What are the most important factors when choosing a Broker?

Regulation is important and the other important factor that I look for is how much time it takes for a broker to withdraw profit into my electronic payment processor.

I believe regulation is most important factor that we need to look at. I am currently with OctaFX broker and they are regulated, it’s most important factor for me. Rest is great to have but if broker is not regulated then we can really have issues over security for our funds, so we got to make sure we have broker that we can trust and rely upon which is possible only if they are regulated, so that’s very important part!

When choosing a reliable broker, the important factors to put into consideration is to find out if he is regulated since there are many out there that are fraudulent. I’ll also look at for the leverage. Unless it is reasonable, if it is too high, I’ll switch.

Obviously consistency and the more customers are there the better generally.

I don’t really agree with this [I]at all[/I].

Bear in mind that this is a field of endeavour in which overall success-rates, whoever’s figures you believe, are strikingly low: “following the majority” is hardly likely to be a recipe for success.

I strongly suspect the realities of the brokerage industry predicate that some of the [U]worst[/U] brokers actually have the [U]largest[/U] numbers of customers. I certainly know of at least one huge, international brokerage with an enormous number of customers and huge sums of money under deposit that also has the [I]worst[/I] regulatory record imaginable (and many of the regularly repeating multi-million-dollar fines arising [B]directly[/B] over the ways they’ve treated their customers), while there are also plenty of very well regulated, very professional, very ethical, smaller brokerages around.

It does seem that is not as simple as size of broker. Which broker or programs that allows automatic trading fairly simple and how many of them is the max? Does anybody of you guys crossed that issue in your demo/live trading? For example, would like to put automatic orders for few pairs, say 2,000 and these mini lots. Is there max per order. MT4 is a bit complicated and do you have success with automatic trading with any brokers?

Btw, does automatic trading option says anything about brokers’ qualities?

An important factor while choosing any decent broker is to look either they have any positive repute in the market, its easy and could be done while checking at the review sites like FPA where we can find traders’ actual insights for any broker. I guess repute matters the most than being regulated as there are many bad examples in the past where even some regulated brokers turned into scam and took their traders money.

Yeah the case with IronFx is a vivid example of that. Regulation is a tricky thing. When broker operates well, process withdrawals etc. everybody says that FCA or ASIC works perfectly, but when it comes to bankruptcy its not that easy to seek for reimbursement from regulator because nobody is willing to pay for somebody’s fail.

The reimbursement doesn’t actually come from the regulator, anyway.

This issue varies hugely from country to country.

In the UK, for example, even though it’s not fast, there’s a government-backed guarantee for the first £80,000 in the trading accounts of customers of FCA-regulated brokers.

For people using brokers who have chosen (never for reasons in their clients’ interests!) to be regulated in countries like Cyprus and other “offshore” locations, of course, it’s a whole different story.

It has to be old, at least in the market from last 5 years and should have very few negative reviews about it.

Yes, I agree, satisfied and grateful clients would definitely share their experiences good or bad to help newbies make their choice. When in doubt, I’ll advise newbies to find out if a broker is regulated by the regulatory bodies before making the final decision. This would allay any fear or doubt.

We need to make sure we look for broker that’s properly regulated and not regulated by offshore companies. I made a terrible mistake by joining Alpari UK in past, it took my whole career to standstill, so please look at these things seriously or else you will be left frustrated!

Cough, cough, FXCM, cough

Easily looked up on the NFA website where all US brokers fines and regulatory infractions can be found.

Hi o990l6mh,

FXCM’s sheer size means we are subject to a greater level of scrutiny than smaller firms with fewer clients. The same can be said for leading companies in other industries. Few if any other retail forex brokers in the world have offices and affiliates regulated on 5 continents.

Our clients appreciate how we hold ourselves accountable to financial rules and standards for transparency less-regulated forex brokers do not have to meet. This is a key reason for our continued popularity. :57:

Yes of course, being accountable and staying within countries with strong regulation should be a competitive factor.

Anyway, anyone can easily check different brokers capitalization through Financial Data for FCMs - CFTC and decide how strong the finacials look for their prospective broker. Some may find strange changes to some brokers financials around the time of the SNB removing the EURCHF pegged range…

Doing due diligence would also mean having a look inte NFA BASIC database where complaints etc against US regulated brokers can be found.

I suspect not many new traders check these kinds of things before choosing a broker, they just pick the one with the biggest leverage and deposit bonus at the moment… Sad but that’s people in general.

I only trust some broker from
Canada
Switzerland
New zealand
and maybe just maybe a handful from UK.

If you cant trust the government. How can you trust the broker?

I think put away everything, I just suggest you to have broker that’s properly regulated because that’s what matters most. You can have dozen of benefits or cool looking deals, but when you finish your day and when you want to get the profit out, it will be regulated company allowing you not the companies that only good at deal boxes. I am with Octafx licensed by FCA, I don’t care what they have as offers apart from common things, but I just like safety!

I check several things before choose a broker. Like lower spread, lower slippage during news, their regulation. Distance of their server from my place. I always prefer NY time closing brokers.
At present I am trading with Hanseatic Broker. I believe a broker who has single type of account is more focused and deliver better service than the brokers who offer various account types.

For me, the most important factor is broker been regulated and established, as these two points is very crucial. After all this are conditions and benefits that come into play. Agnes35, I am not sure about Hanseatic broker, as never even heard of them. I operate with FreshForex and feel happy with them.