About Sikka Spread

Who runs this desk

Sikka Spread is run as a small editorial desk focused on one instrument, gold (XAU/USD), for readers based in the UAE. It is not a company that executes orders, holds client money or manages accounts. Everything published here is written material about how gold trading works, how costs are built and what a UAE resident should check before opening an account.

The desk is not a broker, not a bank and not a licensed financial adviser, and it does not present itself as any of those. Nothing on this site is personal advice or a recommendation to trade. If you need advice about your own circumstances, speak to a licensed professional in the UAE.

The editorial standard a number has to meet before it is printed

A number appears on this site only if it is either a fixed property of the instrument or a figure the broker has confirmed to us in writing. Fixed properties are unambiguous: gold trades as XAU/USD, one standard lot is 100 oz, one pip is 0.01, and the reference price used in examples is around 4275.0. Those can be repeated without qualification because they do not change with account type or funding method. Everything else has to clear a higher bar.

Costs are the clearest example of the higher bar. We were not given a spread, a commission, a swap rate or a minimum deposit figure, so none of those appears as a number anywhere on the page. Instead we say what the cost consists of and what it depends on: the account type, the platform chosen among MT4, MT5, cTrader and FxPro Edge, the time of day, and the size of the position. A reader who wants the live figure is told to check the platform or the broker's own schedule, which is the only place it is accurate at the moment of trading.

Leverage gets the same treatment. The maximum available to UAE clients is up to 1:500 on standard forex accounts, within DFSA/SCA-compliant limits, and it varies by instrument. That is a cap, not a target, and we say so every time it comes up. The worked example — about $85.50 margin for a 0.10-lot gold position at that cap — is included because it was supplied to us, and it is labelled as an illustration rather than a recommendation. No other leverage ratio is quoted, because none was confirmed.

How to challenge a line published on this page

Send the challenge to the desk with the exact sentence and the reason you think it is wrong. A useful challenge quotes the line, says what you believe the correct position is, and, where possible, points to the broker document or platform screen that shows it. Vague objections cannot be checked and tend to sit unanswered. A specific one — for example, that a margin example does not match your account's leverage setting — can be verified against the source note and either corrected or explained.

Every challenge gets a written reply that states one of three outcomes: the line was right and here is the source, the line was wrong and has been changed with the date of the change, or the line depends on something we cannot confirm and will be reworded to say so. Corrections are made in the page itself, not in a separate errata post, so the next reader sees the fixed version. Where a number was removed because it could not be confirmed, the replacement text says what the figure depends on rather than quietly deleting the sentence.

Challenges about risk framing are treated as the most serious kind. If a paragraph could be read as encouraging a position size that a UAE account cannot support, or as implying that leverage of up to 1:500 is a target rather than a cap, that is a fault in our writing and will be rewritten. Trading gold on margin can lose more than the margin committed, and no page here should read as though that risk is theoretical. A challenge that identifies hype, a guarantee or a missing risk warning will be acted on first.

How the desk is paid

Affiliate links are the only revenue. If a reader opens a broker account through a link on this site, the broker may pay the desk a referral fee. That fee does not change what a reader pays the broker, and it does not buy a rating, a better placement or a softer write-up. A weakness found in a broker's documents is written down whether or not that broker has an affiliate programme.

Where a broker is mentioned, the figure that matters for UAE readers is the one that decides whether an account can be used at all: can a resident open it, fund it in AED through a local bank transfer, and withdraw without friction. Cost is described by what it consists of and what it depends on, not by a number the desk was not given.

How this desk is organised and how a decision gets made

The desk is deliberately small: one editor sets the publishing schedule and signs off every page, with a part-time reviewer checking anything that touches risk, leverage or costs. No page goes live on a single person's say-so. Decisions are recorded in a short written note that states the question, the source used and the date the source was checked, so a later reader can see why a line reads the way it does. That note is not published, but it exists and can be produced if a reader asks.

Decisions about what to cover start from reader questions, not from search volume. When several readers ask the same thing about gold (XAU/USD) — how margin is calculated, what one pip is worth on a 0.10-lot position, how AED funding works — the editor adds or rewrites a section rather than spinning up a new page. The test is simple: does the page leave a reader able to act without emailing us? If not, it is rewritten. Nothing is added purely to fill a template slot.

Anything numerical is decided by one rule: if the figure was not supplied to us by the broker or is not a defined unit of the instrument, it does not appear as a number. Gold is quoted in USD, one standard lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01, so those figures are fixed and safe to state. A worked margin example at up to 1:500 leverage is included because it was given to us as a reference. Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are described by what they depend on, not by invented values.

What this desk is not

This desk does not hold client funds, does not place trades and cannot see an account. It cannot recover money, chase a broker on a reader's behalf or intervene in a dispute. Those matters belong with the broker and, where relevant, with the regulator named in the broker's own documents.

The one regulator fact this site relies on is that FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA. That statement describes the broker's licences, not the desk's status. The desk itself holds no licence and claims none.

What a reader should be able to do after finishing a page here

A reader should be able to calculate, not guess. After a page on gold, you should know that one standard lot is 100 oz, that one pip is 0.01, and that at up to 1:500 leverage on standard forex accounts, within DFSA/SCA-compliant limits, a 0.10-lot position needs about $85.50 in margin. You should also know that this is an illustration at the cap, that the cap varies by instrument, and that your own required margin depends on the leverage setting on your account, not on the maximum advertised.

You should be able to tell a confirmed figure from a dependent one. Confirmed: the instrument code XAU/USD, the lot size, the pip size, the reference price near 4275.0, the licence wording, and the funding methods named. Dependent: the spread, the commission, the swap, the minimum deposit and the AED amount that actually leaves your account. For the dependent items, the page should tell you what they depend on and where the live number sits — the platform or the broker's schedule — rather than offering a number that was never confirmed.

You should also be able to see the risk without it being buried. Trading gold on margin can lose more than the margin committed, leverage is a cap rather than a target, and past price behaviour says nothing about the next move. If a page here leaves you unable to state those three things in your own words, it has failed and should be challenged. That is the practical test the desk applies before publishing: can a careful reader act, and can they see the downside as clearly as the mechanics.

What pays for this site and where that money does not reach

The site is funded by its commercial relationship with the broker it writes about, FxPro, through the entity that serves UAE clients, FxPro Global Markets MENA Ltd. That relationship covers the cost of writing, checking and hosting the pages. It does not buy a sentence. The editor does not send drafts for approval, and the broker does not see a page before it is published. If that ever changes, the change will be stated on this page rather than left for a reader to guess.

The influence runs in one direction only: the funding decides which broker the desk can write about in detail, not what the desk says about it. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA, and that sentence is printed as given, including the fact that the UAE-facing entity is FxPro Global Markets MENA Ltd. We do not add adjectives to a licence, and we do not describe a cost as low or competitive when no figure was supplied. A reader should be able to tell, from the page alone, what is a confirmed fact and what is a description of dependencies.

There is no per-click, per-signup or per-deposit payment tied to individual paragraphs, and no reader is routed to a funding method that was not listed. The methods we name are cards (Visa/Mastercard), bank transfer and e-wallets, with local UAE bank transfer supported, and amounts are shown in AED where a currency is needed. If a future arrangement ever paid per account opened, that would be disclosed here in plain words, because a reader deciding where to hold margin deserves to know what is funding the advice.

Why the desk writes about gold in USD and quotes costs in AED where it can

Gold is priced and settled in US dollars, so every example on the site uses XAU/USD and USD for margin and pip values. That is not a preference; it is how the instrument is quoted. A UAE reader funding an account in AED is therefore exposed to two things at once: the gold price and the USD/AED rate applied by the bank or card at the moment of funding. The page says this plainly because a margin figure in dollars is not the same as the amount that leaves an AED account.

Where a currency has to be shown for a local step, it is shown in AED, and the funding methods named are the ones confirmed to us: cards (Visa/Mastercard), bank transfer and e-wallets, with local UAE bank transfer supported. The desk does not state a conversion fee, a transfer fee or a minimum deposit, because none was supplied. What it can say is that the cost of moving money depends on the provider used, the day's rate and the receiving entity, which for UAE clients is FxPro Global Markets MENA Ltd.

The regulator line is repeated exactly as given — FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA — and is never expanded into a claim about client-money protection in the UAE that we cannot support. Leverage is described as up to 1:500 on standard forex accounts, within DFSA/SCA-compliant limits, and it varies by instrument, which is a cap and not a setting to aim at. Keeping the currency and the regulator caveat in their original form is part of the same standard: a fact is repeated as it was given, not polished.