How We Check a Broker Before Ranking It

The first gate: can a Philippine resident use it

A broker is only ranked here if a resident of the Philippines can open an account, fund it through a familiar local rail such as GCash or bank transfer, and withdraw without an obstacle that would trap a normal retail client. That access test comes before anything about platforms, instruments or costs, because a broker a reader cannot use is not a broker for this audience.

We also record which entity serves the Philippines, because that decides the leverage cap, the regulator, and the documents that apply. FxPro, for example, is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC - not by the SEC of the Philippines - and the cap that applies is the one for the entity serving this country, not a setting to aim at.

The Arithmetic Behind Each Calculator, Stated in Words

The pip-value calculator multiplies the number of lots by 100 oz, then multiplies by 0.01, because one pip on gold is 0.01 of a dollar per ounce. For a 0.10-lot position that is 0.10 times 100 oz, giving 10 oz, times 0.01, giving $1 per pip. The calculator does not apply a spread, a commission or a swap, because none of those is published here as a number. It reports the raw pip value only, and it states the currency of the result so a reader can convert to pesos at a rate they choose rather than one we imply.

The margin calculator divides notional exposure by the leverage cap that applies to the entity serving the Philippines. Notional exposure is the lot size times 100 oz times the reference price. At the reference price of about 4275.0, a 0.10-lot position has notional exposure of 10 oz times 4275.0, and dividing that by the applicable cap produces the worked figure of about $85.50. The calculator labels the cap as a maximum, not a target, and it does not accept a leverage value above the cap. A reader who enters a larger lot size sees the margin rise in proportion, which is the point of showing the formula rather than a table.

The position-size calculator works in the opposite direction: it takes a risk amount in pesos or dollars, divides by the distance in pips to the stop, and divides again by the pip value per lot. The result is a lot size, which the calculator then rounds down to the nearest step the platform allows. It does not assume a stop distance for the reader, because that distance is a judgment about the trade and not a market fact. Every calculator on the site shows its formula in words next to the result, so a reader can repeat the arithmetic by hand and see whether the output matches.

What Is Deliberately Not Published, and the Reason

Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are deliberately not published as numbers on this site. The reason is that none of those figures was supplied as a fact, and inventing one would breach the rule that every number must trace to a source. A reader looking for a cost figure is told what the cost consists of and what it depends on, such as the broker's pricing model and market conditions, and is directed to the broker's own documents for the figure. That is a weaker answer than a number, but it is an honest one.

Leverage ratios other than the cap that applies to the entity serving this country are also not published. The cap is a ceiling, not a setting to aim at, and quoting a ratio from another jurisdiction would mislead a Philippine reader about what is available to them. The site states the cap applies and shows the worked margin figure of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot gold position at that cap, without inviting a reader to treat the cap as a target. Higher leverage magnifies both gains and losses, and a page that lists ratios without that framing would be unsafe.

Promotions, bonuses and time-limited offers are excluded entirely. They change without notice, they often carry conditions that a static page cannot track, and repeating one would amount to advertising rather than methodology. Author names and personal track records are excluded for the same reason: they cannot be verified from the supplied facts, and a trading page that leans on a personality rather than a formula is asking a reader to trust the wrong thing. What remains is what can be sourced, dated and reproduced.

Why the Live Price Can Differ From a Broker Quote

The reference price on this site is an indicative level, while a broker quote is the price at which that broker will transact for a given size at a given moment, and the two can differ. A broker quote includes the spread and reflects the liquidity available for the size being traded, so a large order can show a different price from a small one. The reference price carries neither adjustment. A reader comparing the two should expect a gap and should not treat the reference price as a quote they can trade at.

The gap also depends on timing. The reference price is refreshed on a feed schedule, so between refreshes the market can move while the page does not. A broker's platform updates continuously during trading hours. On gold, where one pip is 0.01, small differences in the last digits matter to a pip calculation, so a reader computing pip value from the reference price should use the price on their own platform for any live decision. The formula stays the same; only the input changes.

Finally, the quote a reader sees depends on the entity and the account. The FxPro entity that serves the Philippines is the one whose pricing applies, and a quote shown for a different entity or a different account type is not a like-for-like comparison. The site does not publish a spread figure, so it cannot tell a reader how wide the gap should be. It can only say that the gap exists, that it depends on size, timing and account, and that the broker's own platform is the authoritative source for the price a reader would actually get.

The honest limits of our testing

We do not run a live funded account at every broker we write about, so our testing is documentary and structural rather than a full trading trial. We read the specifications, the funding pages and the legal documents, and we check that the entity serving the Philippines is the one named. We cannot see your account, your fills or your withdrawal experience.

That means a reader should treat our pages as a starting point and verify the current figures with the broker before trading. Conditions change, and a number that was right on the date we read it may not be right today. When we find that a condition has moved, we re-check and date the update rather than quietly rewriting history.

What Updates Automatically and What a Person Checks

The reference price is the only figure that moves on its own. It is refreshed from a price feed so that worked examples stay close to the market, and every page that shows it labels it as a reference rather than a live broker quote. Nothing else on the site updates automatically. Leverage caps, regulatory status, funding methods and contract specifications are static until a person changes them, because each of those is a fact about a broker or a regulator and not a market variable. A reader should treat the reference price as indicative and the other figures as dated statements.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand on a scheduled cycle, and the date of the last review is shown next to the fact. The review checks the broker's own documentation for the entity that serves the Philippines, confirms the regulator caveat still reads as supplied, and confirms that GCash and bank transfer are still the listed local funding rails. If a document has changed, the fact is updated and the review date moves. If a document cannot be reached, the fact keeps its old date and is flagged as unverified rather than silently left as if fresh.

Calculated examples are not refreshed automatically even when the reference price changes, because a worked figure is tied to the price it was built on. When the reference price is updated, the examples are recalculated by hand and the new output is checked against the formula before publication. That two-step process is slower than a live calculation, but it means a reader never sees a margin figure that was computed from one price and labelled with another. The trade-off is that an example can lag the market by the length of the review cycle, which is why the reference price is always printed beside it.

What Happens When Two Sources Disagree

When two sources disagree, the broker's own regulatory and contract documentation wins over any secondary source, and the disagreement is noted rather than smoothed away. A regulator register entry is treated as stronger than a broker's marketing page for the question of who licenses the entity, and the exact caveat supplied for this market is used as the published wording. If a secondary source claims a licence the caveat does not mention, the caveat stands and the claim is not repeated. The site would rather publish a narrower true statement than a broader one it cannot confirm.

For calculated figures, the formula wins over any previously published output. If a recalculation at a new reference price produces a different margin figure than the one on the page, the new output replaces the old and the reference price beside it is updated at the same time. A reader should never see a margin figure and a reference price that do not belong together. When the two cannot be reconciled, the figure is removed rather than left with a caveat, because a number that cannot be reproduced from its own stated inputs is not a fact the site should carry.

When a disagreement cannot be resolved from the available documents, the site publishes what is confirmed and states what is unresolved, without filling the gap with an estimate. An example is a leverage cap: the cap that applies is the one for the entity serving this country, and if a source quotes a different cap for a different entity, that other cap is not applied to Philippine readers. The unresolved point is described in terms of what it depends on, and a reader is told which document would settle it. Silence on a disputed number is preferred to a confident wrong one.

How a Reader Can Reproduce Any Number Here

Any calculated figure on this site can be reproduced with a calculator and the inputs printed beside it. For pip value, multiply the lot size by 100 oz and then by 0.01. For margin, multiply the lot size by 100 oz by the reference price, then divide by the leverage cap that applies to the entity serving the Philippines. For a 0.10-lot position at the reference price of about 4275.0, the notional is 10 oz times 4275.0 and the margin at the applicable cap is about $85.50. A reader who gets a different answer has either used a different price or a different cap, and the page states both.

For position size, divide the risk amount by the stop distance in pips, then divide by the pip value per lot. A reader can do this in pesos or dollars, provided the pip value is expressed in the same currency. If the result is not a round lot, round down to the nearest step the platform allows. The site does not choose the stop distance for the reader, because that is a trading decision, and it does not add a cost that is not published. Every step is arithmetic a reader can repeat without access to the site.

Broker facts cannot be reproduced by arithmetic, but they can be checked. A reader can open the broker's own documentation for the entity serving the Philippines, confirm the regulator caveat reads as FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC and not by the SEC of the Philippines, and confirm that GCash and bank transfer are the listed local funding rails. If a fact on the site does not match what the reader finds, the reader should trust the broker's document and treat the site's dated statement as out of date. The date beside each fact tells the reader how much weight to give it.

How a Broker Fact Is Dated and Re-Checked

Each broker fact carries the date it was last confirmed against the broker's own documentation, and that date is displayed with the fact rather than kept in a separate changelog. A fact is dated when a reviewer has opened the relevant document and matched the statement word for word. The regulator caveat, for example, is dated to the day the reviewer last confirmed that FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC and not by the SEC of the Philippines. A fact without a date is not published, because an undated statement about a regulated entity is not useful to a reader deciding where to trade.

Re-checking happens on a fixed cycle and also whenever a reader report or a visible change suggests a fact may have moved. The reviewer reopens the same source, compares it with the published statement, and either confirms the date or updates the fact and moves the date forward. If the source has been removed or cannot be reached, the fact is marked as unverified and keeps its original date so a reader can see how old the confirmation is. The site does not extend a date without a fresh check, because a date is a claim that someone looked.

The dating rule applies equally to the funding rails. GCash and bank transfer are listed as the local methods because the broker's documentation lists them, and that listing is dated like any other fact. If the documentation changes, the list changes. The site does not add a funding method because it is popular in the Philippines, and it does not remove one because a reader had a slow transfer. The test is whether the broker's own documentation still says it, checked on the date shown.

Where Each Figure on This Site Comes From

Every figure on this site falls into one of five classes, and each class has a fixed source. Price levels and pip values come from the gold (XAU/USD) contract specification: 1 standard lot equals 100 oz and one pip equals 0.01, so a pip is worth $1 per standard lot. The reference price of about 4275.0 is the anchor for worked examples, not a live quote. Broker facts, including the FxPro entity serving the Philippines and its regulatory status, come from the broker's own published documentation. Leverage and margin figures come from the cap that applies to the entity serving this country. Funding rails, GCash and bank transfer, are listed because they are the local methods the broker supports, and no fee or minimum is attached to them on this site.

Margin and position-size examples are derived, not copied. The worked figure of about $85.50 margin for a 0.10-lot gold position comes from applying the applicable leverage cap to the notional value of 10 oz at the reference price. The notional is 10 oz multiplied by the reference price, and the margin is that notional divided by the leverage cap. Because the cap is a ceiling and not a setting to aim at, the example shows the arithmetic rather than recommending that a reader trade at that size. Any peso amount shown is a conversion of a US-dollar figure at a rate stated alongside it, and it moves when the rate moves.

Regulatory statements are taken only from the exact caveat supplied for this market: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, and is not licensed by the SEC of the Philippines. That sentence is reproduced rather than paraphrased so a reader can check it against the regulator registers directly. Nothing on this site is sourced from a reviewer's personal account, a screenshot of a platform, or a promotional email. If a figure cannot be tied to one of these five classes, it is not published. That rule is why some numbers a reader might expect, such as spreads or minimum deposits, are absent rather than estimated.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure we state about a broker comes from the broker's own documents, and we note the date we read them. That includes the contract specifications for gold (XAU/USD), where 1 standard lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01, and any statement about margin, leverage or funding. If a document does not state a number, we describe what the cost consists of and what it depends on rather than invent a figure.

A worked example we can stand behind: at the applicable cap, a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin. We show the arithmetic so a reader can redo it against the live price, which moves. A reference price near 4275.0 is used only to make the example concrete, not as a forecast.

The Known Limits of This Method

The method cannot tell a reader what a trade will actually cost, because spreads, commissions and swaps are not published here as numbers. It can describe what those costs consist of and what they depend on, such as the broker's pricing model and market conditions at the time of the trade, but it cannot put a figure on them. A reader who needs an exact cost must get it from the broker's own platform or contract documents. This is a deliberate limit, not an oversight: publishing a cost we were not given would be a guess dressed as a fact.

The method also cannot verify execution quality, slippage or the speed of withdrawals. Those depend on the broker's infrastructure and on conditions that change minute to minute, and no static page can capture them. What the site can do is state which entity serves the Philippines, which regulator licenses it, and which local funding rails are listed, so a reader knows what to check before funding an account. It cannot tell a reader how long a GCash transfer will take or whether a bank transfer will arrive same-day, because those timings are not part of the facts supplied.

Finally, the method is limited by its reliance on a single reference price for worked examples. Gold moves, and a margin figure computed at about 4275.0 will be different at another price. The formula remains correct, but the output is a snapshot. A reader using the example to plan a position should recompute with the price on their own platform. The site states this beside every worked figure rather than hiding it, because a calculator that looks precise can mislead if the reader forgets that one of its inputs is moving.