Overall Rating = 4.8/10 – Reviewed on Oct 1st, 2011 (Low rating due to platform issues) – Pending update in the future when/if I do a bank wire or if their platform improves.
Deposit: Rating – 8/10
I deposited via credit card like most other brokers, they all accept major credit cards. This doesn’t really matter, all the brokers are the same in this category. You start trading instantly as soon as you deposit. The other 2 brokers got 8/10 on this as well; the only broker that will get a 10/10 is the one who accepts PayPal. PayPal is tailored more towards North America vs. Money Bookers is for Europe/Asia, or at least that’s how I see it.
Platform: Rating – 2/10
Trade Amounts: They pretty much combined StartOptions (SO) and BBinary (BB) together. Their normal options (which I don’t trade) use the entry field like BB whereas their 60 second options uses a drop down menu like SO (I only traded these here). This is good, if you’re entering 60 second options, you don’t have the time to enter the amounts each time. Since it’s a drop down menu, I don’t have a problem with fixed trades, max is $100. I doubt anyone would want to risk more than that in 1 minute anyways.
Trade Entry/Expiry: Varies thru out the 250+ trades that I made. Sometimes, it lags on the entry or the exit. Apparently, from what I’ve been told, they have now added a confirmation screen on the entry price (exactly like BB I’m assuming).
Why this is THE MOST IMPORTANT issue: You’re trading SIXTY second options, if it lags 2-5 seconds, that’s already affecting your trade. Let’s say you see price at 1.0160 enter a call, lags 2-5 seconds, you enter at 1.0165, 60 seconds later, it’s at 1.0164 but just 2-5 seconds earlier, it was still at 1.0167. The example goes both ways for entries and exits. And yes, I’m fully aware that this lag name is “normal” for the industry, but if you’re going to offer 60 second options, make sure you can give pinpoint instant entries. Everyone knows that in a split second price can change by so many pips. Time is just as important as price.
As for the new addition of the confirmation screen, that doesn’t affect my decision that much. I haven’t tried it yet, but if anything. It’ll affect the dynamics of the trading experience, not the accuracy that much. When I logon to trade 60 seconds, I want to press start; 60 seconds later get/lose my money. If I have to confirm a price, it’d mess up the dynamics. Making 10 trades in 5 minutes would drop down to maybe 5 instead, that extra couple seconds to click confirm is just as bad as trade entry/exit lag.
Price Quotes: Rating – 2/10
Based on how I’ve reviewed other brokers, this section is based on entry and exit prices. Given the lag, entry and exit prices are messed up along with any price spreads. The algorithm they use (if they have one) is a variable price spread on your entry/exit point. I’ve seen my trades lose or win by 1-3 pips difference from real price, losing more than winning of course. Entry and exit prices given the lag will just be different because you’re not entering or exiting when you’re supposed to. The spread here is not in the price but in the time, time spread is a problem for 60 second options.
Withdrawal: Rating – 8/10
This is the first positive withdrawal rating that I’ve given. This rating will be updated in the future after I try a bank wire withdrawal. But in my books, 6 days is pretty fast compared to SO’s 11 days. The good thing with TR, is that they request your personal info, ID, etc ahead of time (usually a few days after you deposit) so that when you withdraw, it’s faster. No need for confirmation time, just processing time.
“Live” Chat / Support: Rating – 4/10
Note: I’ve had 3 encounters with their team or maybe just 2 since apparently; marketing is a separate unit and does not represent them in anyway. Once on the phone with a service rep (whom was requested to call me by the marketing guy). Once on the live chat in the morning. Plus, one more encounter when the same marketing guy came onto the chat on BinaryOptionsDaily and the room full of traders at that time bombarded him with questions.
One word to describe the experience, would be uneducated? Based solely on the encounters that I had with them, which was near the beginning of my trading period, they were for the most part uneducated. Didn’t know that much about the technicalities behind the trading platofmr, liquidity, etc. The last encounter was on the live chat service rep, the whole conversation lasted 30 minutes on live chat. I played a dumbass and asked stupid questions to see how educated the guy was. Not very. I basically just asked questions from their Q&A section. I’m pretty sure I was the only person in chat at that time, since the trade entrys for that day was consecutively all mine. The only reason I can think of for him taking long to reply was he had to a) ask his superior or b) look up the info himself.
Final Notes:
I started trading with them on Aug 25th, 2011 all the way till Sept 22nd, 2011. I didn’t “stop” per say, the account is still there, it’s active, everything left in the account is my profit which I don’t plan to withdraw until I make enough to make it worthwhile to pay the $25 bank wire fee to withdraw.
At this point in time, I’m still in the green (profits), so this review is in no way a bitter response towards them. Every trader in the world will agree with this, when you trade, you want the best/smoothest/no bullshit platform. Because hiccups will screw up your mentality and irritate you. If you frequent the chat on BinaryOptionsDaily, through out my 250+ trades, on multiple occasions, members would see me come on to rant or complain about lags and how it screws up my trading. Platform issues is a stupid reason to lose a trade, if I lose a trade I want it to be MY fault for reading the chart wrong, not the platform.
As a broker, TradeRush is no different from any other broker. I’m sure they’re (for the most part) run by “honest” people. The problem with them is their platform, it’s so slow and laggy. They’re the first ones on the market to offer 60 second binary options, so kudos to them for that. But they didn’t back it up with a good platform.
TradeRush is not a bad broker; just their platform needs some work/improvement. Until that day comes along, I see no reason to use them unless you like gambling with 60 second binary options.
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Comments from another veteran trader / friend of mine, the legendary binary option trader CherryCoke from HSM/BOD
“I opened an account with TR the same time with Brian. At that moment, TR stands out in the industry as the only full-fledged binary broker that offers 60secs binary options expiry window.
And with Brian, i too experienced the much less than desired trading experience with regards to those 60 secs options. Platform performance is the main issue. Online support chat was only available during the first few days of my sign-up. Emails were replied after a week (as laggy as their options LOL !)
When TR introduced 60 secs on their site, it was obvious that its a boon to them. Gathered a lot of attention (and business as well). And over time, the platform was obviously not able to cope with the bandwidth of users trading the 60 secs which resulted such poor reviews among traders.
So the boon of the site has become the bane. No one will remember TR for being the excellent binary options trading site simply because they are not offering anything more than other competitors in the industry. But now that their “trump card”, 60 secs is failing them. The users, all the more would not even bother continue with a broker which cant even have a stable platform that can guarantee the “smoothness”, “efficient” and a “reliable” trading experience.
And these are just the rudimentary criteria for any binary platform. I would like to see if TR’s future would be as “short” as their 60secs binary options.”