Forex Factory: 1.6 Million Traders, and Its Broker "Reviews" Are Paid Placements
What it actually offers, from a 9.4-million-reply forum to a broker directory that pays for placement, and where automated execution fits in.
Journal & Community · 6 min read
Forex FactoryThe hook: Forex Factory states in its own broker guide: "Brokers pay Forex Factory a fee to be listed on this page, so a claim of complete independence cannot be made." Most traders treat that page as neutral research.
- Owned by Fair Economy, Inc., Tampa, FL; 1,607,676 registered members
- Broker guide is explicitly paid placement, not independent review
- Trade Explorer only supports MT4/MT5 and is still "early stages"
About Forex Factory
Forex Factory is owned and operated by Fair Economy, Inc. ("FEI"), based in Tampa, Florida, dating back to 2004. It's genuinely massive by registered-user count: 1,607,676 total registered traders, with roughly 30,000 online at any given moment, and forums that accumulate over 9.4 million replies across just eight active sections, threads like its EUR/USD discussion have passed 230,000 replies each.
Its broker directory is worth reading carefully: Forex Factory states outright that "brokers pay Forex Factory a fee to be listed on this page, so a claim of complete independence cannot be made," while noting it applies the same fee schedule to every broker and retains final editorial control. That's a meaningfully different framing than an independent review, even with the mitigating practices disclosed.
Its Trade Explorer tool, which syncs a live or demo account for performance analytics, currently supports only MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, and the site's own product copy describes it as "still in the early stages of development." Revenue comes from display advertising, the broker listing fees, and a paid "Commercial Content" forum tier for vendors, not from charging ordinary members, core membership, the calendar, and the forums remain genuinely free.
What Forex Factory Offers
Economic Calendar
Four-tier impact ratings (High/Medium/Low/Non-Economic), free ICS/CSV/JSON exports.
Forums
8 sections, 9.4M+ replies, near-real-time activity.
Trade Explorer
Free live/demo account performance tracking, MT4/MT5 only.
Broker Directory
Paid-placement broker listings with live spread data.
Forex Market
A proprietary price-aggregation feed for FX, metals, energies since 2009.
Member Impact Ranking
A subscriber-based reputation tier governing posting privileges.
Why Traders Rely On Forex Factory
Its appeal is the calendar and the sheer scale of the community. Knowing exactly when CPI, NFP, or a central bank rate decision is scheduled matters enormously to short-term traders, and with 1.6 million registered members generating near-constant forum activity, it's become something close to an industry standard reference.
A site with 1.6 million members states plainly, in its own words, that its broker page can't claim to be independent.
Forex Factory: Strengths and Limitations
Strengths
Limitations
Forex Factory FAQ
Fair Economy, Inc., based in Tampa, Florida, a company that describes its mission as the democratization of financial information.
No, the site states directly that brokers pay a fee to be listed, so it explicitly cannot claim complete independence, even though it says the fee schedule is the same for every broker.
1,607,676 total registered traders, with roughly 30,000 online at any given moment.
Currently only MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, a real limitation the site itself says it plans to expand.
Automating a Trade Around a Forex Factory Calendar Event
Forex Factory's calendar tells you exactly when volatility is coming: CPI, NFP, FOMC. It can't get you filled once the number hits; by the time you've read the print and reacted, the fastest part of the move is often over. Pre-build a TradingView alert around the release and let it execute automatically.
How it works
- Build a time- or price-based alert in TradingView, no coding required
- Connect PickMyTrade to your broker or prop firm account once
- PickMyTrade executes automatically when the alert fires
- Copy the same signal across multiple accounts at once
No, PickMyTrade automates from TradingView alerts; you'd build a time- or price-based condition around the scheduled release manually.
No, Trade Explorer is a performance-tracking tool for MT4/MT5 accounts, while PickMyTrade is an execution layer for TradingView-triggered futures and multi-asset trades, different jobs entirely.
PickMyTrade is an independent automation platform. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Forex Factory, unless otherwise stated. Trading futures and other leveraged products carries substantial risk of loss. Details reflect what was published on Forex Factory's official site at the time of research and may have changed since.