Most of financial instruments offered as part of the Company’s brokerage services are contracts for difference (hereinafter “CFDs”).

The Company is the straight through processing (STP) broker. It is a type of an online broker that is connected to one or multiple liquidity providers and forwards the trades of its clients to the liquidity provider that currently offers the best price. Further, a liquidity provider might forward client’s order to another liquidity provider in chain or execute the order itself.

.
1. Transferable securities
2. Money-market instruments
3. Units in collective investment undertakings
4. Options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contracts relating to securities, currencies, interest rates or yields, or other derivatives instruments, financial indices or financial measures which may be settled physically or in cash
5. Options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contracts relating to commodities that must be settled in cash or may be settled in cash at the option of one of the parties (otherwise than by reason of a default or other termination event).
6. Options, futures, swaps, and any other derivative contract relating to commodities that can be physically settled provided that they are traded on a regulated market or/and an MTF
7. Options, futures, swaps, forwards and any other derivative contracts relating to commodities, that can be physically settled not otherwise mentioned in point 6 of Part III and not being for commercial purposes, which have the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments, having regard to whether, inter alia, they are cleared and settled through recognized clearing houses or are subject to regular margin calls
8. Derivative instruments for the transfer of credit risk
9. Financial contracts for differences
10. Options, futures, swaps, forward rate agreements and any other derivative contracts relating to climatic variables, freight rates, emission allowances or inflation rates or other official economic statistics that must be settled in cash or may be settled in cash at the option of one of the parties (otherwise than by reason of a default or other termination event), as well as any other derivative contract relating to assets, rights, obligations, indices and measures not otherwise mentioned in this Part, which have the characteristics of other derivative financial instruments, having regard to whether, inter alia, they are traded on a regulated market or an MTF, are cleared and settled through recognized clearing houses or are subject to regular margin calls.

1. Safekeeping and administration of Financial Instruments for the account of Clients, including custodianship and related services such as cash/collateral management.
2. Foreign exchange services where these are connected to the provision of investment services.
3. Investment research and financial analysis or other forms of general recommendation relating to transactions in Financial Instruments.

1. Reception and Transmission of orders in relation to one or more Financial Instruments

(a service by mean of which the intermediary, having received a purchase or sale order from the client, instead of carrying it out personally, sends it to another intermediary for execution);

2. Execution of orders on behalf of Clients

(a service by means of which the intermediary, upon the client’s request, purchases or sells the securities in the various trading venues);

3. Portfolio Management

(is a service provided to the client, who instructs the intermediary to manage all or part of his assets in financial instruments. A client is required to take the suitability test before this investment service is provided);

4. Investment Advice

(the intermediary provides advice or recommendations relating to one or more transactions concerning a specific financial instrument).

Goldenburg Group Limited (“the Company”) is a fully licensed and regulated company by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (“CySEC”) under the CIF licence number 242/14. The Company has passported its licence into all EEA jurisdictions and thus it is authorized to offer its investment services in all EEA countries to retail, professional investors and eligible counterparties.

Moreover, the Company has appointed tied agents, who are allowed to promote its investment services in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. However, the tied agents are not authorized to hold client’s money.

Please contact us by phone at +35722009515 or by e-mail: dealing@topforex.com

Goldenburg Group Limited is a Cyprus investment firm supervised by Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. Besides this, while providing the investment services in the rest of the EU, our tied agents are supervised as well by the regulators established in member states, where tied agents reside.

Goldenburg Group Limited has several client bank accounts across Europe or with PSP providers. These are accounts where client funds are segregated from the company’s funds. We usually keep the money in banks where the clients send their investments to, however as an STP broker we may also use funds as a collateral with our liquidity providers.

Goldenburg Group Limited is a member of the ICF (Investors Compensation Fund). The main objective of ICF is to provide the assurance of the clients’ investments up to 20 000 €. For further information, please see the CySEC website.

The home page of the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission is http://www.cysec.gov.cy/en-GB/home/. In order to find Goldenburg Group Limited you have to select the ´´REGULATED ENTITIES´´ column on the top of the page, then choose ´INVESTMENT FIRMS´´ and press ´´INVESTMENT FIRMS (CYPRIOT)´´. Now you can search for any Cyprus investment firms. You can easily find Goldenburg Group Limited by typing its name into the search field or by simply opening the following link.

By Margin call we inform you that the value of coverage of your positions has dropped to a level which requires your attention. You should check your open positions, check what is happening on the market and consider the risk. In the event of a Margin call, we recommend to do one of the following: a) insert resources to your trading account as soon as possible b) close a part or all of your positions.

All spreads can be found in the webpage under ‘Trading’ > ‘Instruments’ by choosing the proper instrument group or go directly here where you can choose the proper instrument group i.e. Forex, Commodities, Shares and Indices.

You may have an indefinite number of accounts open in the following currencies: EUR, USD, PLN, CZK, HUF.

A Demo account can be opened by clicking here.

As the Proof of Address we are going to accept a scan of a recent (up to 6 months) utility bill, local authority tax bill, bank statement or any other document same with the aforesaid. No, it does not have to reflect the address on the Proof of Identity document.

As Proof of Identity we accept a scan of a government issued identification document: Passport, National ID or Driving License. Should you want to submit a National ID or Driving License, both front and back pages are required.

You may upload your documents on the Registration page, at the end of the Registration process. You can find the registration page here.

Documents that were not uploaded upon registration should be uploaded through the myTopForex zone: on the left-hand side, under ‘Profile’ > ‘Documents upload’. Or via email (as an attachment) to support@topforex.com.

In case we receive money from the account of the mother/father/wife/husband of a client, we ask the client to provide the following documents:
POI – Verification of Client’s Identity, POR – Verification of Client’s Residence and bank account statement of the family member;
in case of mother/father we need the birth certificate of the client;
in case of wife/husband we require a marriage certificate

If you wish to deposit cash, you must place the cash into your bank account first and then transfer it to our bank, which details can be found on the website under ‘Trading’ > ‘Payment Options’ > ‘Wire Transfer’ or here.

We are trying our best to handle all requests as soon as possible. Remember, when giving instructions for the selection, all your open positions have to be closed.

You may request a withdrawal by filling our withdrawal request form called “Withdrawal Instruction”, which can be found on the website under ‘Trading’ > ‘Payment Options’ > ‘Withdrawal’ (by clicking on the Withdrawal tab). The Withdrawal Instruction form is available in all supported languages. For the different languages, please change the language settings on the website.

English version of withdrawal form may be found here.

The payment instructions can be found in the webpage under section ‘Trading’ > ‘Payment instructions’ or simply by clicking here.

We are going to inform you about the incurred situation and afterwards should you not change the intended trading account currency, we shall make a currency conversion directly in the bank between our client accounts.

It depends on what information is your bank going to provide by the Wire Transfer. Each transfer shall be reviewed by our Customer Support Department and if the transfer details are not sufficient, we shall ask you to send a bank statement. Besides that, the bank statement could also be used as a Proof of Address.

In case you make deposits with a credit or debit card, then you will be requested to upload copies of your card. Please bear in mind that the credit card copy must show all of the following details:
On the Front Side:
• Your full name
• Expiration date
• First 4 digits and last 4 digits of the Credit Card number
On the Back Side:
• Your signature
For your security, please cover the 8 middle digits on the front copy of your credit card and the security code (CVV) on the back.

Today, many methods are used in practice. These include discounted cash flow to equity calculations (DCF), dividend discount model calculations (DDM) and price to earnings calculations (P/E).

Here is a brief introduction to each:

Valuation by discounted cash flow to equity (DCF)

The DCF model uses a firm’s discounted future cash flows to value the business. The big advantage of this approach is that it can be used with a wide variety of firms that don’t pay dividends, and even for companies that do pay dividends.

The value of a share is assumed to be the same as the sum of future cash flows to the equity, each discounted for risk and time. The value of the share is essentially the net present value of cash flows per share.

Valuation by dividend discount model (DDM)

The dividend discount model (DDM) is one of the most basic absolute valuation models. The dividend model calculates the “true” value of a firm based on the dividends the company pays to its shareholders. The justification for using dividends to value a company is that dividends represent the actual cash flows going to the shareholder, thus valuing the present value of these cash flows should give a value for how much the shares should be worth.

Secondly, it is not enough for the company to just pay dividend; the dividend should also be stable and predictable. The companies that pay stable and predictable dividends are typically mature blue-chip companies in mature and well-developed industries. These types of companies are often best suited for this type of valuation method.

Valuation by Price to Earnings ratio (P/E)

The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is a valuation method used to compare a company’s current share price to its per-share earnings.The price-earnings ratio can be calculated as:

Market Value per Share/Earnings per Share

For example, suppose that a company is currently trading at $43 a share and its earnings over the last 12 months were $1.95 per share. The P/E ratio for the stock could then be calculated as 43/1.95, or 22.05.

Today, many methods are used in practice. These include discounted cash flow to equity calculations (DCF), dividend discount model calculations (DDM) and price to earnings calculations (P/E).

Here is a brief introduction to each:

Valuation by discounted cash flow to equity (DCF)

The DCF model uses a firm’s discounted future cash flows to value the business. The big advantage of this approach is that it can be used with a wide variety of firms that don’t pay dividends, and even for companies that do pay dividends.

The value of a share is assumed to be the same as the sum of future cash flows to the equity, each discounted for risk and time. The value of the share is essentially the net present value of cash flows per share.

Valuation by dividend discount model (DDM)

The dividend discount model (DDM) is one of the most basic absolute valuation models. The dividend model calculates the “true” value of a firm based on the dividends the company pays to its shareholders. The justification for using dividends to value a company is that dividends represent the actual cash flows going to the shareholder, thus valuing the present value of these cash flows should give a value for how much the shares should be worth.

Secondly, it is not enough for the company to just pay dividend; the dividend should also be stable and predictable. The companies that pay stable and predictable dividends are typically mature blue-chip companies in mature and well-developed industries. These types of companies are often best suited for this type of valuation method.

Valuation by Price to Earnings ratio (P/E)

The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is a valuation method used to compare a company’s current share price to its per-share earnings.The price-earnings ratio can be calculated as:

Market Value per Share/Earnings per Share

For example, suppose that a company is currently trading at $43 a share and its earnings over the last 12 months were $1.95 per share. The P/E ratio for the stock could then be calculated as 43/1.95, or 22.05.

Some of the key fundamental economic indicators used by CFDs/forex traders:

• Employment Reports – including the unemployment rate, the number of claimants or jobless individuals applying for services, payroll levels, and other job related data.
• Trade Balance – the difference between a country’s imports and exports which has a direct effect on the demand for that nation’s currency. A deficit would mean the country is importing more than exporting, while a surplus would indicate more exports than imports.
• Current Account – one of two components of a nation’s balance of payments, the current account is the balance of trade and net cash transfers for a country. A surplus would indicate the value of a country’s foreign assets were higher than its debt, while a deficit would indicate the reverse
• GDP – changes in a nation’s Gross Domestic Product can have notable effects on that country’s currency. A sharp increase in GDP indicates strength in the economy that could stimulate appreciation in its currency, especially if the market anticipates a possible interest rate hike.
• CPI – the Consumer Price Index shows the level of prices of products on a consumer level and is a key inflation indicator. Controlling inflation is one of the first mandates of most major central banks so CPI changes can directly influence monetary policy. An increase in inflation could indicate an interest rate rise, while lower consumer prices would indicate lower benchmark interest rates.
• PPI – the Producer Price Index gauges what manufacturers are paying for their material before making a finished product. This number affects a nation’s currency because a higher PPI number suggests higher future consumer inflation, while a lower number indicates the opposite.
• PMI – The Purchasing Managers’ Index surveys the activity of purchasing managers and can be a leading economic indicator. Purchasing managers generally are the first to know of increases or decreases in future production that can indicate strength or weakness in the manufacturing sector.
• Commodity Prices – The price of commodities can have a significant effect on the currencies of both producing and consuming nations and are directly related to inflationary and disinflationary cycles. Lower prices on commodities such as crude oil directly affect the transport and hence cost of goods, thereby lowering inflation numbers, while higher oil prices typically lead to increased transportation costs and higher inflation.
• National Credit Quality – Other reasons for revaluating a nation’s currency would be if the nation’s credit quality improved or deteriorated according to a major ratings agency or if it announced an intention to repay or default on its loans.
• Non-Farm Payrolls – The number of new jobs created by the economy during the previous month and the percentage of workers seeking employment who remain unemployed. Increasing employment generally indicates a growing economy.

Central Bank Monetary Policy

Each major economy has a central bank that typically manages its currency, benchmark interest rates and money supply. Central bank activities and speeches by central bank officials are closely watched by fundamental traders for clues about future monetary policy shifts.

• Interest Rate Decisions – the amount of interest charged by a central bank is extremely important to the valuation of a nation’s currency. If a country’s central bank sets a high interest rate — barring other factors, such as political instability for example — that nation’s currency tends to attract foreign assets from countries with a lower interest rate.
• Central Bank Rate Statements – Most central banks issue a statement after a rate release describing their monetary policy committee’s voting and the reasons the rate was changed or left unchanged. The statement could affect the market if the policymakers voting was unexpected or if the central bank has a more hawkish or dovish demeanour for future rate decisions.
• Policymaker and Central Bank Official’s Speeches – the content of a speech by the president, governor or other official of a major central bank can sometimes give indications of the bank’s future monetary policy, which will often affect that country’s currency. Other key policymakers include the voting members of the central bank’s monetary policy committee, and while their speeches may not carry the weight of a central bank governor, they could also have an effect on the country’s currency depending on the content of the speech.
• Asset Purchases and Quantitative Easing – the amount of money a central bank uses to purchase debt securities and other assets to support a weak economy. Increases or decreases in the amount of stimulus measures can have a significant effect on a nation’s currency because changes in asset purchases can indicate a change in the interest rate and money supply.

Geopolitical Events

• Wars – the breakout of a war or a ceasefire significantly affects the valuation of currencies issued by the nations at war and sometimes, depending on what countries are involved, the forex market in general. Wars can also significantly affect commodity prices and other assets produced in the nations involved, thereby affecting the currencies of other countries that produce similar assets.
• Elections – a change of regime or political majority can significantly affect the value of a nation’s currency. If the incoming government favours capital incentives and lower interest rates, the value of the currency could be negatively affected. Other types of popular votes can also significantly affect the valuation of a currency. For example, a referendum on a country’s exit from the Eurozone might substantially impact the value of the Euro.
• Power Changes – A nation that has had a change of power such as a coup d’état or a forcible regime change could experience a complete revaluation or devaluation of their currency.
• Natural Disasters – When a country is hit with a substantial natural disaster, that nation’s currency typically appreciates in the short term due to the need to repatriate money for disaster relief. Nevertheless, in the long term, the currency could be adversely affected if the natural disaster has a considerable negative impact on that country’s economy.

Market Sentiment

• Risk Appetite/Aversion – a risk appetite and aversion are the latest market terms used to refer to investor preferences for higher yielding and higher risk currencies versus safe heaven currencies. For example, in a risk averse market environment, economic and political stability is favoured, so the Japanese Yen and S. Dollar generally appreciate over the European majors and commodity currencies like the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Dollars. If risk appetite is high, then the higher yielding commodity currencies and other riskier minor currencies typically rally.
• Financial surveys – In addition to risk appetite and aversion sentiments that affect the entire market, every major economy releases market sentiment indicators in the form of surveys and indexes, generally on a monthly basis. Consumer confidence and purchasing manager index surveys count among these.
• Sentiment Indicators – Examples of commonly used sentiment indicators include the Commitment of Traders or COT report that shows the futures positioning of various types of market participants; the CBOE Volatility Index or VIX which indicates investor fear levels; and the CBOE Equity Put/Call ratio that shows whether option investors prefer bullish calls over bearish puts or vice versa.

Technical analysis and fundamental analysis are two main schools of thought when it comes to analysing the financial markets. Technical analysis looks at the price movement of a security and uses this data to predict future price movements. Fundamental analysis instead looks at economic and financial factors that might influence a business.

Technical analysis is the study of prices over time, with charts being the primary tool. This is done by comparing current price action with historical price action to identify patterns that can suggest probable future price movement. Technical analysis helps traders to determine trends and acts as a signal or indicator to either buy or sell. Technical analysts believe that the historical performance of a financial instrument indicates the future performance on that financial instrument.

Trading with Moving Averages

Moving averages make it easier for traders to locate trading opportunities in the direction of the overall trend. When the market is trending up, you can use the moving average or multiple moving averages to identify the trend and the right time to buy or sell. The moving average is a plotted line that simply measures the average price of a currency pair over a specific period of time.

Trading with RSI

The Relative Strength Index or RSI is an oscillator that is simple and helpful in its application. Oscillators like the RSI help determining when a currency is overbought or oversold. For those who like to ‘buy low and sell high’, the RSI may be the right indicator. The RSI can be used equally in trending or ranging markets to locate better entry and exit prices.

Trading with Stochastics

The stochastic oscillator is a momentum indicator comparing the closing price of a security to the range of its prices over a certain period of time.

Trading with the Moving Average Convergence & Divergence (MACD)

Moving average convergence divergence (MACD) is a trend-following momentum indicator that shows the relationship between two moving averages of prices. The popularity of the MACD is largely due to its ability to help quickly spot increasing short-term momentum.

Fundamental analysis is the study of the overall economic, financial, political and other factors that represent and quantify the economy in question and can influence a financial instrument. These macroeconomic and economic health elements of a country help traders to determine future movements in a financial market.

Each day, many economic and political announcements are released that can have a direct impact on the markets, including the forex market. Therefore, it is important that traders understand how to interpret this information and convert it into an educated and successful trade.

The Company is a member of the Investor Compensation Fund (the “ICF”). The Fund was established under the Investment Firms (IF) Law 2002 as amended (the “Law”) and the Establishment and Operation of an Investor Compensation Fund for customers of CIFs Regulations of 2004 (the “Regulations”) which were issued under the Law.

The main objective of the ICF is to secure the claims of clients in situations where the CIF is unable to fulfil its obligations.

Retail traders can request compensation from the ICF, but they must keep in mind that maximum amount they can receive is €20,000. It is important to accentuate that it is the maximum compensation a trader can receive when requesting a compensation against a member regardless of the number of accounts, currency, and place of provision of the service.

PEPs are natural persons who are or have been entrusted with prominent political functions and immediate family members or persons known to be close associates of such persons.

These include: heads of State, heads of government, members of parliament, ministers and deputy/assistant ministers, members of supreme courts, members of boards of central banks, ambassadors, high ranking officers in the armed forces.

Certain types of behaviour, such as insider trading (the illegal practice of trading on the stock exchange to one’s own advantage through having access to confidential information) and market manipulation (the illegal intentional conduct designed to deceive investors by controlling or artificially affecting the market for a security that can involve a number of techniques to affect the supply of, or demand for, a stock. It includes: spreading false or misleading information about a company), can amount to market abuse. The Company must have safeguards in place to identify and reduce the risk of market abuse and other financial crime.

At all times investment companies are required to establish and maintain policies, procedures and control systems to prevent money laundering and to ensure the reporting of any cases that may be known or suspected.

Money laundering is defined by the United Nations as “any act or attempted act to disguise the source of money or assets derived from criminal activity”. Money laundering occurs when funds from an illegal/criminal activity are moved through the financial system. It is moved in such a way as to make it appear that the funds have come from legitimate sources.

The Company does not tolerate money laundering and supports the fight against money launderers. The Company has policies in place to deter people from laundering money. These policies include:

• Ensuring clients have a valid Proof of Identification or a Proof of Residence.
• Maintaining records of identification information.
• Determining that clients are not known or suspected terrorists by checking their names against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
• Informing clients that the information they provide may be used to verify their identity.
• Closely following clients’ money transactions.
• Not accepting cash.

All investment firms to which the AML Law applies should follow appropriate procedures for:

• Identifying clients
• Record- keeping
• Recognizing and reporting suspicions on money laundering
• The education and training of staff and tied agents.

Before a business relationship can be established, due diligence must always be carried out on customers. Due diligence involves knowing your customer (KYC). Customer identification procedure ensures that all the client’s verification documents (e.g. a Proof of Identification or a Proof of Residence) and other data are collected, validated and remain updated with all the relevant information.

Business relationships with individuals holding important public positions and with natural or legal persons closely related to them, may expose the Company to enhanced risks, especially if the potential customer seeking to establish an account is a politically exposed person (“PEP”), a member of his immediate family or a close associate originating especially from a country which is widely known to face problems of bribery, corruption and financial irregularity and whose anti-money laundering statutes and regulations are not in line with international standards.

One of the most common way to research CFD and Forex positions is through analysis, that relies on interpreting data from past market performance to establish some kind of prediction towards future pricing. However, it should be noted that past performance of CFDs is not an indication nor guarantee of future performance. It means that traders might use the data from past performance to speculate on the market, but they should not rely on it. When referring to past performance, an investment firm must disclose the sources, currency, commission paid and a warning that the figures are merely historic.

The Company does not offer any tax advice. The Client is responsible for any taxes and/or any other duty which may accrue in respect of his/her trades. In general, natural persons tax their income from derivative transactions as capital gains in the taxable period in which the actual income has been accrued. The taxable amount shall include income less the expenditure that is demonstrably incurred on its achievement.

This is the way how the Company charges to clients the interest rate for lending money. Each country has a different interest rate, what causes interest rate differences between two currencies. Depending on the size of the position and traded financial instrument the account will be adjusted to reflect the value of the swap points.

The costs incurred when trading CFDs consists of Spreads, Swaps, Commissions and/or Performance fees.

Spread: refers to the difference in the bid and ask price of an underlying financial instrument. The bid price refers to the rate at which a broker or a market maker is buying from the trader and the ask price is the rate at which it is selling to the trader. The Client enters a buy trade using the ask price and exit the trade using the bid price.

For example:

Consider a retail forex trader who wants to trade EURUSD pair and buys EUR 100,000 on leverage. The current quote in the market is EUR 1 = USD 1.0621/1.0624.

The bid-ask spread in this case is 3 pips. The spread as a percentage is 0,003 % of the traded amount of USD 100,000 and the Client opens the trade in minus 30 USD due to the spread.

Swap: a swap fee is charged when a position is kept open overnight. A swap is the interest rate difference between the two currencies of the pair a client is trading, and it is calculated according to whether the position is long or short. The Company charges swaps once for each day of the week that a position is held open overnight, while on Friday night swaps are also charged for Saturday and Sunday.

Commission: a commission is a service fee charged to clients by the Company in return for opening and closing of each transaction in shares only.

Performance fee is a fee that is charged to all clients, who use social trading services running by the Company. It is charged on a monthly basis provided that client’s portfolio increased compared to the highest value of client’s portfolio at the end of any previous month.

Management fee: Holding Physical Stocks leads to the management fee which will be charged at the end of each business day. Please note, that on Wednesdays the fee will be tripled. Please find the Management fee here