DislikedNow that that is over, you are correct in that I need to find a proper, well capitalised, properly regulated broker. Any suggestions.
In my case I had about 7% of my trading capital with JadeFX so it did not harm me. However it did harm some others.Ignored
Great post.
I am not going to recommend a broker as it entirely depends on your circumstances. Finding a broker that suits your trading style, is regulated in your domicile, or at least continent and offers the products that you are looking for takes time to find.
A good start is the CFTC capitalisation report to find the well financed ones, the next step is finding one that suits your trading style. Are you a scalper, a trend trader, a counter trend trader, all need different brokers/leverage/execution/spreads.
Get a report from one of the commercial providers as to their credit rating and company history and find ambiguities in there that could be of concern. Brokers with a PO box, or ones that move around should be questionable, brokers that use serviced offices or addresses similar to other service providers should be avoided like the plaque.
A broker giving good spreads may not always be the one for you if you get slipped at each and every trade.
IF you can live without MT4, you are better of finding a broker that allows you to at least execute via a different platform as MT4 has so much slippage build in purely due to design and infrastructure.
Your next step should be to speak to the regulator about them and find their enforcement history and their regulated postholders.
You then need to call them and try to visit them, do the same to their liquidity provider. A broker who will not tell you their liquidity provider has something to hide, walk away.
Once you find a broker you like, start small, keep an eye on latency, spreads, slippage and execution. Untill you get comfortable with them take a screen shot on each and every entry and exits and keep them for future references. Do that for a few months. Once you are comfortable with them increase your accountsize.
Always keep 2-3 seperate datafeeds live, just to keep an eye on their prices.
Picking a broker is a long and arduous exercise, but keep in mind that you will have a relationship with them for years to come.
GL