GAEA Investment review – 5 things you should know about gaeainvestment.com

Beware! GAEA Investment is an offshore broker! Your investment may be at risk.

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Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Open trading accounts with at least two brokers.

GAEA Investment’s website delivers on promises of transparency and high quality services. But in preparing this review, we were unable to ascertain even with whom exactly we were dealing with this supposed forex broker. Let’s look at the clues that this is not a legitimate financial services provider and should therefore be avoided.

GAEA Investment Regulation and safety of funds

Legitimate forex brokers provide clear and detailed information about the legal entity that owns and operates them, where it is based, what licences it has and which regulators oversee its activities. Lack of such details or improper presentation of them are always a red flag that we are probably dealing with a scam.

Nowhere on the GAEA Investment website, the text of the Terms and Conditions, or even in the images of the purported licences, is the name of a specific legal entity mentioned.

The website lists a contact address in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), an offshore zone whose financial regulator does not licence brokers or supervise companies engaged in such activity.

Meanwhile, on the website, we find an image of a purported licence from an institution called International Financial Licence Service (IFLS), which lists a UK contact address.

But the institution responsible for overseeing forex brokers in the UK is called the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A check of that regulator’s register shows that GAEA Investment is not among the authorised brokers.

The Terms and Conditions also list a contact address in the UK, but the broker is allegedly “authorised and regulated” by the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles, another offshore zone.

GAEA Investment is not listed amongst the companies registered in SVG or Seychelles, so in fact we have no idea who exactly we are dealing with and which is the relevant jurisdiction.

If you intend to invest in financial instruments, you should beware of the many fake brokers lurking online. Always check carefully whether the broker you choose really has the necessary licences.

There are numerous benefits to working with a company that is truly authorised and supervised by a regulatory institution such as the FCA, Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) or Australian Securities and Exchanges Commission (ASIC). Clients of these brokers receive protections such as negative balance protection and segregation of the client’s funds from the broker’s funds.

In the EU and the UK, brokers must also participate in guarantee schemes that cover a certain amount of the trader’s investment if the broker becomes insolvent. These guarantees amount to up to 20 000 EUR in the EU and 85 000 GBP in the UK.

GAEA Investment Trading software

GAEA Investment uses a little-known platform called Xone Trader. Here’s what it looks like:

While this platform has the basic functionality to place orders, it cannot compare to the capabilities provided by MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). It is no coincidence that these platforms have established themselves as the industry standard.

They offer a wide range of features, including a variety of options for customization, multiple account usage, designing and implementing custom scripts for automated trading and backtesting trade strategies.

It should be noted that the presence of some kind of trading software is no guarantee that this is a genuine broker. Financial scammers often use rigged trading platforms to fool their victims that their money is actually being invested. However, this trading is entirely fictitious and the money goes directly into the scammers’ pockets.

GAEA Investment Trading instruments

We see financial instruments from all major asset classes on the GAEA Investment trading platform. But as stated, we have no reason to believe that this trading is real and not fictitious.

GAEA Investment does not provide clear and detailed information on trading parameters.

Legitimate forex brokers offer a variety of trading account types tailored to the needs of clients with different capital and investment intentions. These brokers also provide clear and detailed information on trading parameters – leverage, spread, commissions, order execution method, etc.

GAEA Investment Spreads and cost of trading

The trading platform shows a spread of 1.2 pips, which is comparable to the industry average. But nowhere does it specify whether GAEA Investment charges additional commissions.

GAEA Investment Maximum leverage

After registering an account, it becomes clear that GAEA Investment offers a leverage of 1:100. This is further evidence that this is not a UK licensed broker.

The FCA, like EU regulators, limits leverage to 1:30 for trading in major currency pairs and even lower levels for more volatile assets. The same rules currently apply to Australia. In the US, the maximum limit is slightly higher at 1:50.

High leverage creates the opportunity for more significant profit, but correspondingly increases the risk of sudden and excessive losses. All leading regulators therefore restrict leverage for retail traders.

Higher levels of leverage are only offered to professional clients who trade entirely at their own risk.

If you don’t qualify as a professional trader but are willing to take the risk of high-leverage trading, the most viable option is to use the services of an offshore affiliate of an established brand.

GAEA Investment Deposit and withdrawal methods

At the time of writing this review the deposit menu was not active. We were therefore unable to ascertain what payment methods were available.

In the withdrawal menu, the choice is between Turkish local banks and cryptocurrencies. You should note that bank transfers and crypto transactions do not allow a refund or chargeback to be requested.

Legitimate brokers typically offer clients a wide choice of transparent payment methods, including established e-wallets such as PayPal, Skrill, Neteller or Sofort.

GAEA Investment Minimum deposit

GAEA Investment does not provide information regarding a minimum deposit. Many of the leading brands in the industry offer Micro accounts to beginner traders with very low initial investment requirements.

GAEA Investment Withdrawal requirements

GAEA Investment offers bonuses, a practice that is prohibited to regulated brokers. A minimum traded volume of 5 times the bonus amount is required to be allowed to withdraw funds.