ACY Securities Review

ACY Securities is a MetaTrader-only broker with a reasonable range of markets and a balanced account offering. The broker’s research and educational content, however, could be greatly improved upon.

ACY Securities pros & cons

Pros

• Proprietary ICHI Scalper EA available for algorithmic trading.

• Offers a good range of CFD markets.

• Competitive spreads on gold, and commission-based ProZero account with discounts available via an active trader program.

• Finologix charts have a good foundation for ACY’s proprietary platform development and are integrated into the ACY Cloud client portal.

• Share trading is available on MT5.

• Yearlong Trading Cup competition crowdsources the best day traders to compete for allocations, akin to a proprietary trading firm.

Cons

• Per-trade fee for commission-based forex accounts is more expensive for international clients, but discounted if you are Australia-based.

• Spreads on standard account are slightly higher than industry average; while ProZero account spreads are lower, the round-turn commission is twice as high outside Australia.

• Educational content is poorly organized.

Commissions and fees

ACY Securities caters to a wide variety of traders by offering both low-deposit and commission-based account options. While pricing on its Standard account is slightly higher than the industry average, the ProZero account effective spreads are slightly better than the industry average. If you reside in Australia, the all-in cost is even lower.

Account types: ACY Securities offers three account types with varying minimum deposits, spreads and commissions. Additionally, an active trader program with 10 tiers can lower your trading costs by 0.5 pips per lot if you have more than 50 standard lots in monthly volume.

Trading costs: The Standard account is commission-free with spreads averaging 1.2 pips on the EUR/USD in September 2021, and requires just a $50 deposit – but it has wider spreads than ACY’s commission-based ProZero and Bespoke accounts, where average spreads drop to 0.25 during the same period. The commission-based accounts require larger minimum deposits, starting at $200 for the ProZero account and $10,000 for the Bespoke account. The commission rate varies from $5 per round turn (RT) on the Bespoke account to $6 per RT on the ProZero. It’s worth noting again that, for residents of Australia, the commission on the ProZero account drops to $3 per RT, bringing the effective spreads to 0.55 in September 2021. That’s comparable to pricing from category leaders such as Tickmill.

Trading Cup contest: In this yearlong contest, traders are eligible to receive allocations ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 for a total of $1 million across the top five finalists. Unlike most bonuses that are volume-based, the Trading Cup contest requires at least 10 round-trip trades of any amount to be eligible — but the catch is that winners can only withdraw up to 50% of any profits and must adhere to strict money management guidelines.