Researching Brokers... aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

[Indigo]

I have hit a wall.

Attention all newbies: for each broker you consider, most of the links in the first page of Google's search results will say that the broker is really bad.

All I want is to find an honest company to do my trading through. I used InterbankFX for my demo trading and lo and behold (gasp!) I don't think I've seen one good comment about them from those who have traded live.

I give up (for today). I'm going to do something FUN now.

Have a great weekend and newbies, read read read as much as you can during this down time!

[Sizzzlar]

Hi Indigo,

Have you taken a look at Forex Bastards Reviews Home ?

[Indigo]

I have! One such example of why I am banging my head against the wall. They seem to have quite a few reviews on quite a few brokers, but then I find all over the Internet people saying they submitted a review which would have put some of the good looking brokers in a not so favorable light (or some of the not so good looking brokers in a favorable light), and the review gets rejected and never gets posted.

Short translation = Felix is only posting the reviews he wants to post, so the site is extremely biased.

Soooo, I come full circle, lift my pen, and start drawing a new circle! I keep going in circles.

Seriously though, I believe there is no "perfect" broker. The trick is to find the one that is closest to perfection

[Tess]

You're right, these broker review sites are open to their own form of manipulation & scam contributors.

Just think about it for a second or two, if a brokerage was getting hammered on one of these sites, what's to stop them joining under multi-nicks & penning positive reviews for a couple weeks?

Also, how do you know the originators of the site aren't receiving a sweetner from a brokerage firm?

I'd take everything you read on such sites with a large pinch of salt if I were you.

Virtually all of the retail broker shops are deal desk outfits. That is, if they operate a fixed spread, no commission deal then you're trading with them, not the real market.

Which leaves you open to their silly games & blatent manipulation. Just leaf thru most of the mainline trading forums on the internet & you'll come across thread after thread of disgruntled & dissatisfied punters.

Your choice is to either trade via an ECN broker or switch across to Currency Futures. At least you'll be playing on a more or less even playing field & giving yourself a fairer crack of the whip.

[Indigo]

Tess,

I sent a message to babypips today about partnering with my company to build a review site. I hear what you're saying about keeping the riff raff out, and I think there is a pretty simple way to do it - make it a requirement that they have to have 5 posts here at this forum before they can submit a review. The posts won't be allowed to one-liner "Right on, dude!" type of posts. They will have to be thought out and contribute to the discussion. Once those 5 posts are complete the babypips forum name (and if the admin of babypips can do it, the IP address) will go in the reviewer's information where admin can see it. We could also get a little more ridiculous and make people send in a copy of their utility bill, but I don't think that would fly.

Suggestions?

(Also, if anyone reading this thinks my idea is a good one, put some pressure on the admin here to help me set it up. If babypips decides to not partner with it maybe you all know someone else who can build a website.)

[Tess]

I guess if you're determined to go down that route & make something like this happen, then the tighter you make the membership entry & posting requirement the better for all concerend.

The other big negative with these review type sites are the actual posts themselves.

I would certainly question the comments of someone who'd only been trading a matter of months, came to the table with little or no strategy/planning & blew their account in record time, only to air their grievances negatively on the side of their broker! I would imagine you get these types of "revenge postings" a lot on these sites?! "Oh lets blame the crooked broker"

You hear it all the time unfortunately, newbies who assume this business is merely a matter of glancing at a 5min chart, hauling up a handful of indicators & when they're all pointing North, slapping down a few bucks & sitting back waiting for pay day. Given that the pro's & savvy players wouldn't be trading with a bucketshop anyway, the only ones posting on these sites are the 'churners & burners' who merely go around in circles making the same mistakes time & again.

When it all (quickly) goes pear shaped, they blame the broker for stopping them out prematurely, or spiking their stops on a major news release when they attempted to straddle an entry 10mins prior to a CPI or NFP release LOL.

It's fraught with all sorts of misrepresentation, & like I said earlier, stuff like this needs to be viewed with a very open mind & more than a dose of skepticism.

Good luck with your endeavors though

[Indigo]

Exactly the reason why it wouldn't be the brokers which would have ratings, but the reviews themselves.

Lost yet?

It's like this. You Tess land at the first page of the site and you see a list of brokers along with option buttons beside each to go to their review or go to their thread on the forum (not babypips forum, but a forum* there at the review site).

The brokers are listed let's say alphabetically, or just simply in the order that they came into the site. There would not be a rating next to each broker.

You click on the review button next to the broker and you are taken to the page of reviews. When reviews are submitted the author will have to answer questions such as how long they've been trading (and how long did they demo trade before they began trading live), how long were they with that broker and how much money did they put there, etc. Then the author can give specific comments (or not) about their experience with the broker.

The review gets posted (after being edited by admin for foul language or slurs, etc.) and the readers rate the review on how useful it is!

*Why a forum, you ask? I think it's a really good way to get to know people, both the authors of the reviews as well as the brokers/brokers reps. It's a way you can cross check your information (and we all know in Forex that you have to cross check everything ) If babypips partnered with me to do this, the members forum name here would be their name at the review site, both for the reviews and the forum. If babypips doesn't partner with me then I could partner with another site.

Anyway, just still kicking the idea around. It's no easy task.