk traders can take on. The higher the leverage, the higher the potential profits and losses. Under FINMA, Dukascopy Bank S.A. affords a maximum leverage of 1:200.

Stability and Transparency

In our tests for the Trust category, we also cover factors relating to stability and transparency. Here, we focus on the brokers’ business longevity, the company’s size, and their transparency regarding readily available information.

Dukascopy has a 20-year operating history. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and employs over 300 staff members.

On the About page, Dukascopy covers its subsidiaries and regulatory status. The pricing model is clearly explained on the Fee Schedule page.

The broker openly shares its financial reports including its balance sheet and statement of income. Another feature underscoring its transparency is that traders can access the historical price data feed for a variety of financial instruments.

Is Dukascopy Safe to Trade With?

To summarize, I rate Dukascopy as highly trustworthy and stable due to the following:

• 20-year operating history
• Regulated by three top-tier agencies
• Member of the Swiss Bankers Association
• Regulated capital of CHF 40M
• All entities segregate funds
• Transparent in key areas like regulation and fees

Fees

Dukascopy Trading Fees

I tested the spreads at Dukascopy across various markets during the London open and after the New York open on 30 August 2024. At these times, the market is typically highly liquid with the tightest spreads.

Spreads range from exceptional (EUR/USD) to average (Dow 30) and rather wide (Bitcoin).

Dukascopy Commissions

Dukascopy commissions work with a tiered system based on your account equity. With equity of less than $5,000, commissions for commodities, indices, precious metals, crypto, and bonds are $3.50 per full-sized lot. Commissions can go as low as 50 cents per full-sized lot with account equity of over $3 million.

Commissions for CFDs on shares and ETFs vary by market. For example, US shares have a commission of 2 cents per share, with a minimum commission of $10.

Via MT4, there is an additional fee of 50 cents per full-sized lot (or $5 per million).

Dukascopy Swap Fees

The table below shows an example of the swap fees at Dukascopy. Swaps represent the fees charged (or credit earned) for holding a position overnight.

The values listed below are for one full contract (100,000 units) of the base currency.

I recorded the swap data on 21 August 2024. My live tests showed that swap fees at Dukascopy are average for the industry.

Dukascopy Non-Trading Fees

Dukascopy charges a maintenance fee if no trades, open positions, or online currency exchanges occur on any of a client’s accounts for 180 consecutive calendar days. This period begins on the 180th day after account opening. When applicable, the maintenance fee is capped at CHF 100 per client for each 180-day period of inactivity.

A dormancy fee of at least 500 CHF, but not exceeding the account balance, is charged when an account has unresolved issues and Dukascopy has been unable to contact the client for 2 months.

When a client doesn’t deposit any funds within the first 3 months of account opening, 5 Dukascoins (which are gifted to each new client) are deducted.

Are Dukascopy Fees Competitive?

I rate Dukascopy fees as varied – from highly competitive in some areas to less so in others. Here’s my breakdown:

• Outstanding trading costs (spread + commission) in popular forex pairs.
• Average to expensive trading costs in other instruments.
• Lower commissions via the tiered commission structure based on account equity.
• Relatively high fees related to account maintenance.

Platforms and Tools

Forex Desktop Platform

The proprietary JForex platform is powerful and innovative, with a range of features that can cater to trading professionals. It is available on desktop and web and has a well-designed interface featuring main panels like order entry, charts, and position tracking. The layout is customizable, and panels can be hidden, resized, and undocked to suit your preference.

Automated trading is available, and the JForex API enables traders to develop custom software applications using the Java programming language. Dukascopy also offers FIX API integration. JForex can be accessed in 22 languages – from English to Mongolian.

Jforex Key Features

• Watchlists. Traders can create a list of their favorite instruments and follow live quotes in a market watch panel.
• Alerts. This feature updates traders when an instrument reaches a specific price level.
• One-click Trading. This feature allows traders to execute orders with a single click and no secondary confirmation, enabling them to operate faster. This is especially useful for day traders.
• Trading from the Chart. JForex allows users the convenience of trading directly from the chart.
• Market Depth. This shows prices and liquidity taken from multiple liquidity providers. Traders can gain an edge by seeing where the most orders are concentrated.
• Tick by tick Price History. This shows the history of the best bid/ask price movement, which can be used for the development of automated strategies.
• JCloud. The most important feature of JCloud is its ability to save chart objects, which can be linked to specific instruments. This simplifies technical analysis by instantly syncing the objects across all charts.

JForex Charts

JForex provides professional-grade charting with an excellent range of technical indicators, drawing tools, chart types, and time frames.

• 250+ Technical Indicators. These include classic trend indicators, volume indicators, and oscillators, along with more specialized indicators like Thomas Bulkowski’s Narrow Range.
• 40+ Drawing Tools. These include trend lines, channels, Gann, Fibonacci tools, and chart pattern-based tools like ABCD pattern and Head and Shoulders.
• 1000+ Time Frames. Traders can choose from time frames ranging from 1 second to 1 month along with a myriad of price-based periods like 1,000 point Renko, for example.
• 11 Chart Types. There are Area Charts, Bar Charts, Japanese Candlestick Charts, Line Charts, Tables, Renko, Range Bars, Tick Bars, Point and Figure, Kagi, and Line Break.

For traders who like to track multiple markets at once, charts can be arranged in various tiled formats.

Charts can be linked to synchronize the scrolling, time range, instrument, or period switch. Chart objects like drawings, retracement tools, patterns, and indicators can be synchronized across all the charts within the same platform or even other accounts and devices via JCloud.

JForex Orders

The range of order types in JForex is also superb. Traders have more flexibility thanks to the following order types and conditions:

• Market Order. Traders use market orders to buy or sell an instrument at the best current price.
• Limit Order. Traders use limit orders to buy or sell an instrument at a specified price or better.
• Stop-Loss Order. Traders use stop-loss orders to buy or sell an instrument when its price reaches a specified level.
• Trailing-Stop Order. Traders use trailing stop-loss orders as a stop-loss order at a defined percentage or dollar amount away from an instrument’s current market price. This order type allows traders to secure profits when they are in a winning trade while not having to exit the position.

Time in force conditions like Good-till-Canceled (GTC) are available, and traders can set the maximum level of slippage they are willing to tolerate on a trade.

From the panel showing open positions, traders can access the reverse position and double position orders, which can be executed with a single click (if one-click mode is enabled).

JForex market depth shows the volume of orders at each price level coming from multiple liquidity providers. Market depth can be a valuable tool for analysis. For example, a large number of orders at prices below or above the market suggests that there may be support or resistance at those levels.

Hotlists allow traders to filter all tradable stocks and see those with the top percentage price changes or high and low levels. Stocks can be filtered across multiple timeframes (hour, day, prior week, month, three or six months). This is an especially popular tool for day traders to identify volatile shares presenting potential trading opportunities.

Traders can access a newsfeed within the platform to stay on top of the latest market-moving stories.

The economic calendar allows traders to view the results of key economic releases without leaving the platform.

JForex visual allows traders to build automated strategies quickly using an elegant visual drag-and-drop system. Users can work with preset components or build new ones without needing to use code. Salient features include:

• Easy development, most work can be done with the click and drag of a mouse.
• No need to work with programming languages.
• Historical tester allows you to backtest your strategy.
• You can backtest a strategy over a time period of several years within hours.
• Download and work with other strategies from JForex.
• Generate JForex strategy code from your visual strategy.

My Key Takeaways After Testing Dukascopy via JForex

Having tested all of the major forex and CFD brokers, I believe JForex is one of the most robust and powerful platforms available. The charting, order entry options, and original tools and features bring a fresh level of sophistication to retail forex and CFD traders.

Dukascopy Mobile App

General Ease of Use

I felt that the JForex mobile app was more user-friendly than the desktop platform. In addition to robust charting and a wide range of order types, the app features news, an economic calendar, trader sentiment data, and a tool for detecting chart patterns. The language within the app is tied to the language of your mobile device.

Charts

Charts within the JForex mobile app provide an excellent range of over 80 technical indicators and drawing tools, 2 chart types, and 16 time frames.

Orders

Traders can access market, limit, and stop-loss orders via the app and time in force conditions like Good-til-cancel (GTC) can be applied to pending orders. The maximum slippage restriction setting is also available.

My Key Takeaways After Testing JForex Mobile

Overall, JForex is a feature-rich, intuitive app that packs many great features. It enables users to efficiently trade, manage their open positions, and perform analysis while on the go. I rate it as above average for the industry.

Dukascopy Execution Model

Dukascopy has no dealing desk and makes no requotes. All trades, regardless of size, are executed automatically on its ECN. Through a single data feed, all clients have access to the same liquidity at equal prices.

Tradable Instruments

Dukascopy beats the industry average in almost every category, although there is some room for improvement in the number of available forex pairs.

What are CFDs?

A Contract for Difference (CFD) is an agreement specifying that the buyer must pay the seller the difference between an asset’s current value and its value at the time the contract was initiated. Like futures and other derivative financial instruments, CFDs allow traders to speculate on price movements without owning the underlying asset.

What Can You Trade with Dukascopy?

To better illustrate the wide range of instruments available at Dukascopy, the following tables show samples from various asset classes:

Binary Options

Binary options are derivative financial instruments that provide a simple way to trade price movements. When trading binary options, the potential payouts and risks are predetermined. Dukascopy offers binary options trading on the following currency pairs:

My Key Takeaways After Exploring Dukascopy Tradable Instruments

Dukascopy clients have access to an exceptional selection of markets. Whether you are a crypto enthusiast or prefer more traditional assets like shares or commodities, Dukascopy provides a strong range of instruments to trade.

Customer Support

Dukascopy Customer Support Test

Support is a key component of a broker’s offering – whether you are a new trader looking for guidance on how to use the platform or an experienced trader who needs help fast to exit their positions in the event of a technical glitch.

During my two-week testing period, I made dozens of inquiries ranging from basic account-related themes to more nuanced technical questions related to the JForex platform.

Via live chat, I usually experienced a substantial wait time and sometimes got no response at all. By contrast, phone support was strong, and I was quickly routed to knowledgeable and helpful agents. Support via email was also fast to respond.

Deposit and Withdrawal

Dukascopy Deposit Methods

Deposits are processed promptly, but fees apply for credit/debit cards, digital wallets, and Apple Pay.

Dukascopy Withdrawal Methods

Withdrawals are processed fast, but fees apply across every withdrawal method.

Account Types and Terms

Dukascopy Account Opening Process

Dukascopy Registration

To open an account with the entity of Dukascopy, prospective clients must complete a simple application providing their name, email, phone, planned amount to deposit, account type (individual joint or corporate), date of birth, country of birth, citizenship, residential address, professional status, tax residence, and income details.

Dukascopy Account Types and Their Benefits

Demo Account

Dukasopy offers free demo accounts that can be used via the JForex Trading Platform, MetaTrader 4, and MetaTrader 5. Demo accounts are especially important for beginners as they allow them to practice their strategies and get comfortable with the trading platform without risking real money. The demo account features live quotes and simulates live market conditions in assets like forex and CFDs on commodities, indices, and stocks. Once users are up to speed on a demo, they can easily switch to a live account.

Islamic Account

Dukascopy offers a swap-free Islamic account that adheres to the principles of Sharia law.

What is CFD Leverage?

One of the reasons that traders are attracted to the forex and CFD markets is the high degree of available leverage. Leverage is the use of borrowed funds to increase the size of your trading positions beyond what would be possible using only the cash in your account.

For the Dukascopy Bank S.A. entity, the maximum leverage is 1:200. This means that with an account of $1,000, you can control up to $200,000 worth of positions in the market. This is an unusually high level of leverage and very risky to use.

Leverage is often described as a ‘double-edged sword’ as it can hurt you as much as it helps you. Traders should keep in mind that it can amplify both their profits and their losses.

Maximum Leverage by Asset Class

Available leverage differs according to the asset class, with the most leverage available with CFDs on forex and the least with CFDs on crypto.

Dukascopy Restricted Countries

Dukascopy accepts clients from the majority of countries globally. However, residents of the following countries are not accepted: Afghanistan, Belarus, Belgium, Canada (including Québec), Cuba, Iran, Israel, Japan, Myanmar, North Korea, the Russian Federation, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States.

Research

The Trading Ideas section provides analysis twice per week, including previews of upcoming economic releases, short and medium-term forecasts, and support and resistance levels.

Under the Fundamental Analysis section, you can find brief reports covering the results of economic releases, an interpretation of the data, and the outlook for related currencies.

The reports in the Expert Commentary section are largely focused on stocks and market-moving factors, such as earnings data and major news events.

Trade Pattern Ideas are published once a week and include two instruments with interesting technical setups over a relatively long-term basis, using the daily chart. Analyst Jānis Mačukāns also provides a fundamental overlay to help you better understand the forces driving the market.

Trader sentiment is another valuable resource to draw from. Dukascopy publishes an analysis of trader sentiment (the percentage of traders long and short). When trader sentiment reaches extreme levels with an overwhelming majority, either long or short, an instrument, this can be a powerful indicator of a potential market reversal. Market depth, showing the volume of orders at various price levels, provides another layer of insight into the psychology of market participants.

The online news section of the Dukascopy website aggregates stories from major financial outlets like MarketWatch, Investing.com, and RTT News. Economic data from government agencies like the US Census Bureau and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis is also included. The filters on the left side make it easy to pull up the news stories related to the instruments you are focused on.

Daily sessions with seasoned market veterans DocDow (Murray Rosenberg), FXPassion (Miha Comarrela), and Rakesh Kumar provide traders with unique insights, including key technical levels and trade ideas. During the hour-long sessions, traders can also post their questions in the chat area.

My Takeaways from Exploring Dukascopy Research Content

Dukascopy’s research materials go above and beyond the average. The Trading Ideas section, with its technical guidance and fundamental overlay, offers a good source of trading ideas. I appreciated the emphasis on live interactive content via YouTube.

Education

On the website, traders can access articles and guides ranging from introductory material explaining market jargon like pips and spreads to more advanced content explaining technical indicators and trading strategies. I rated this in-depth text-based content as insightful and valuable to both new and seasoned traders.

The Dukascopy Academy on YouTube features live trading via live-streamed videos and tutorials based on technical indicators, along with explanations of chart patterns like the cup and handle. I liked the practical and hands-on themes of the available videos.

JForex is a complex platform, and Dukascopy helps traders get up to speed with a series of video tutorials that explain its various features. These include simple topics like how to place an order to more advanced themes, for example, the market depth feature.

The Bottom Line

Dukascopy is an exceptional broker with a wide range of attractive qualities. This is not a broker for casual traders looking for a simple platform and low fees. Rather, Dukascopy’s strength lies in its rock-solid trust rating, innovative platform, and reliable ECN-based order execution.

The broker offers high-quality, in-house research and education materials and a range of innovative features within the proprietary JForex platform.

Trading costs are mixed, with highly competitive spreads in some instruments like EUR/USD, while others are more standard. Dukascopy is not a discount broker and traders should take note of maintenance and deposit/withdrawal fees, along with relatively wide spreads in some instruments like Bitcoin.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and I felt this is reflected in some aspects of Dukascopy’s offering, like reliable phone support, a dedicated account manager, and the unique pool of liquidity via SWFX. I was especially impressed by the single-click position reversal feature in JForex and the Visual JForex tool for code-free development of automated strategies.

FAQ