1. What is your name and position?

My name is Angelo Ciavarella and I’m currently heading the Italian Desk at ActivTrades

2. What is your professional background?

Actually, I do have a very unusual background.. I’m a lawyer with a huge passion for the financial markets, ever since I was at school. That’s the main reason that brought me to the US, to attain a Masters in International Economics at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. I then started working as a trader and I was able to win some trading competitions in Italy mainly on futures and stocks. After this extremely valuable experience, I joined E*TRADE as an International Relationship Manager with the duty to look after the top clients. Then in 2009 I had the opportunity to meet ActivTrades and was immediately fascinated by its project to expand the business in the Forex World.

3. Who are your targeted audience?

Our main audience is the retail market, meaning independent traders, people interested in the trading world as such. However, we have become pretty structured in order to take on board Institutional Clients, Money Managers and Big Trading Houses also.

4. Is your main focus of your business online or offline?

Being an online company our main focus is clearly the online business. But we are also very active in the off line as we understand the importance of education in this industry and the physical presence in the country we target. In fact, we are present in all the Trading Shows and we organize seminars in the main cities. In this respect, we’re about to open our first office abroad in Milan which should be officially be up and running mid September in a wonderful location nearby the Fashion Movida of the city.

5. Why should a trader choose YOU over another broker?

We do offer a variety of advantages for our clients. First, we are a London based broker regulated by the Financial Service Authority, which means we take under serious consideration the protection of client money. Talking about the business itself we give the powerful Forex trading technology of Metatrader 4 and Metatrader 5 to all our clients. Also we have built up Add-ons for our trading platforms tailored to our client needs: SmartOrder and SmartChart. We have launched the Autochartist free news and are about to launch a VIP Research service available to all our customers, as well as Free Webinars and Seminars.

6. What advice do you have for someone who is just starting to trade the Forex market?

Well, I would definitely advise to study the Forex Market by reading not only technical analysis books, but also trying to understand the dynamics that regulate this market, which is the most traded and liquid market in the world. The second part of advice would be to use the leverage cum grano salis and start off in a very prudential way in order not to burn the cash in a few working trades.

7. How different is the Forex market today from what it was 2 years ago?

One of the major characteristics of the Forex Market today is the extreme volatility that has been spurred by different crisis’s that have affected the Euro Area and the US. Also we have seen a growing demand for this market by all types of investors, retail and Institutional, both for speculative and hedging reasons.

8. Do you also offer Fund management services?

We have developed several services for Institutional clients that are interested in having us as a partner. We also have some specific solutions for traders that would like to set up their own fund.

9. Who are the main competitors of YOU in the on-line Forex market?

As the market has grown dramatically in the last few years, so have the Forex Trading Houses. Competition has become very stiff and there are many new companies that have entered the market. The main competitors in Europe are IG Markets, CMC, FXCM, Ava Fx, and Alpari just to name the biggest names. The good news is that all this competition has driven down the spreads to the complete advantage of the customers.

10. What do you think about Forex scam problem in the on-line Forex brokers market?

This is a very serious issue as this phenomenon has spread around very heavily in the last couple of years. The problem is that most of this Forex scam look like normal and trustable companies and screw over many people.
Therefore I believe there are few rules to follow before opening an account with a new brokerage house. First, check whether it’s a regulated company by an Authority. Then, do some research on the internet or through other means to see if it’s an established firm and where it operates. It would be a good idea to talk with the people that work there and eventually visit them physically to have a clearer idea of the company we are going to open a relationship with.

11. Where do you see YOURSELF 2 years from now?

I am really lucky to do a job that I love and in a very exciting and fast-paced environment. Honestly, I have already reached important goals in this business and our new office in Italy (which will be the first one abroad) is a great success. In the future I would like to make the Forex business develop even more among the private clients.