I have been doing a lot reading of reviews while trying to decide which Forex broker to open an account with, what I don’t understand is no matter which broker I look up reviews on, they seem to all get a tirade of bad reviews from their customers and ex customers.
What troubles me about this is I do a fair amount of online shopping and I often use customer reviews to help me decide on a purchase, sometimes you come across an obviously bad item where the majority of reviews are bad, or an obviously good item where the vast majority of reviews are positive.
It is actually quite rare to find an item that has great reviews followed by very bad reviews consistantly over and over good reviews bad reviews, good reviews bad reviews, so to shop for a forex broker and to read time after time, broker after broker, reviews claiming all kinds of dishonest practices by the brokers mixed with a simalar amount of other, really good reviews just doesnt add up or make sense.
I have had some people tell me oh yeah well the bad reviews are just sour grapes, people who lost their money because they were lousy traders and like blaming the broker for their misfortune.
This explanation doesnt really add up there are too many highly detailed reviews containing dates and times, amounts of money, even trading logs, and detailed descriptions of what the broker did wrong for all those thousands of bad reviews just to be sour grapes.
How is anyone supposed to find a good broker in this mess of mixed reviews and how is anyone supposed to believe their broker is not going to find some way to screw you out of your money when it seems almost impossible to find one that doesnt have hundreds of extremely bad reviews ?
There is only 1 way to find the right broker and that is to lay money on the table. If you cannot afford to lay money on the table then this is not the game for you.
I have been through those reveiws and regrettably most do not carry any weight. First off, you need to realise that forex is a dangerous game…sh1t happens and sometimes it is beyond the brokers abilities to deal with. Many people that do not understand this will have something to say. Then you get those that are simply idiots that do not know how to work their platform…I mean I actually saw one broker get a 1 star rating at FPA because when a dude opened his live account, the broker did not offer EURGBP…little did he know that you must tell MT4 to ‘show all’ currencies. Unfortunately FPA leaves these idiotic comments to stand destroying their own credibility in the process.
You will quickly learn which are the scam brokers…I start by avoiding fixed spread brokers like the plague, with variable spread instant execution brokers hot on their heels.
I think that Jade is a great broker and I think Dukascopy will be worth following as they implement their MT4 offering. I am also checking out IamFX at this stage although their commissions are a tad high.
In what country are you trying to open an account?
I agree with you there are some obvious erroneous reviews and idiotic comments as there is with any product for sale online.
The big difference I was trying to point out is with practically any other product or service you look up reviews on, if it is a good product you can usually see the good reviews vastly outweigh the bad, where as with the forex brokers almost without exception the reviews are a mess, tirades of terrible reviews intermingled with some 5 star ones it doesnt really make sense to me why forex brokers should be reviewed in this way while other products and services are not.
I have no real preference of which country, except I dont want a US based broker due to the US forex trading restrictions I have read about.
I have looked at some UK based brokers and other European ones also some offshore ones.
My ideal broker would be one that I can use the MT4 platform, preferebly with no dealer desk ECN trading with a minimum initial funding of $500 or lower so I can try them out to make sure they don’t give me any problems before I invest a larger amount. Im not looking for fixed spreads. Also I would prefer it if I could fund the account from a credit/debit card and have withdrawls made to the same as this cuts out transfer fees.
The situation is very fluid and there are a plethora of workarounds. For instance I had a typical [non]issue with LiteForex where their dealing desk spiked 12 pips and executed a hedgelock, exhausting my available margin. But then shouldn’t have I funded the account immediately? They have instant CC funding. As it happens I reinvented my trading from the ground up several time since then, and it’s a non-event. You will see many complaints, if the motto about 90% of traders losing has credence. Also I hear other forms of trading are far easier than FOREX, although less lucrative. So migrating traders are likely experiencing FOREX-shock.
LIteFOREX now claims ECN capabilities and eliminating the dealing desk, which would eliminate that scenario altogether.
Thanks for the heads up Rossiya, liteforex is on my shortlist I’m glad to hear your experiences with them have been predominantly good.
I agree with you there are some obvious erroneous reviews and idiotic comments as there is with any product for sale online.
The big difference I was trying to point out is with practically any other product or service you look up reviews on, if it is a good product you can usually see the good reviews vastly outweigh the bad, where as with the forex brokers almost without exception the reviews are a mess, tirades of terrible reviews intermingled with some 5 star ones it doesnt really make sense to me why forex brokers should be reviewed in this way while other products and services are not.
SDC,
I think there are 2 reasons…first off bad news travels a hell of a lot faster than good news. I, myself, have given bad reviews of one or two brokers, and yet I have never given my own broker(who is top class) a review. Why…because there is no motivation when things are running according to plan.
I also think that forex trading requires a huge amount of knowledge but yet anybody can go write a review, even after 5 minutes of trading. It is akin to having a student pilot do a review of a boeing 747. The student pilot is going to make some strange comments like…it has high fuel consumption, it is slow to respond to controls, not like my cessna, uses waaay too much runway to take off from, etc, etc…
If it helps I’ll make a suggestion. I opened an account with IBFX because I wasn’t too sure either. You’ll probably find a lot of threads I posted on regarding broker finding when I was new about a few months ago.
IBFX was good, I haven’t been with them long but have nothing bad to say about them. Mind you I started quite small with $200 but I think I made a good choice.
Hope it helps.
There is a place on the net to find out how big a broker is. The biggest is not always the best, but your chances of dealing with a bucket decrease as the broker’s size increases, IMHO.
Biggest downside of the marketmaker shops is the infamous MT requote. That messes with my scripts and is a cheap trick the broker uses to snarf 150% of his quoted spread in moving markets. Then you have Oanda which doesn’t requote. They just increase the spread DYNAMICALLY in moving markets ha.
Before to choose my forex broker, I’ve compared the trading condition of many brokers. Then I’ve open a demo account to check the trading platform. Then I open a live account with only few money. Finally when I’ve seen that my broker was honest, I put all the money I wanted to invest in forex.
I’m trading forex with extocapital.com for many months and never had any problem with them.
First of all to newbies, I would recommend that you
stop reading and stop searching for brokerage
review sites. They all suck. Every single one of them.
Why? Because every single one of them are written
by failures, losers, and bitter morons who then go crying
foul to really the enemies of FX; NFA and CFTC.
And stop whining about requotes; just go to Dukascopy.
If you insist on MT4, wait at your chosen broker for a bit
until Dukascopy goes live with MT4. Dukascopy is the only
way to go. Then only thing you can blame is your own
faults when something goes wrong; not your broker.
I agree these forums sometimes need a true professional to go through and actually remove or if you like explain fully comments made from inexperienced traders as mentioned above.
It is also true that every broker bar none has bad comments about them. Spikes will always happen on each currency pair from misquotes and that cant be helped! What can be helped is the way the brokerage deals with it!! So the checklist:
make sure they are regulated!
fixed spreads honestly do not exist! anyone doing this is a market maker hands down. But remember in FX there is no central exchange so tech they are ALL market makers!!
cover all the products you trade. Tricky to find just that sometimes.
capital requirements should be covered if regulated, esp UK and US etc
execution. Ok sticking point, as said above can onlytruely be seen on live account with smaller deposit. However, MICRO accounts will react differently. same at all levels of this industry. The higher the trade size the more human intervention they will be. Even pros trading 20 million a time cant expect instant execution they ask a dealer and he goes and gets the best fill he can for them based on contacts! Importance of this point is based on your trading style
do they accept Auto Trading and EAs, check out before hand. If they do the spreads may be wider or they have direct feeds of several banks and so dont take risk themselves. Each bank quotes their price then best BID and ASK show on platform. NOTE brokers can still widen this and set minimum spreads to show on platform. So doubt if any broker fully reveals this. Youwant better access to banks use Currenex with $50,000 deposit and large trading volumes.
speed of withdrawal, iwant it now! Not in 3 days!
platforms available
other products, like on exchange products if offered add to company stability which is important.
deals and give aways! needed? not needed. why give us money??? what happens when i invest??
I personally have some ideas on where I trade but each person is different andif you want better idea of true price and liquidity maybe open up several accounts. the true market is in the banks with the voice brokers shouting at each other. That there is the real market and everything is designed so that platforms dont see this exactly.
currenex4all -
Is there a way for me to get a practice account so I can test some code that would communicate with currenex via the FIX protocol?
Sure, but you’d have to have either an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) or a contract with Currenex. If you have a Prime Broker relationship, you should contact Currenex directly. If you do not have a Prime Broker, then you should work with one of our white labels who can extend FIX to customers who don’t have the capital requirements for a PB. I know FXCM has a FIX api, for instance.
Hope that helps.
everyone will have a bad story to tell about every broker.
why? because there are loads of crap traders that blame their broker for the losses they incur.
just silly.
some are vultures, but majority are ok i’d say