The gostreams.io website is owned and operated by Streams Global Markets LLC, which is incorporated in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The company is built on the knowledge and expertise of a team of professionals with the mission to provide the clients access to trade in a secure and reliable environment, it claims. However, this company is not licensed and regulated by any major financial authority, and you should be careful if you are about to work with it.
Streams offers more than 100 CFDs on currency pairs, indices, commodities, shares, and cryptocurrencies. The minimum initial deposit required to open a live account is USD100.
The company provides its services through the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) terminal. MT4 is one of the most awarded trading platforms over the world and is used by millions of traders. It offers a user-friendly interface, interactive charts with the latest technical analysis tools and the possibility of automated trading through expert advisers (EAs). The terminal can be downloaded for PC and MAC machines, or you can run it on a web browser. You can download the mobile application on AppStore or Google Play.
Streams offers a variety of deposit methods such as bank transfer, credit or debit card, and e-wallets. All transactions are commission free. However, the company reserves the right to charge the clients a withdrawal fee of 4% at its own discretion. Deposits made by cards or e-wallets are processed within 24 hours while made by bank transfer may take up to 5 business days. Withdrawals to credit or debit cards are processed within 3-5 business days while these to bank accounts may last up to 10 business days. Streams policies allow you to request and process withdrawals via the same method you have used for your deposits. Upon request, the company can send profits using a different payment method that must be under your name. If the client’s account is inactive for three months or more, the company will charge an inactivity fee of USD15, which will be deducted from the account.
There are three types of live accounts, and they differ in the minimum initial deposit required, the spread offered, and the commission charged. The “Classic” account requires USD100 as an initial deposit, the spread for major currency pairs starts from 1.6 pips and the trading is commission free. The “PRO” account requires USD1,000 as an initial deposit, the spread for major currency pairs starts from 1.1 pips and the trading is commission free. You must invest at least USD10,000 to open an “ECN” account. The minimum spread for the major currency pairs is 0.3 pips at the expense of the commission of USD8 per lot traded. All types of accounts provide negative balance protection. Hedging and scalping are both allowed, the company claims.
The “Client Agreement” document shows that the company shall arrange for the execution of client orders with another entity (the Execution Venue) and shall not act as principal but as an agent in relation to the client. Orders placed by the client on the platform are arranged for execution (called straight-through processing or STP) directly to another entity Execution Venue (that may also transmit them to another party). This means that all client orders are passed through the company liquidity providers, and they become the counterparty to the customer’s trade. It is also explained that all types of orders are subject to slippage and stop loss orders are executed at the first available market price, or they are not guaranteed. The FAQ section informs that clients are covered by the negative balance protection policy. However, the “Risk Disclosure” document reveals that in the case whereby due to extreme volatility of the underlying instrument the client has sustained losses that exceed his balance with the company (i.e., he has generated a negative balance with the company), the client maybe then called to pay an amount equal to these losses. So, be careful, because at the end you may owe money to this company.
In conclusion, Streams (GoStreams) is a typical unregulated offshore company. It is not clear if the company provides negative balance protection. In addition, your money is not protected by any compensation fund. Therefore, it may not be possible to withdraw money from this brokerage firm.
