For what it’s worth to anyone, here’s my update.
Firstly, I’m a well-researched kind of fellow so I have spent the last 2 days SOLID researching / comparing / creating demo accounts, etc with the following 6 (well 7 if you include FXCM), and looking at their ECN accounts / options.
I won’t go into commissions / spreads as they usually depend on things like:
- which account type you select
- what you can negotiate based on your deposit / equity / trade volume
- the variable nature of spreads
Spreads is the biggest question everyone (especially scalpers) will have. I found it frustratingly difficult to compare spreads. Surely there’s a website somewhere that shows the average (median would be better), spread of all currencies, and where you can pick up to 3 or whatever brokers to compare. Massive grids of spreads of all brokers / currencies is nice but they don’t indicate whether it’s live or average, and comparing a select 3 or 4 brokers takes transcribing all the spreads into Excel to do a comparison. Ugh.
And then each broker’s spreads bounce up and down rather randomly at various events throughout the day / year. I get the feeling that you can only really compare spreads by using the broker for a while in a range of trading conditions.
If anyone knows how I can easily compare spreads of the 7 brokers below, let me know. I need low spreads as I’ll be scalping.
Overall, things like VPS offerings, withdrawal / deposit rules and fees, etc, etc… are all much the same in my eyes. I’m only mentioning the clear differences below, which are relevant to me.
[B]Global Prime[/B]
- can’t find one bad review / comment / anything about them
- they seem to make every possible effort in online forums / emails / etc to offer top notch support
- seem to be the only people who can provide trade receipts from the liquidity providers
[B]AxiTrader[/B]
[B]IC Markets[/B]
- have their own trading platform in addition to MT4
- online customer support not always from Australia, which I found frustrating during my enquiries (the usual language / cultural differences)
[B]Dukascopy[/B]
- regulated in Switzerland, so no ASIC
- I hate their website, just messy
- minimum deposit = $5k
- they seem to offer the lowest commissions I’ve seen the more you deposit / more you trade. However I haven’t looked at their spreads, and it’s possible other brokers also offer similar commission discounts but they just don’t list the discount structure on their website.
- don’t offer MT4. Can be done via a “bridge”, whatever that means. They have their own platforms
- for me, I’ve just learned MT4, coding indicators, etc. I would guess the whole “bridge” thing is yet another technical hurdle to get over and I’m not sure I have the energy for it.
[B]Pepperstone[/B]
- nothing unique to mention here
[B]Tickmill[/B]
- Maybe I missed it on the site but I didn’t know they didn’t accept Australian clients until I had spent time setting up a demo account, etc.
[B]FXCM[/B]
- constant / ongoing debate about whether they are an STP / market maker / etc. It’s concerning.
- have their own trading platform in addition to MT4
- I’m guessing their online customer support is in some other country and I find language / cultural issues each time I use online support
I haven’t come to a conclusion and for all the data analysis I do, I actually tend to make a decision based on gut feeling… and so far I’m overly impressed with Global Prime; from everything I read to my enquiries with them.
However… I need tight spreads. I don’t care if the commission is higher. My trading will rely on tight spreads.
If anyone can help answer “who has the lowest spreads”, that’d be great! 
