TradeThunder Review
| Broker | TradeThunder |
|---|---|
| US Traders Accepted | |
| Company Name | Thunderstruck Investments Limited |
| Headquarters | Roseau, Dominica |
| Regulation | No |
| Bonus Type | Match bonus |
| Bonus Size | 100% |
| Max Payout | 90% |
| Out-of-Money Reward | 0% |
| Trading Platform | Leverate BX8 |
| Deposit Options | Credit/debit cards, wire transfer |
| Deposit Currencies | US dollar, euro |
| Minimum Deposit | $20 |
| Minimum Trade | $1 |
| Maximum Trade | $500 |
| Online Since | 2015 |
| Trading Instruments | Currencies, commodities, stocks, indices |
| Number of Trading Instruments | 80 |
| Binary Option Types | High/Low, 60 Seconds |
| Customer Support Types | Live chat, web form, telephone, email, paper mail |
| Education Offered | eBook, videos, webinars |
| Tools Offered | Free signals, market reports |
| Commission | Standard fees for wire transfers, no fees for credit/debit card transactions. $50 minimum withdrawal threshold. |
| Languages | English, German, Spanish |
| Demo Account | Yes, on request. |
TradeThunder is an unregulated binary options broker owned by a company called Thunderstruck Investments Limited and based in Roseau, Dominica. While the website is open to USA customers (and traders from around the world), it is a mixed bag. There are a few nice features, but on the whole this broker is lacking in many respects.
To start with, it is somewhat humorous that the homepage promises, “Lightning Fast Trading.” There is no indication that trade execution is actually slow, but the website sure loads slowly. There are also errors and missing pages. The missing pages will probably be added over time, but TradeThunder should definitely fix their signup form if they want customers to actually join the site. At the time of this review, you get an error if you even try.
TradeThunder Account Tiers
If you can manage to get through the signup screen, you can choose to either demo test or deposit money for a real account. You will need to contact customer service to get access to a demo account. No restrictions are mentioned, so the demo account is one of the site’s better features.
If you do decide to make a deposit, you can choose from the following four account tiers:
- Standard: $200 minimum deposit
- Premium: $500 minimum deposit
- Pro: $1,000 minimum deposit
- VIP: $5,000 minimum deposit
Note that the minimum deposit to open an account is actually just $20, which is great for beginners who do not want to get too invested yet in their trading. But you don’t get the Standard account benefits unless you deposit $200 or more.
At the Standard level, you get access to weekly market reviews, two free webinars and a free eBook. At the next level up, you tack on two risk-free trades and two weeks of free signals. At the Pro level, you get three risk-free trades and a month of free signals. If you open a VIP account, you get five risk-free trades and free signals. Signals and risk-free trades are both excellent benefits. More and more webinars are added on the higher you go in terms of account tiers as well.
This page lists the minimum and maximum trade sizes. The minimum trade size is just $1, which is outstanding for newbies. Discouragingly, however, the maximum trade size is $500. This is quite a low cap, which does not give you a whole lot of room to grow over the long term. This broker is definitely aiming its services at traders with small bankrolls (which is okay for most binary traders, since most binary traders have small bankrolls).
Withdrawal and Bonus Rules
The most interesting thing about TradeThunder is probably the site’s withdrawal policy. At a lot of binary options sites, your access to your funds is restricted when you accept a bonus. If you haven’t met the bonus turnover requirement, you cannot withdraw the money you deposit.
TradeThunder states clearly, “Our motto is simple, ‘Your money is your money.” YOU CAN WITHDRAW ALL FUNDS IN YOUR ACCOUNT, NO QUESTIONS ASKED!! There are absolutely no withdrawal restrictions when you receive a bonus.”
You still need to meet a turnover requirement to withdraw the bonus money, but the money you deposited is accessible to you.
What is also cool about TradeThunder is that the bonus money is released to you gradually. You do not need to meet the full turnover volume to “earn” the bonus funds. Each time you achieve a certain percentage of the required volume, 10% of the bonus money becomes your money. This is a unique policy, and a direction other sites should consider taking.
Trade on the Leverate BX8 Platform
TradeThunder uses a platform called Leverate BX8. This is not a particularly common binary trading platform, and it looks quite a bit different in terms of layout than more popular platforms like SpotOption. Once you get used to it, you will figure out where everything is and see that it functions much like other binary platforms. The bold colors and layout are appealing to the eye.
There are more than 80 currencies, commodities, stocks and indices on the site to trade. You can trade High/Low options as well as 60 Second options. This is not a tremendous amount of trade variety unfortunately. There also is no Early Close (or Double Up or Rollover) for you to use to control your trades. This is a major drawback! A lot of trading systems rely on Early Close to deliver profitable results.
Customer Service and Reputation
Customer service on TradeThunder is offered 24 hours a day via email, live chat, telephone, web form, and paper mail. No one was staffing the chat desk when I checked, which was disappointing. It was a weekend, however, so I was not surprised or too taken aback. Looking up TradeThunder’s reputation on third party sites, there was not a lot to find. One site mentioned putting them on a blacklist, but failed to provide a single reason for doing so. This is probably simply a tactic to get readers to click through to their affiliate sites.
Conclusion: Interesting, But Needs Work
I am very impressed with the bonus and withdrawal policies offered by TradeThunder, as well as the inclusion of a demo account. The low deposit and trading requirements are awesome for traders who are just starting out. So TradeThunder definitely has laid a groundwork for developing something exciting.
That being said, they are far from actually reaching it. They need to fix the problems with the website design, pages, and forms. They also need to introduce a wider variety of trade types, and make customer service more easily accessible via live chat. There is no way to even preview the trade page unless you register, and right now, registration is broken. TradeThunder has a lot of problems to address before I can recommend them, but I would certainly suggest keeping an eye on them. They may show more potential in the future.