Investous is a relatively new broker offering access to CFDs. This broker is regulated in Europe by CySec, giving clients confidence in the safety of their funds. Investous also offers their own web trader platform and MetaTrader 4 along with the option to trade more than 270 assets. The following information will help you decide whether to trade with Investous.
Investous at a Glance
| Broker | Investous |
| Regulation | CySec (Cyprus) |
| Minium Initial Deposit |
$250 |
| Demo Account |
Yes |
| Asset Coverage | CFD markets: Forex, Indices, Commodities, Stocks & Cryptocurrencies |
| Leverage | 30:1 Retail & 400:1 Professional |
| Trading Platforms | MetaTrader 4, Web Trader & Mobile App |
Investous License & Regulations
IOS INVESTMENTS Limited operates Investous. IOS INVESTMENTS is a Belize investment firm that the International Financial Services Commission (IFSC) of Belize authorizes and regulates. It has license number IFSC/60/511/TS/17, and its registered address is 5 Cork Street, Belize City, Belize. The company registration number in Belize is 162,664. LEVELTIME SERVICES Limited acts as the payment agent that provides payment services to this company, IOS INVESTMENTS Limited.
It is important to note that IOS INVESTMENTS Limited’s services are not available in Switzerland, the European Economic Area, the USA, British Columbia in Canada, and certain other regions.
Investous also works with six different payment service providers, all of which are regulated. SafeCharge Limited is in Cyprus and regulated by the Central Bank of Cyprus, as is Powercash21Limited. Skrill Limited is located in the United Kingdom and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Credorax is in the United States and regulated by the Malta Financial Services Association. Both Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd and PPRO Group (Payment IQ) are also in the United Kingdom and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Investous Trading Instruments
As mentioned, Investous offers more than 270 assets for clients to trade. These include forex, stocks, commodities, and indices. For convenience, Investous displays the current figures for the top assets on its homepage, including the bid, ask, and percent change, all of which is color-coded in green and red.
This information is divided into four tabs: Top Assets, Forex, Commodities, and Stocks, so you can easily find the information you are looking for.
Investous Account Types
There are four account types available with Investous, with your account based on the size of your deposit. Basic Accounts require a $250 deposit, and Gold Accounts require a $5,000 deposit. Platinum Accounts require a $10,000 deposit, and VIP Accounts require a $50,000 deposit.
All these account types have floating spreads, but their lowest point varies by account top, with the higher accounts offering better spreads. Basic Accounts get floating spreads as low as 2.3 pips for EUR/USD, 2.5 pips for GBP/USD, $0.08 for crude oil, and $0.59 for gold. On Gold Accounts, these floating spreads can be as low as 1.8 pips, 2.2 pips, $0.06, and $0.49, respectively. For Platinum Accounts, they can get down to 1.4 pips, 1.6 pips, $0.05, and $0.39, respectively. The best rates are with a VIP Account, with floating spreads that start at 0.9 pips for EUR/USD, 1.1 pips for GBP/USD, $0.05 for crude oil, and $0.22 for gold.
All account types have 100 percent margin calls and a leverage of up to 1:500. There are differences in terms of the number of free withdrawals each account type receives. Basic Accounts get one free withdrawal, and Gold Accounts get one free withdrawal per month. Platinum Accounts get three free withdrawals per month, and VIP accounts pay no fees on withdrawals.
There are also differences in terms of the educational resources that clients can access based on their account type. All accounts have access to the Daily News, Trading Central, and Trading Central SMS Alerts. Basic Accounts get access to one basic lesson and no webinars. Gold Accounts have access to two basic lessons and one webinar per month. Platinum Accounts can access three advanced lessons and two monthly webinars. Finally, VIP Accounts get access to five advanced lessons and five monthly webinars.
There is not a specific form to fill out if you wish to cancel your Investous account. Instead, you can either email Investous customer support or call to directly speak to your account manager.
Investous Bonuses
To encourage new clients to start using the broker, Investous offers a First Deposit Trading Bonus Scheme. When you open a real trading account, the Bonus Scheme applies for your very first deposit. This bonus includes as much as 50 percent of your first deposit amount of a total of $500, whichever of these two values is lower. To get this bonus, you need to contact your account manager to verify your phone number. It may take as long as 48 hours for the bonus to be applied to your account. It is worth noting that if your trading account becomes inactive for 15 days or more, any opening bonus you received will be canceled.
Investous Account Verification
You do need to verify your account before you can trade with Investous. This is part of the broker’s compliance with AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations. In some cases, you may be able to deposit funds and begin trading without verifying your account, but you will not be able to withdraw funds until you complete this step.
The verification process is intended to confirm that you own the bank account that you connected to Investous. You will need to submit proof of your identity and address. The proof of identity can be any valid government-issued ID that is not expired, such as your driver’s license or passport. The proof of address can be any recent email that is addressed to your name and address, such as your bank statement or a bill from a utility company, given it is dated from within the last six months.
In the case of Investous clients who deposited funds using their credit card, you will also need to submit images of your credit card. This requires an image of each the front and the back of the card. For security, Investous suggests covering all but the final four digits of your credit card.
What Figures Should You Know About Trading Margins?
Regardless of the type of account you have with Investous, the margin call level is 100 percent, and the stop out level will be between 20 percent and 100 percent.
What Is the Maximum Trade Size with Investous?
Those who prefer to trade in larger volumes will want to be familiar with the maximum trade size with Investous. Forex assets have a maximum trading size of either 30 or 10 lots, depending on the currency pair in question. You can view a full list of these in the Legal section of the Investous website.
For stocks, the maximum trade size is 10 lots with a default leverage of 10. For indices, the maximum trade size is three lots and the default leverage is 50 percent of the account leverage. For energy, these figures are 50 lots and 25 to 50 percent of the account leverage. Commodities have a max trade size of 20 lots and a default leverage of 25 percent of the account leverage. Metals are at 100 lots and 50 percent of the account leverage.
Investous Trading Platforms
With Investous, clients can choose to trade using MetaTrader 4 or using a WebTrader. The first of these is among the most popular trading platforms in the world, with a wealth of tools, indicators, and positive reviews. To supplement this, there are numerous resources for using MT4 on various third-party websites. The Investous WebTrader is also highly rated, working right in your browser and designed to be user-friendly.
MetaTrader 4
MetaTrader 4 is an excellent choice for traders of varying skill levels due to its popularity, intuitive use, and range of advanced tools that are available. Within the platform, you will find three different types of charts, more than 50 technical indicators, and the ability to customize the platform personally.
There is a link via the Investous website to easily download the MT4 Desktop Client. Due to the popularity of MetaTrader 4, there are also variations of MT4 for other devices, including Android and iOS, which should also be compatible with Investous trading.
Investous Web Trader
You can view the Investous Web Trader without logging in or creating an account by selecting Trade in the main navigation bar. This will take you to the Web Trader, which is well designed and clean looking.
On the left third or so of the screen, you will see a list of assets. Next to each is the bid price, ask price, percent change, and high/low. The changes are all color coded either red or green, so you can visually sort them out at a glance. In the top-left corner of this section, there is a search bar and the option to filter. You can use this to search for any particular asset that you want to trade or view.
Alternatively, you can filter the type of assets that you view. The default is All Assets. However, you can check the individual boxes for forex, cryptocurrencies, commodities, indices, and stocks. There is also the ability to check a box and just view your favorites. Unfortunately, you will need to make two clicks to add an asset to your favorites, as you cannot do it from this asset list section of the page. Instead, you must first click on the asset, so it appears on the graph on the right two-thirds of the page. Just to the left of the asset name, you will see a star. Click this to add it to your favorites.
As mentioned, the graph is on the right side of the page, taking up between half and two-thirds of the screen. By default, the graph is hidden on smaller width screens, with the trading ticket screen displayed instead. Adjust the asset displayed by selecting the appropriate one from the left-most section of the Web Trader.
Once you have, you can place a trade by adjusting the volume in lots. You will see the sell and buy prices, as well as the spread and pip value in dollars. There are additional options via checkboxes. These include the ability to open the trade when it reaches a certain point, to close at a loss, or to close at a profit.
To view the graph, click on “Show Graph” directly to the right of this asset name. Below the graph, you will see a list of your trades. The default displays your open trades, but you can adjust this to display your orders, trade history, the economic calendar, or the daily market update. For the open trades, you will see information, such as the trade number, opening time, symbol, lots, and type of trade.
Investous Trading Charts
The default graph on the Investous Web Trader is a candlestick chart with color-coded bars in red and green to indicate rises and falls. In the upper-right corner directly above the graph, you will see the current date and time. The default intervals along the horizontal axis are 45 minutes, with the graph displaying 10 of these intervals. Along the vertical axis, you will see the value of the asset, with the intervals varying by asset.
To the top of the graph, you will see figures for open, high, low, and close. If you hover over any point on the graph, you will see the specific date and time of that point, as well as the value of the asset at the time, complete with color coding in red or green.
Directly to the left of the graph within the same section, you will see a green and red bar. This indicates whether most Investous clients are currently buying or selling the asset. You can use the bar as a visual representation or hover over the “i” below it to see the percentage distribution in numbers.
On the top-left corner of the graph, just below the asset name, you will find various options to adjust and customize the graph. Click on the three dots to switch between graph types, including candlesticks, Heikin-Ashi, HLC, line, area, and dots. Below these options within the same drop-down menu, you can adjust the intervals for each candlestick. Options include 1, 5, 15, and 30 minutes or hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly. Under this, you can zoom in, out, left, or right. This is followed by viewing all or default zoom.
From there, you can find more advanced options, including the pointer, the ability to delete selected or all shapes or studies, and the ability to duplicate a shape. Below this is a vast array of drawing tools, including rays, extended lines, horizontal lines, measures, parallel lines, arrows, trend lines, rectangles, ellipses, circles, arcs, polygons, triangles, and text.
Below this, you will find more advanced tools, including Fibonacci retracements, fans, arcs, time zones, and extensions. You also can use Gann fans, Gann squares, time-extensions, cycle lines, and linear regressions. All the way at the bottom of this drop-down menu is the Indicators Wizard. The drop-down menu includes everything most traders (of all skill levels) will want in terms of tools and drawing. The only downside is that it is a single drop-down menu, which translates into extra scrolling if you want to use a tool that is further down.
Opening the Indicators Wizard gives you dozens of indicators to choose from to help with your analysis. They are divided into oscillators, trend, customize, and Bill Williams. You can also favorite indicators if you prefer.
Immediately below the three dots you use to access that drop-down menu, you will see a settings symbol. Selecting this opens a window that lets you adjust the general properties of the graph. Near the top, there is a chart type drop-down menu, so you can adjust between candlesticks, hollow candlesticks, Heikin-Ashi, HLC, OHLC, dots, line, area, lines and dots, histogram, and columns. Below this, you can adjust the colors for the various parts of your graph. In the case of candlesticks, for example, you can change the colors for up, down, and flat for both the candles and the border, as well as the color for the wick.
Investous Commissions
Clients of Investous do not need to pay any commission fees. Instead, Investous makes its profit in other ways, such as the spread.
Investous Deposits
Investous makes it easy to deposit funds into your account. You can do so via credit card, wire transfer, or electronic payments. Depositing with an electronic payment or credit card will be quicker than a wire transfer. A wire transfer may take as long as 10 business days to arrive in your account.
When making your deposit, keep in mind that Investous accepts deposits in U.S. dollars (USD), British pounds (GBP), euros (EUR), and Russian rubles (RUB).
| Minimum Deposit | Maximum Daily Deposit | Maximum Monthly Deposit | |
| Credit Card | $250/€250/£250/ руб 10,000 | $/€/£ 10,000 | $/€/£40,000 |
| Electronic Payment (Skrill) | $250/€250/£250/ руб 10,000 | $/€/£ 10,000 | $/€/£40,000 |
| Wire Transfer | $1000/€1000/£1000 | $/€/£ 10,000 | $/€/£40,000 |
When you deposit with a credit card, you can do so with a Visa, Mastercard, or Discover Card. There is a minimum deposit of $250/€250/£250/ руб 10,000, a maximum daily deposit of $/€/£ 10,000, and a maximum monthly deposit of $/€/£ 40,000 for this method.
In terms of electronic payments, Investous uses Skrill for its online payment services to take advantage of a lack of additional fees. This method has identical minimum deposits, maximum daily deposits, and maximum monthly deposits as credit card deposits.
Wire transfers have a minimum deposit of $/€/£ 1,000, a maximum daily deposit of $/€/£ 10,000, and a maximum monthly deposit of $/€/£ 40,000.
Investous Withdrawals
Investous aims to make it simple to withdraw funds. There are multiple methods of doing so, many of which are safe. To withdraw, just log into your account and select “Withdrawal” instead of “Deposit.”
There is a minimum withdrawal amount of $10 or its equivalent. Keep in mind that you must withdraw your funds via the method that you deposited them. In the case of a deposit made via a credit card, if you want to withdraw more than the initial deposit, the remaining balance will get transferred via wire transfer. If you originally deposited with a credit card, you will also need to provide images of the front and back of the credit card that was used.
Additionally, Investous has requirements in terms of account verification before you can withdraw. These allow Investous to meet Know Your Customer (KYC) standards and comply with the international regulations for Anti-Money Laundering (AML). To verify your account, you will need an official ID issued by the government that contains your photo. Examples include your passport or driver’s license. You will also need to provide proof of your address. This can be any official mail, like a utility bill or bank statement from the past six months, assuming it includes your current address and name.
Can You Check the Status of a Deposit or Withdrawal?
For transparency, Investous makes it quite easy to check on the status of your withdrawal or deposit at any time. To do so, log into your account and then visit your Banking page. From there, select Pending Requests. This will display a list of all pending withdrawals and deposits. If you see a transaction on this list, that indicates that it is still in progress but should be finished very soon.
Can You See Past Deposits and Withdrawals?
Once a withdrawal or deposit finalizes, it will leave the list of Pending Requests and go to your History. This tab is found on your Banking page and shows all of your past withdrawals and deposits. For each transaction, you can see the date that it was completed as well as details, like the quantity.
Investous Deposit Fees
There are no deposit fees charged by Investous. This policy helps encourage the use of the broker’s platform.
Investous Withdrawal Fees
Investous does charge a withdrawal fee, which varies based on the currency and payment method. In most cases, the withdrawal fee for credit and debit cards is 3.5 percent which is quite high.
Wire transfer fees depend on currency and include 20 CHF, 3,000 JPY, 30 USD, 24 EUR, 182 CNY, 20 GBP, or 1,800 RUB. Withdrawals completed via e-wallets also charge percentage-based fees, including 3.5 percent for Neteller, 2 percent for Perfect Money or Moneybookers (Skrill), 3.5 percent for Qiwi, and 0.9 percent for Webmoney.
This information is slightly different than the withdrawal fees listed on the Withdrawals page of the Investous website. There, it indicates that those with Basic, Silver, or Gold Accounts pay a withdrawal fee of 35 USD/EUR/GBP/CHF or 2,500 RUB. Those with Platinum or Diamond Accounts do not have to pay any withdrawal fees. This page also lists credit card withdrawal fees of 3.5 percent, electronic payment fees of 2 percent, and wire transfer fees of 35 USD/EUR/GBP.
| Basic Account | Silver Account | Gold Account | Platinum Account | Diamond Account | |
| USD/EUR/GBP/CHF | 35 | 35 | 35 | Free | Free |
| RUB | 2,500 | 2,500 | 2,500 | Free | Free |
It is important to note that there are also specific circumstances in which Investous may charge a withdrawal fee of 50 EUR or its equivalent in the account currency. This may happen if there has been no trading activity or just a single position on the account before the withdrawal request. It may also apply if the client cannot provide the necessary documents or information to verify their identity. Finally, this larger fee may apply if the client cannot supply that information or documentation and Investous chooses to process a refund for that reason.
Investous Inactivity Fees
There is an inactivity fee for Investous account holders who have not been active for at least a month. This is common practice among brokers to ensure that they receive fair compensation for their services. The inactivity fees are charged monthly based on the period that the client has not been active. The fees are expressed in EUR but can also be charged in the equivalent amount of the client’s currency, based on the day’s exchange rate.
There is no inactivity fee for the first month without activity. Between one and two months, the fee is 10 EUR. Between two and three months, it becomes 80 EUR. Between three and six months, the fee increases to 120 EUR. For accounts that are inactive for more than six months, the inactivity fee reaches 200 EUR. This means that anyone considering using Investous should ensure that they will have an active account to avoid massive inactivity fees.
Investous Economic Calendar
As expected from a broker, Investous has an economic calendar on its website. This is an especially useful feature for traders who want to stay on top of the latest events that can affect the market. For each event on the economic calendar, you can see the data, currency, message, impact, forecast, actual, and previous figures. By default, the economic calendar is set to show All, but you can change it to display just events for a particular day of the week using tabs at the top.
On the top-right corner of the economic calendar, you will find three dots. Clicking on this provides you with filter options. You can adjust your time zone, filter by importance, or filter by the currency impacted. With these filters, there is no concern about getting overwhelmed by the information displayed.
Investous Educational Resources
Investous prides itself on offering a range of educational resources for clients of all skill levels. It is important to note that while Investous does have many resources available, not all of them are available to all account holders. Those with smaller deposits will only have access to a limited range of resources. While the practice of offering additional resources to accounts with higher deposits is common, it is not typically done to the extent of Investous. You can see additional information on the differences in educational resource access in the Account section.
One of the resources Investous offers to all clients is a glossary that includes dozens of key terms of CFDs and forex trading, each of which is described concisely in a way that should be easy for the average person to understand.
There is also a specific section of the website dedicated to explaining technical analysis. It gives an overview of what technical analysis is and what it involves. It then explains (in brief) how to use technical indicators. It also explains moving averages, Fibonacci retracements, and the relative strength index (RSI).
There is a similar page dedicated to fundamental analysis. It explains the goals of this type of analysis and both why and how to use it. For both technical and fundamental analysis, the explanations in the education center of Investous do not provide examples with graphs, something that would likely make the information more useful.
Another section of the educational page on Investous covers leverage and margins. It provides brief explanations of both things, as well as a quick overview of trading with leverage that includes an example. It then explains a margin call, including its purpose and how it works.
There is also an extensive video section on Investous, which is worth mentioning separately. You will also find a separate section on specific assets that is not part of the Education Center. To access this, visit the CFD tab on the main navigation menu.
Educational Videos
As mentioned, Investous has a nice section of videos, labeled VOD or Videos on Demand. These are divided into the categories of Forex Intro, Forex Beginners, and Forex Intermediate. At the time of writing, there are 20 Forex Intro videos. The topics include the types of orders, pending orders, pips, long and short, trend, market analysis types, currency pairs, and distributing risks.
There are four Forex Beginners’ videos, including Glossary of Concepts, Types of Orders, The Forex Market, and Basic Forex Terms. The Forex Intermediate section includes six videos: Advanced Technical Analysis, Market Analysis, Basic Technical Analysis, Trading Psychology, Capital Management, and the World of Global Trading.
Information about CFDs and Other Assets
When you click on CFD in the main navigation menu of the Investous website, you will see a drop-down menu with the types of assets and other related information. The CFD page is an introduction to CFD trading, including sections on how to calculate your returns and losses with CFDs, as well as how to “reap the rewards” of CFDs. Of course, there is a risk warning at the bottom of this page.
The page dedicated to forex provides a similar amount of explanation, acting as an introducing to forex and trading this type of asset. There are sections dedicated to trading forex and CFDs with leverage and the benefits of trading forex or CFDs, once again with the risk warning.
The page for commodities introduces this type of asset, providing examples and giving a quick overview of some factors affecting their prices. There are then sections on past and futures and commodities contracts. There is also a mention of the ability to trade CFDs for commodities.
The page dedicated to stocks explains the concept of stocks and how they work in general. It also goes through a brief history of this type of asset and has an overview of trading CFDs for stocks.
The final asset type with its own informational page is indices. In addition to the quick explanation of what indices are, the page includes sections for benchmarking performance and incorporating indices into CFD trading.
Investous Trading Strategies
In the same CFD section of the main navigation menu, Investous offers advice for developing a trading strategy. The page titled CFD Trading Strategies goes into a fair amount of detail, emphasizing the importance of both technical and fundamental analysis. There is a section dedicated to technical analysis for CFDs, including an overview of three common methods: Fibonacci retracements, relative strength index, and moving averages. This is followed by a section on fundamental analysis for CFDs.
The latter portion of this Investous page provides a range of tips for traders to follow if they want to be successful. Each comes with a paragraph of explanation in more detail. The tips include using leverage responsibly, using take-profit and stop-loss tools, and combining technical and fundamental analysis.
There is a similar page in the same CFD navigation bar dedicated to Forex CFDs Trading Strategies. This page guides you through choosing between a short-, medium-, or long-term trading horizon before moving into technical and fundamental analysis of CFDs and forex. The technical analysis section includes a closer look at moving averages, relative strength index, and trend lines.
As with the CFD Trading Strategies page, this one for Forex and CFDs finishes up with detailed tips. These include creating a game plan, setting alerts and using risk management tools, and staying informed.
Investous FAQ Section
Investous does have a frequently asked questions section, but it is smaller than that of many competitors. You will find answers to common questions regarding your account, deposits and withdrawals, and more. The FAQ section also includes information on what to do if this section does not have the answer to your question.
While the FAQ page from Investous is informational, many competitors have more in-depth FAQs. This may lead to more confusion among Investous clients, as well as the potential for longer wait times when contacting support.
Investous Customer Support
There are many methods available to contact Investous customer support. You can open a live chat, email, or call. The live chat is available in the bottom right corner of every page on the website via a floating button.
The chat starts you off with a range of topics to choose from: Opening an Account, Deposit, My Account, Verification process/documents, Withdrawals, Trade, and Other. You can select one of these and get assistance very easily via the chatbot. If necessary, you can also live chat with a human.
Alternatively, you can click on the floating phone icon on the right side of the page to get to the Contact Us page. This will take you to the online contact form to fill out or provide you with the email address to send a message to for assistance.
Is Investous Safe?
Due to its regulation, you can trust that Investous follows best practices for the security of client funds. After all, the IFSC would not continue to authorize the broker if this were not the case.
To protect funds and information, Investous follows very high standards for firewalls, security systems, and data encryption. The result is safe personal information and funds. For further security, the platform has protection via Secure Socket Layer protocols, including both ClickSSL and Thawte. It also has defenses against breaches or attacks, such as DDoS.
Investous Awards
Even with its relatively brief history, Investous has already managed to earn several awards. These include both Best Trading Platform 2018 and Best Execution Broker 2018 from the Forex Awards. Therefore, clients can trust that they will have a positive trading experience that includes an intuitive and useful trading platform.
Conclusion
Investous offers access to more than 270 tradable assets, including indices, stocks, commodities, and forex. The broker has its own Web Trader that does not require a download, or you can use MetaTrader 4.
Investous offers multiple types of accounts depending on the deposit amount, with increasing access to educational resources and lower fees on higher account levels.
The website is available in English, Arabic, Polish, and Spanish. Investous has its official address in Belize, making it regulated by the International Financial Services Commission of Belize.
Investous is still a relatively new broker in a competitive field, but it appears to have the potential to compete with others. As it stands, Investous is worthy of consideration or at least trying a free demo account.
Some issues with Investous are their relatively high spreads and low leverage for retail traders, their withdrawal fees are also particularly high so that’s something you will need to watch out for.
Positives are the fact that they are well regulated, by CySec which requires companies to hold €730,000 in reserve to cover their clients, this should give you peace of mind when choosing Investous.
Even though, Investous is a newer broker, the company behind them is not. They also operate the 24option website which we have also covered here on Blockonomi before.
The post Beginner’s Guide to Investous: Complete Review appeared first on Blockonomi.
March 08, 2019 at 11:30AM https://blockonomi.com from Blockonomi https://ift.tt/2H6EPKO
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