What are we all looking for from a Broker

Hello fellow traders.

The time has come to open our thoughts and send a clear message to all Brokers on what we are really looking for.
Through this thread I shall point out the things that I am looking from a Broker and you are all welcome to add additional points on my list.

1. Regulated Broker
2. Tight spreads without any deposit or volume requirements
3. STP/ECN execution for everyone. I don't like the Market Making model and especially the dealing desk
4. Fast execution for all the trades. Any delay will be considered that there is a dealing desk intervention
5. Variety of platforms (MT4, Currenex, cTrader etc)
6. No restrictions on trading strategies.
7. No commission on my trades and if there are commission they should be as low as possible. The most important thing here is to charge the same commission for all the traders without any deposit or volume requirements
8. If it is possible Swap Free accounts to all without any additional requirements or any trading restrictions. Despite that I am not a person with Muslim beliefs I fully respect Islamic traders. Usually this group of traders have some hidden charges and some trading restrictions. Let's make the game fair for all the traders. Swap free with tight spreads to all
9. No deposit or withdrawal fees. Some Brokers charge a percentage on deposits or withdrawals. They need to know that they are not operating as a bank. Their profit should come only from trading

I don't know if this is too much. Your feedback will be appreciated.

Hi mmaker,

I am not looking for the best broker because I know very well that such a Broker does not exist.

Let's add rebates to the list.

Very good. We want from our brokers to return back to us a percentage on their profits (revenue share) in the form of rebates.

Brokers know exactly what we are looking for, but if they were to meet the demands, they wouldn't make money. There is no perfect brokerage, same with cars, properties, wives ... the list is long.

I would like to see as well how many brokers will come to the thread and rise their hand ;-)

Some of you guys are totally delusional. And just to let you know...your broker probably isn't the problem, it's your awful trading bankrupting your accounts.

I wouldn't say that. Let's use an example. Let's assume that your Broker is making close to 100 billion in USD volume trading per month. This means that with a half a pip mark up or $5 commission per round turn the trading profit is close to 5 million USD per month rounded. Look at all those brokers who work with cashbackforex. I believe that all of them are having trading profits from the clients who were referred to them by cashback.
I believe that my thread also answers Kanzler's reply.

the criteria that most overlook.......you want a broker under good management

spre*ds, feed, platform stability, customer service etc are important, but without good management it's meaningless

Very correct. This should be point 1 in our list

Thank you very much for this good post.every trader looking for this type of good broker and its my dream to find

Hi Michael,

The issue is that the conditions, we all mentioned in this post, are well known to the brokers.
We have some of the brokers that have very good trading conditions but crazy restrictions.
Some other brokers have swap free trading but with different sort of restrictions.
Probably the same thing happens when it comes to wives and cars (as tader0001 said before). It seems that we are always missing something.
If anyone find such a broker please let us know. I ended up searching around the internet and tested so many different brokers that I don't remember the companies that I have a live account.
The post should be used by brokers too. We believe that we all want their feedback on this matter.

If you have a small account like $100 and your strategy is to risk 1/3 or something like that you should look for low stop out level.

It's when positions get closed automatically when your balance is too low.

How's about HotForex and FxPro, do they meet all your requirements?

When we talk about forex "brokers", are we always sure what we are talking about?
We have to ask ourselves first how "Forex trading" bussiness model works.

1-First of all, what "trading on margin" means?

All newbees and not only them, live in the illusion that a Forex "broker" is an intermediary between
Trader and The Market .An important broker is actually luring "traders" into beleving that "leveraged" orders are aggregated and placed
on the real Market. If you read more carefully you understand this is not the case. Others, let you belive that they borrow you
the unleveraged part of the traded amount. Nowhere will you find a detailed explanation of the "trading on margin" mechanism.
You don`t have the Money, all right? You don`t have the Money to trade in the real Market!

Real forex traders are professional traders trading 1:1,those people working for Banks ,big companies hedging their currency operations
abroad and other financial institutions.They are employees of institutions buying/selling Big Money at Market rates. Remember, 1(one)
single lot is 100.000 USD.

2.Enter the Con-Artists.

Cohorts of Forex "brokers", using an agressive market strategy, are offering to the large public a very bizarre product called" leveraged trading"
or "trading on margin".They collect your Money,give you fancy trading platforms, and the illusion you are a real trader. Their Moneypool is
EXCLUSIVELY generated by people opening live accounts.Many of them are seriously thinking that one day they would be able to earn a living from "trading".
Not a single cent from the so called "DailyTrillion dollar market" can be touched. Unfortunatelly,in the best case "traders" are chasing each others`money.
Some win a few times and if, against all odds, they become consistent the "broker" will not allow it for long time. Their methods are well known, just google
"forex scam".

But yes,you can win in Forex if you count yourself among :"Brokers",IBs, all sorts of Affiliates, systems Sellers, Marketeers.etc.

On the contrary, trading Demo Accounts is fantastic!... and a very good intelectual exercise.Very good for training your programmer skills and you can aquire a very
solid economic and financial knowledge.

We better not look for anything from a "broker"....

Unfortunately no. FxPro charges swaps and HotForex offers an Islamic account however, there are some currency pairs that they charge swaps when the positions are roll over for the following day

I think it's hard to find a swap-free broker also good trading environment. But keep looking, you may find it.

I think we should choose a good, reliable and regulated broker with good reputation and this broker should not have any withdrawal fee.

Very hard to find this type of broker. If anyone exists I'll switch my broker.

Personally, I would never have only 1 broker anyway. My best scenario is having 2-3 brokers who have many of the attributes many of you have already mentioned. However , the fact remains, putting all your fx trading into one provider regardless of their spreads, regulatory record, customer service , ect..., is opening your fx portfolio to unnecessary risk by being completely reliant on 1 broker that hasn't screwed up big time... at least yet. Plus, how do you know for sure that for example your spreads are the best , if you dont have other live accounts up next to it in order to compare apples to apples? Never understood that thought process.