Reviewer: Forex Trader Website Reviewed: Official Alpari Website Type: Online Forex Trading Broker

Alpari was formed in 1998 in Russia by Andrey Vedikhin, Andrew Dashin & Gleb Petrov as three visionary learders in the currency market, and they have a shared interest of expanding Alpari’s global footprint. One of the most popular is Alpari (UK) Limited that was formed in 2004 to strengthen its European presence. Furthermore, it was registered and it’s being regulated by the Financial Services Authority around 2006, with a FSA Registration Number 448002. Alpari further stretched its market dominance due to high demands to the United States market and got an office on Wall Street in New York where it got registered with the Commodity futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and is also a member of the National Futures Association (NFA). The Asian & Middle Eastern market got a boast as Alpari was able to establish its presence in Shanghai and Dubai respectively in 2008, while we also had the establishment of Alpari India in June 2009. 2009 was a good year for Alpari as it saw expansion and growth that lead to operations in Germany, France, Scandinavian, Japan, Singapore, Canada and Brazil. With live accounts standing at around 160,000, Alpari is sure here to stay.

Alpari offers a MetaTrader 4 trading platform and investors can download this for free from its website and start off trading via its demo or practice account. Meanwhile, Alpari also offers its clients three types of live accounts; the Micro, Classic and Pro live accounts. Whatever your trading strategy I believe that these account types are geared towards ensuring that satisfaction. The Micro Accounts are fashioned out for newbies in the forex market who are willing to start risking little and thus trading smaller volumes. This account type allows investors do that and also has a low initial deposit of $200. The Classic Account shares some similarity with the Micro Account but has a minimum account opening deposit of $500. It also offers a limitless number of open positions unlike the classic that offer a 2 lots maximum open position. In addition to the 29 currency pairs traded on the Micro Accounts the classic account has Gold & Silver. The Pro Account type is a no commission account type and this runs till 14th January 2010. This account type fits institutions and individuals looking to trade high volumes as it offers a minimum opening deposit of $20,000 and a maximum leverage of 1:100, unlike the 1:500 being shared by the Micro and Classic account type. You can trade the Micro, Classic and Pro Account type on MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 4 Systematic & AlpariDirect respectively.

Furthermore, Alpari’s trading platforms are well tailored to meet the needs of its varying investor base. The MetaTrader 4 is a well known trading platform and is available for mobile downloads PC and multi-terminal application. The Systematic is a full automated web-based trading system that offers diversified trading strategies and eliminates constant market watch. The ApariDirect trading platform is power by currenex and is powered to satisfy individuals wanting to trade higher volumes at interbank-level pricing.