I've tried demoing quite a few brokers for the last 6 months, and I'm now looking to go live with a small amount of money. To say the least, I have quite a headache from all the reviews and threads I've read, along with all the demoing I've done. I like some of the demo accounts I've tried, but I am well aware that things are often a little different when it comes to opening a Live account.
I'm located in the US and need to find a broker that meets the following criteria. If you would be so kind as to recommend a few brokers that might fit the bill, I would greatly appreciate it (I'm fine with you ranking them). Like I said, I've found a few that seem they may be good, but I've read horror stories about almost all the brokers out there to make a confident decision without some feedback.
- Reasonable Variable* Spreads
- Initial Deposit < $500USD
- Accepts US Citizens
- Leverage of 1:100 +
- MT4 Platform
- Server Stability - the occassional 1-2 min hang is acceptable, but I'll be tradng the 1m and 5m timeframes so anything more than that will have a serious negative effect.
*I'd actually probably prefer a fixed spread. However, all but 1 of the many fixed spread demo accounts that I've tried have given very, very strange results on the m1 charts. To see what I mean, open a cross pair like EUR/CHF and zoom in to the 1m time frame on a broker like FXDD, and you should see that the chart movements are extremely static and don't look random at all. I'm not sure why this is but would be interested in hearing why. It's a shame, because a lot of the recommended brokers I've heard about give these same results. Maybe one of you can point out the correlation between fixed spreads and these whacky charts for slower moving pairs.
Please recommend more than 1 broker so that I know your recommendations are legitimate. If you could expand on why you feel they are good recommendations, that would be even better.
Some that I'm closely considering are:
Alpari US
EXNESS
FXCM
Deltastock
However, I'm totally open to any suggestions. Even the ones listed above have plenty of negative reviews out there. Thanks in advance!