BlackStone Futures Review 2020

BlackStone Futures is a good FSCA regulated Forex Broker for beginners in South Africa. They have low minimum deposit, not too high spread, multi device platforms & fair customer support. Read our honest BlackStone Futures Review to find out why you should or should not choose them!

BlackStone Futures is a STP forex broker that started its operations in 2009. They are representative of Trade Nation (Pty) Limited, which is regulated by the FSCA under FSP No. 49846, so they are considered safe for South African traders.

BlackStone Futures currently offer three types of accounts. A demo account for those who are looking to learn how to trade, a dedicated ZAR account for South African traders, and a USD account for those looking to trade using the USD as a base currency.

BlackStone Futures offer a choice between using MetaTrader 4 or their CloudTrade platforms. You can choose to trade from a selection of more than 750 financial instruments. These include currencies, commodities, equities, cryptocurrencies, energy, futures, metals, and indices. The total number of forex pairs available is 32.

They offer competitive spreads and have overall good customer support.

BlackStone Futures – a quick look

Regulation and safety of funds

Here is a breakdown of the regulations under which BlackStone Futures are regulated:

1. FSCA (Financial Sector Conduct Authority): BlackStone Futures is appointed representative of Trade Nation (Pty) Limited, which is authorized by the FSCA since 05/02/2019. They hold the license number FSP #49846.

South African traders at BlackStone Futures are registered under the FSCA regulator. Since they are locally regulated, we consider them relatively safe to trade with.

BlackStone Futures Trading Fees

The trading fees at BlackStone Futures is not that high if you compare with some other brokers. The only fees they is charge is in the form of spread for each trade that you conduct.

1. Variable Spread that is not too high: The spread various depending on financial instruments that you may want to trade with. Spreads are also subject to change depending on the time of entering the trade.

   However, as a ballpark figure, you should know the minimum spread that they charge for trading the benchmark EUR/USD currency pair. For EUR/USD, BlackStone Futures charges a minimum spread of 0.6 pips. The average spread that they charge for this currency pair is around 2 pips.

   This is higher than average when compared to other brokers in the industry


2. Trading Commission(s): It is important to note that BlackStone Futures does not charge any commission on your trades on both the account types. This makes it cheaper than several other forex brokers that charge a commission.
3. Hidden Fees & Terms: A broker may also charge hidden fees (Fees that you are not aware of before registering with the broker) in the form of deposit or withdrawal fees or inactivity fee.

   BlackStone Futures does not charge any fee on deposit or withdrawal, this makes them a more beginner-friendly broker.

   They also do not charge any inactivity fee. However, if you have not placed any ST transaction or Order in your account for a period of 90 days, then they may remove any bonuses or credit that they have applied to your account.

Overall in terms of trading fees, BlackStone Futures is an affordable broker to trade with since they do not charge any commission or hidden fees. They also charge relatively tight spreads which is not the lowest but still not too high.

BlackStone Futures Account Types

BlackStone Futures offers a Demo Account & 2 Live Account types to their customers. We have compared the features with all their account types.

BlackStone Futures Demo Account

BlackStone Futures offers a demo account for those who are new to trading. This demo account will give you a chance to practice & gain trading experience without any money risk. You will not be able to trade with real money through this account.

BlackStone Futures Live Account Types

BlackStone offers 2 Account Types i.e. a ZAR account and a USD account. As evident from the names of these types of accounts, the ZAR account uses ZAR as a base currency whereas the USD account uses the USD as a base currency.

#1 BlackStone Futures USD Account – Overall, it is advisable that you use the USD account only if you are an experienced trader and have a high deposit value. A USD account can work to your advantage if you get a better currency rate while depositing and withdrawing money from your account.

However, remember that this can also work to your disadvantage. Hence, you need to be careful about when you deposit and withdraw your money.

#2 BlackStone Futures ZAR Account – The advantages to trading with a ZAR account broker is that you can frequently deposit and withdraw your money without any exchange risk. You also get to trade with a lower risk factor, and you can make smaller deposits.

BlackStone Futures Trading Instruments

BlackStone Futures offers Forex & CFD trading on multiple instruments & you have the option of trading with a wide range of financial instruments. This includes CFDs on forex, cryptocurrencies, indices, stocks, commodities, futures, and metals.

Their number of currency pairs are limited i.e. only 34 in comparison to most other CFD brokers in South Africa. In comparison, Hotforex offers 50 Forex Pairs & Plus500 offers CFD trading on 71 currency pairs.

They offer cryptocurrencies which a number of forex brokers in South Africa do not. They also offer you the chance to take part in a variety of equity markets including CFDs on stocks from the US, UK, and Europe.

However, overall the number of financial instruments that they offer is low compared to other brokers. They do not have a wide range of currencies on offer and the number of commodities is also low.

Type of Instrument	Available
Forex Pairs	34
CFDs on Equities	4 Markets – SA, UK, US, and European
CFDs on Indices	19
CFDs on Commodities	12
CFDs on Cryptos	11

BlackStone Futures Platforms

Through BlackStone Futures, you have the option of mobile trading, web trading, or desktop trading, or a combination of the above. They use a third-party platform called MetaTrader 4 which is one of the most popular trading platforms in the world.

#1 BlackStone Futures Web Trading Platform – The web trading platform offered by MetaTrader 4 can quickly be customized to suit your requirements. However, the web trading platform does not have a two-step authorization process and does not provide price alerts. It does provide a fee report and is available in a number of languages.

#2 BlackStone Futures Mobile App – The mobile trading platform offered by MetaTrader 4 is easy to use and has a good search function. You can also change it to provide price alerts on the go. This trading platform does not provide any order confirmation and does not have a two-step authorization process.

#3 BlackStone Futures Desktop Trading Platform – The desktop version of Metatrader is quite similar to the browser or web-based platform. Most of the features are common between the two. However, in the desktop version, you can get price alerts which are not available in the web version. This platform also does not ask for two-step authorization. This can be a security risk for your account.

The MT4 is a standard platform and is widely used. You will get an above average trading experience if you use this platform.

In addition to the MT4, BlackStone Futures also has its own proprietary trading platform called the CloudTrade. The CloudTrade is available on both website browsers and Android and iOS mobile operating systems. However, it is not available as a desktop version.

CloudTrade also offers a range of features. These features include instant order execution, different types of resting orders, guaranteed stop loss, multiple asset classes, fixed spreads, and so on.

It is worth noting that BlackStone Futures does not offer the MetaTrader 5.

Overall, the trading platform experience delivered by BlackStone is market standard and you have multiple options to cater to your needs.

BlackStone Futures Bonus

BlackStone Futures currently has an ongoing promotion of 30% deposit bonus for first time depositors. The minimum deposit required for this bonus is ZAR 1000.

We did not find any end date for this promo on their website. There are also some other brokers that are offering similar forex deposit bonus offers for new customers.

BlackStone Futures Customer Support

BlackStone Future’s customer support is fairly good when compared to most other similar forex brokers, although it is not the best. You can avail customer support through a range of mediums which are live chat, email, and phone. They also have a local South African office where you can reach them.

Support at BlackStone Futures is available via following methods:

1. Live Chat – Customer support through live chat is available only on working days and during working hours. They do not offer 24*7 customer support through live chat.

   However, they provide quick and helpful answers when contacted through live chat.

2. Email – When getting in touch with them through email (enquiries[at]blackstonefutures.co.za), you can expect a response within two hours on weekdays. This period may be considerably longer on weekends or on odd hours.
3. Phone – They have a local South African number which you can call for customer support or for trading desk queries. This is better than a lot of forex brokers that do not have a local South African number.
4. South African Office – If you need in-person customer support, they have a local address & South African office. This office is located in Rosebank, South Africa.

Even though they do not have 24*7 customer support, we found their customer support teams are responsive and somewhat helpful.

Do We Recommend BlackStone Futures?

We consider BlackStone Futures to be a moderately good broker for traders in South Africa. They are considered to be a safe broker to deal with – considering the fact that they are representatives of a FSCA regulated broker.

The spreads at BlackStone Futures are not too high and do not charge any commission on fees. Also, They also do not have any hidden fees such as for making a deposit or a withdrawal. And they offer an account type with ZAR as the base currency, which is rare.

Plus, they are a STP broker which may give you a better trading experience than market maker brokers. They offer negative balance protection so that you do not lose more money than your account balance.

However, on the downside even though BlackStone Futures offer wide range of financial instruments, the number of instruments available in each category is very limited. They do not offer many currency pairs for you to trade with. Moreover, they do not have 24*7 chat support which some other forex brokers offer.

The investor education section that they have is also quite limited compared to the education offered by several other brokers.

There are a lot of things that can be improved at BlactStone Futures. But you can give them a try if you are looking to trade with a ZAR Account broker.

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