Forex spot and contracts for difference (CFD) are popular financial instruments among day traders and investors. Today, it is estimated that millions of people are trading these assets around the world. In this article, we will compare IG Markets and Galileo FX, which are leading platforms in their ecosystem.
What is IG Markets?
IG Markets is a company owned by IG Group. It is one of the biggest forex and CFD brokers in the world. Its annual report showed that it has more than 216,000 customers globally. IG Group is also one of several publicly traded companies.
It is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), giving it a market capitalization of more than 3.45 billion pounds. The financial results show that it generated more than £853 million in the financial year 2021 and a net income of over £371 million. It is also a highly generous company in terms of dividends considering that it has a yield of about 5%.
IG Group is a large company that operates a number of brands. Its flagship one is known as simply IG. The other brands are IG Prime, TastyTrade, TastyWorks, DailyFx, Nadex, Raydius, and Spectrum. The company decided to sell its Nadex business to Crypto.com in 2021.
What is Galileo FX?
Galileo FX is a company that is significantly different from IG Markets. It is a company that provides an automated bot that can execute trades for its customers.
For starters, a bot, also known as an expert advisor, is a \piece of software that automates the trading process. It is created through a combination of software development and trading experience. For example, if you are a trader who focuses on MACD crossovers, you can create a bot that opens trades when these crossovers happen.
To do that, you will need to have some experience in software development. Since most traders don’t have this experience, they usually turn to custom-made bots like Galileo FX.
Unlike IG Markets, Galileo FX is a small company based on the number of website visits. According to SimilarWeb, it had around 56.6k visitors in November 2021. In contrast, IG had more than 12.9 million in the same period.
How Galileo FX works
Galileo FX, like other bots, works in a simple way. The developers have created a piece of software based on their proprietary trading technologies. It is not clear which strategies that they have incorporated in their bots. After this, they have added the bot on their website, where people can buy it. After buying, you can then add the software to your trading platform. The compatible trading platforms are MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.
Forex robots use two pricing methods. Some of them use a subscription model where you pay a certain amount per month. The others use a fixed payment method, where they charge a fixed amount in perpetuity. Galileo FX uses the latter option in which has three options.
The first option goes for $219 and allows one to make up to $1,000 per month. The other option costs $549 and allows one to make about $5,000 per month. The most premium package goes for $989. The final package has no limit on the amount of money you can make.
After installing the software, it will automatically open and close trades for you. Still, like all other bots, the profitability potential is not guaranteed because market conditions change.
Galileo FX vs IG Markets: Pros
With the above descriptions, it is clear that comparing Galileo FX and IG Markets is a bit complicated since the two companies operate in different areas in the market. While IG is a broker, Galileo FX is an add-on that can be added in MT4 and MT5. It is even compatible with IG.
There are a number of reasons why IG Markets is a good forex and CFD broker. First, because of its size and financial position, it is a stable company that you can be assured about. This is an important factor since established and stable brokers are always better than those that have been in the business for a short period.
Second, the company offers more assets than most popular brokers. Broadly, its offerings are forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and stocks. In addition to these, the company offers other assets like bonds, interest rates, options, sectoral indices, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and knock-outs. In total, the company offers more than 17,000 instruments. This is a higher number than what most forex and CFD brokers offer.
Third, the company has services that differentiate its offers from those of other forex brokers. For example, IG is one of the few brokers that offer 24/7 trading for some of its products.
Fourth, IG Markets offers several trading platforms in addition to MetaTrader 4 and 5. These options are the desktop and mobile versions of the ProRealTime tool.
Turning to the Galileo FX, there are a number of positive factors. For example, the robot is compatible with both MT4 and MT5, making it ideal for most traders. Second, it is a robot that is relatively easy to use. All you need to do is to download and install it on your trading platform. Finally, it has some good reviews from its customers.
Still, I would recommend some caution when using Galileo FX. For one, it is unclear who developed the robot since the website features no such information. Also, unlike most robots, it is not configured with MyFxBook well. This means that the data available on this platform is not all that accurate. As shown below, the available analytics are for 2020.
Finally, it does not offer a free trial, meaning that you cannot test it before you buy it. This is usually a popular red flag when you are using a robot to trade.
Final thoughts
IG Markets is one of the biggest financial companies in the UK. In this article, we have identified some of its top features and its pros. Similarly, we have identified the pros and cons of using Galileo FX, a forex robot.
