Best Broker?

Hi RTM, I agree with you that spreads is a major factor and that's why I'm currently trading with Tickmill. However Trust is a really important factor and Oanda is a very trustworthy broker. They follow stricter regulations, have more offices worldwide, more credibility. Since there's so much risk in Forex industry, I think it's a great idea to spread your capital with multiple brokers if you're trading a larger account. If it's a smaller account then just choose one that you like but be prepared to leave them if/when things change. I was trading happily with Finpro until a few weeks ago when their servers went down for 3 days straight and they had crappy communication around the incident. I left them immediately..

There are tons of brokers to choose in market and its really confusing who is best one but so far I was trading with 2 brokers dukascopy for forex and AMEXFA for binary options and am able to do easy transactions so I guess am not in wrong path.

This is exactly my issue. And the reviews on several Brokers are confusing.

ok that is fair, yes I can validate your point on multi regulation and yes you right.

Gain reputation with sensible posts and knowledge sharing before promoting some bucketshops there.
I'd advice newbies to trade with CySEC FCA or NFA broker (or ASIC) it should be working at least 5 years, some good trustworthy names like FXCM, IC Markets, Hotforex and similar

Hey Milan, How come that you have $4.30 RT coms?? I am with Vantage FX as well on their RAW ECN $6 RT coms...Have you got bigger trading account or do you trade massive monthly volume?

CySec, Seriously???

Hotforex...Are you working for them or you are the world`s most satiesfied customer?

Trading with a broker that is regulated in Cyprus is like going to donate blood in a vampire's castle.

Well I trade with several brokers not only Hotforex I mentioned them in my previous posts, its FXCM and IC Markets. Can't say I'm happy in every aspect of trading with them, but they proved consistently earning traders is not pain in the ass for them (main stress test for any broker).

I'm currently with LMAX, and I am ok with them because:

1. They are honest.
2. No fishy things going on with either their MT4 or WebPlatform
3. Withdrawals and deposits are 0
4. Been with them for over 1 year, never had a problem trusting them

Buuut, they are expensive. They charge relatively high commission AND you still have to eat the spread.....(not good)

Basically, you pay a high price for honesty in FX.

I was hoping to switch and am currently looking at the following criteria:

1) NO RISK when it comes to regulation....so anything Cyprus based is no no, no matter what they offer or say.

2) Negative Balance protection

3) 0 cost on deposit and withdrawals in EUR banks (btw, most -if not all- UK brokers have EUR accounts )

4) MT4 platform

That's it.


Still looking.....

Hi meyoik
Can you explain me better what do you mean by saying they are honest and no fishy things going.You had a bad experience with any other broker?

I've never caught LMAX messing with my MT4 terminal with add ons, plugins, constantly am in touch with other LMAX users...heard nothing via via either....never had them hunt my stop losses. On the transfers side, deposits and withdrawals are 0% charge (for EUR to EUR accounts, I assume it's the same for others as well). I've had a few "misunderstandings" as one can have with brokers. but every time, they've sorted me out with clear answers. Latency is very low as well, FCA regulated, compensation scheme. So what's the catch...? Not really any catches, but there are some big IFs...for example:

* NO NBP - negative balance protection......Can you remember last mid Jan with any Swiss Franc cross? If you don't, please do yourself a favor and check out the Swiss crosses of Jan 2015. Do you see that insane spike?...it's a pillar actually. This could happen -in theory- with any currency. This should give you some perspective of what you could be in for, and why NBP can be an invaluable last line of defense in an unpredictable environment.
* They charge commission on every trade...don't quote me but ~ 4.20 per EURUSD lot...so not too bad, but still, there are better ones out there.
* If leverage is important to you, they offer 1:100

So this is my conclusion so far on LMAX, a definite GO for short term trading!!, but I would be concerned with the no negative balance protection for longer term trades. Btw, the reason why they don't offer NBP -which would make sense- is that they are DMA (what I was told by their reps), so they simply provide you access to the market, and that's it, what happens afterwards is on you. In a way, that's what you want from a broker...but nowadays that there's plenty of brokers offering NBP, the game has changed a bit in terms of what we as traders are offered in order to choose for either broker A or B.

If you have long term strategies with risky currencies, you might want to look around if NBP is important for you.

I tried the market makers variant, and I can tell you I will NEVER go back to them....maybe I was just unlucky...maybe not. Surely there are some that are doing the right thing, but most of the ones I experienced....wheeeew...I felt like my stop losses where at a shooting range with them, and got stopped out by the most ridiculous sequence of "random spikes" one could imagine....never again.... Oh yes, but their customer service is great, respectful, and helpful, and MOST important to any self respecting trader: they have sponsorships with big name actors, athletes, football clubs, trading icons, racing icons. So what!!??? The moment a broker starts hunting stop losses, charging weird fees, keeping you from withdrawing your hard earned money....you can be endorsed by mother theresa for all I care, you are out of the "trusted broker" zone.

So after having done quite a bit of digging, I've decided to give FxPro a try. I've heard more good things than bad from them in the last 5 years, they seem to be clean with the FCA, couldn't find any big scandals out there....(but if someone does find out there are, please let us know!)...their MT4 platform works with what I need, their web interface is really good, easy to use and you can manage your own money -inside your trading accounts- without needing their support, their live chat / email support is not the best out there, but you eventually get your answers, you can choose your leverage up to 1:400...the biggie here is that they do offer negative balance protection on ALL forex/cfd accounts...not so good, their spreads are not as tight as you'd like (imho) but there are some trading strategies out there that are not so heavily affected by this, and I am referring to longer term strategies. So far, so good....but it's not until you've been with them for some time that you can really give a relevant opinion. Will do when I -hopefully- make some profit, and transfer the balance back to my account. These are the things I'll be looking at:

Speed of execution as compared to other brokers; latency.
Keeping track myself of their average spread, let's see how "tight" their spreads are in real life, versus the brochure promise
Are they messing with our stop losses?
Any weird spikes that took my stop losses out which I don't see with other FxPro traders on the same charts (we compare charts every week or so with other traders with the same brokers to see if there's something fishy going on)?
They say there are no charges on their bank transactions -both deposits and withdrawals (EUR to EUR) from either them or their banks, let's see if that is the case. If there are charges from my bank, of course that is not their fault.

Like I said, FxPro has given me a very good impression SO FAR...if that's the case in a month or two, then I'll be happy to give them the same good reviews I have for LMAX (even though they don't offer NBP ).

BTW, I see you are looking around as intensely as one should, so please let us know what your conclusions were on this, which broker did you end up going for and why? Maybe you already have a broker?

Would love to hear your experiences to expand my network of "trusted brokers"!!

do you have a broker that supports paypal and has tight spreads because i'm mostly scalping man

What about Interactive Brokers ? They are one of the biggest if not THE biggest broker worldwide and offer almost any market that can be traded. They offer an ECN type of trading - unlike with MT4 brokers, you can actually see the order book and place bids and offers in the order book yourself. They are US regulated and should also have a UK branch afaik with UK regulation.

Pros:
you can also trade futures ( and I'm not talking about CFDs here ) and stocks
there are several trading platforms available
comissions for FX are pretty low, spreads are good

Cons:
need at least 10k USD to open account
monthly account fees


Personally, I am not a big fan of MT4. While it's good for charting and it's free (!), i'ts not the best platform for trading and managing orders.

Are you sure you are not trading on an MT5 platform? That feature is standard in MT5, but never seen it on MT4 out of the box.

Could you send a screenshot?

Hello meyoik,

I think you misunderstood. Interactive Brokers don't use MT4, they have their own plaform called TWS

Have a look here:

Thanks Brementrader, I thought you were referring to an MT4 that came with proper order flow functionality. This looks very interesting, 3 questions:

1) Can you use EAs, or something similar? If so, would there be like an open market where you can buy EA from third party vendors....like you can on MT4?

2) Can you hedge in this platform?

3) Those commissions seemed super low!!! Just checking, but was it 2.4 eur per 2.5 eurusd lot traded?

Thanks for that reply.There is so much out there but so hard to trust anything you read.

Hello ,,

From personal experience Live Accounts
Best Broker tried it for a while 2 years ago yet ..

1- ADS Securities "UAE,Singapore,London"
2- IC Markets "Australia"

Best Broker .. Best Company in world
MT4 Live Accounts

You can use several different platforms that also allow you to use automated strategies, e.g Multicharts and Ninja Trader.

With regard to hedging, I don't know for sure. I heard that it is not allowed in the US ( it never made sense to me anyway).

Yes, commissions are lower, this is because in the futures industry there is much more competition and inovation than in the FX business, imho.