Justin Grossbard

Co-Founder and Strategic Head of Research at CompareForexBrokers. Forex trader since 1998. Based in Melbourne, Australia.

At a glance. Co-founded CompareForexBrokers in 2014. Trading since 1998. Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) and Master of Marketing, Monash University. Based in Melbourne, Australia.

About me

I’m Justin Grossbard. I co-founded CompareForexBrokers with Noam Korbl in 2014 from a small office in Melbourne, and I’ve been the strategic head of research on the site ever since. The starting brief was simple. We wanted a forex broker comparison site that could honestly say it had opened, funded and traded every broker it covered. Eleven years on, that’s still the rule.

I grew up in Melbourne and started trading forex in 1998 from a desktop in my parents’ house in the eastern suburbs. The dial-up era was a strange place to learn currency markets. Spreads on EUR/USD ran 5 to 8 pips at the friendlier brokers. Daily volatility on AUD/USD was triple what it is today. Chart packages were paid software you installed off a CD. None of which mattered when you were 19 and convinced you’d cracked the trend on USD/JPY.

I lost money. Then I lost more. Then I started reading properly, took a step back, and treated trading like a craft instead of a side hustle. By the early 2000s I was running consistent positive months. By 2014, when Noam and I sat down to plan what became CompareForexBrokers, I’d been trading and reviewing brokers as a sideline writer for the better part of a decade.

Why we started CompareForexBrokers

Most broker comparison sites in 2014 were wallpaper. Affiliate-driven, broker-friendly, light on actual testing. The reviews read like marketing brochures. Spreads were quoted from the broker’s website. Execution was rated on a vibes basis. The bonus offers section was twice as long as the regulation section. We thought Australian traders deserved better.

We started with a list of about 20 brokers we already knew well, opened live AUD accounts at each, and ran the same spread and execution tests against every one of them. We published the methodology. We disclosed the affiliate relationships. We refused to take payment for placement. The site grew from there.

That model still drives the site today. Every broker on this site has a current ASIC AFSL. Every review is built from a live account on the broker’s Australian entity. Spreads are recorded with IceFX SpreadMonitor on MT4 over 24 hours covering all four major sessions. Execution is benchmarked with two purpose-built expert advisors. The full breakdown sits on the methodology page.

What I do day to day

I run research. That means I sign off on the broker shortlist (currently 30 ASIC-regulated brokers), I direct the testing schedule, and I’m the final reviewer on every broker rating before it ships. David Levy, our Head of Content, fact-checks every review and signs off on the published copy. Between us we cover about 600 hours of broker testing per year.

I also write. Not every page on the site is mine, but every review carries my name as the author of record because the testing decisions and the rating model came from me. Where a guest writer or junior researcher has produced the first draft, I rewrite, re-test where needed and put my name on the result.

The other half of my week is spent talking to brokers. Most of the AFSL-holding firms in Australia have a relationship with the site. We meet with their compliance and product teams, discuss execution stats and platform changes, and push back when we think a launch decision will hurt retail traders. None of these conversations affect ratings. They do mean we know what’s coming before most of our competitors.

Education

I hold a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Monash University, completed in 2003, with majors in Finance and Marketing. I went back to Monash for a Master of Marketing in 2007. Monash is one of Australia’s Group of Eight research universities and gave me the quantitative grounding to think about broker pricing models the way a wholesale dealer would.

Outside the formal qualifications, the bulk of my market education came from screen time. Sixteen years of live trading before we even started the site. Three platforms (MT4, MT5, cTrader) installed on every test machine. A reading list that runs from Edwards and Magee on technical analysis through to academic market structure papers and ASIC’s CFD product intervention research.

Books and published research

I’ve co-authored or contributed to several published works on forex and CFD trading for Australian readers, including educational guides distributed through major brokers and trade journals. My research on CFD pricing models has been cited in compliance training material used by Australian dealing desks. The full publication list is maintained on my LinkedIn profile.

I’m a regular contributor to the Forbes Business Council and write occasionally for Kiplinger on retail trading and personal finance topics for an Australian and US audience.

Media and press

Where I’ve been quoted, written for or featured in the last few years:

• The Australian Financial Review (AFR): quoted commentary on CFD leverage caps and ASIC’s product intervention order
• The Age (Melbourne): interviews on retail trading trends
• Forbes: author at the Business Council on small-business and trading topics
• Kiplinger: author on retail investing
• Finance Magnates: long-form columns on broker regulation, CFD market structure, and Australian retail trading conditions
• Entrepreneur: author on entrepreneurship and online business
• Medium: personal column on trading psychology and broker reviews
• Muck Rack: full press archive at muckrack.com/justin-grossbard

I’m also a frequent guest on Australian trading podcasts, including episodes on retail leverage, the AFCA dispute resolution path, and how the ASX listed-CFD market interacts with the retail OTC market.

How I trade

For full disclosure: I trade my own account at three brokers covered on this site (Pepperstone, IC Markets and CMC Markets). I do not run a managed fund. I do not take signal subscriptions. I do not run a copy-trade account that other traders follow.

My personal style is medium-frequency swing trading on majors, with a tilt toward AUD pairs because that’s the part of the market I read best. I run a separate test account at the broker we’re currently reviewing, which gets opened, funded, traded and closed within the testing window. The test accounts never overlap with my personal capital.

Where to find me

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/justingrossbard
• X / Twitter: @grossbard01
• Email via the contact page
• Phone (Melbourne office): 0412 156 618 (Mon-Fri 9 AM to midnight AEST)

If you’ve spotted an error on a review, or you want to push back on a rating, the contact page is the quickest path. I read every email that comes through that form personally.