I am an expert forex trader and trader coach. I have been forex trading professionally myself for over 12 years now and have been educating would-be forex traders for over 8 years. I have educated over ten thousand fx trader on how to trade professionally in both the UK and Australia, a lot of my students have gone on to become skilled traders themselves or have been offered work opportunities as fx traders from some of the world’s major investment banks and fx brokers.
Time and time again my students ask me what to search for in a broker, of course lots of them are affected by promotional material produced by fx brokers and are of the belief that they ought to be forex trading using a broker which has tight spreads, however normally they fail to think about a few of the most important aspects of choosing a forex provider and tight spreads are on the list of the least significant elements.
To assist my students in picking a fx broker I always recommend that they consider these aspects before choosing a forex provider:
1. Execution Latency 2. Depth of Liquidity 3. Prices Over news Periods 4. Company Regulation 5. Foreign exchange pair Pairs Accessible
Execution Latency
Envisage placing a trade simply to have the deal hang on you and then get filled at a very dissimilar price. This may occur for two separate reasons, the first reason that this occurs is just because the price has changed from the time the deal is placed to when it is filled, this often occurs when the you’ve a bad internet connection or when the fx brokers server is found a long distance away the other reason this occurs is because the broker is interfering with the order as they’re a market maker and they’re deliberately stopping you from being filled at the price quoted taking advantage of the price difference. Always select an ECN broker this way you can be guaranteed that your trades will be filled in a timely manner and the fx broker isn’t trying to cash in on your losses.
Depth of Liquidity
Not a lot of fx traders understand that when low spreads are shown to them on a broker platform it does not always mean they are able to deal on those spreads. Most of the time brokers will show spreads that can not be traded on for any decent quantity. Not having the ability to trade on fx broker prices can be aggravating for many traders and often leads to orders being executed with slippage which will frequently work against the trader. It is important to ask your broker what their liquidity is like to make sure that if you’re trading any sort of quantity your deals are filled at the price displayed on the forex brokers trading platform or alternately deal with an ECN broker where you are guaranteed unfathomable liquidity.
Spreads Over News Announcements
Prior to deciding on a fx broker you ought to make certain that you spend a while keeping track of their prices over news periods. One of many problems traders often face is widened spreads over news periods. Widened spreads are caused by investment banks refusing to show prices over this period until they can determine the effect of the news announcement on the currency. A good broker will aggregate a number of investment bank feeds to make sure that if one bank is not quoting prices there are others that will. If you choose to deal with an ECN fx broker most of the time you won’t have any problems with spreads over news announcements.
Forex provider Regulation
Choose a broker that’s regulated and even better one that is regulated in the country that you reside. If you choose a fx broker which is regulated within the country that you live you’ve the best chance of getting your money back if something goes wrong. If you can not find a suitable fx broker inside the country that you live in you ought to look for a forex provider in a country which has a good regulatory regime, forex brokers in nations such as the USA, UK and Australia tend to be the safest in the world
Forex Pairs Accessible
There isn’t any point selecting a fx broker that doesn’t offer the currency pairs that you trade so take a close look at what your fx broker offers before opening an account. There are some forex brokers that don’t offer many of the more exotic crosses and simply stick to the majors, other fx brokers offer a full range of currencies in addition to gold and silver.
I trust this helps you in selecting the best fx broker, personally I have dealt with the majority of brokers around the world and in Australia but I have ended up settling with ECN forex broker IC Markets. International Capital Markets (IC Markets) are able to give me a full range of currencies and commodities, are regulated in Australia by AISC, have deep liquidity behind the prices quoted and quick execution speed which assists my scalping plan. Obviously you should always do your own research prior to choosing a broker however I can certainly vouch for IC Markets.