Finding a suiteable broker for a newbie

Beginner Questions
#1

Hello everyone,
I am a newbie trader from central Europe who had interest in forex trading for a long time. This year I had sufficient time to start reading lots of articles and books about it. I finally created a demo account two months ago and made some stable profits. I prefer moderate daytrading, fast scalping and also found great joy in trading news.

Still I am not yet totally ready to go for a live account but that point gets closer and so the search for a suiteable broker for live trading has begun. The one my first demo account is with doesnt allow scalping on live accs. I spent the last days with testing various brokers demo accounts and reading big amounts of terms of service. Brokers already broke me, not in terms of money but time. :wink:

The ideal broker should have:
-) Negative balance protection!. This is an absolute must-have, dont want to get totally destroyed by someone pulling an SNB.
-) No problem with scalping.
-) Fast and reliable order execution in times of high volatility.
-) Reasonably low spreads and commission.

Brokers I tried so far:
-) Plus500. Sadly no scalping.
-) FxPro. Ctrader isnt that great for me. Also, there are many smallish gaps and quite big spikes even in calm times on EUR/USD.
Spreads are okay but commission is not that great.
-) FXCM. TradingStation+Marketscope are awesome. TS works flawlessly on my mobile devices. No negative balance protection though.

Is there any broker out there that fits my needs? Besides Exness that I might give a try, what brokers did I miss?
Basically FXCM with NBP would be ideal.

Hm, that became more of a lengthy post than I had hoped for. If you made it that far, thanks a lot for reading :).
All suggestions are highly appreciated.

P.S. My first deposit will be in the 1-2k$ range and I consider it to be totally lost, no illusion of making profit on the first try with real money.

#2

Can you share your experience with these Brokers?
I’m searching for a regulated Broker and I would like to hear from the user experience of others.

#3

Of course.

My first try was Plus500, a MarketMaker with tools that are very straight forward to use. I went with their web based platform to trade from workstations and their app on my android phone. Both work fine.
Spreads arent too bad, usually around 2-3 pips on majors and there is no commission.
All my orders were executet instaneously, even in times of high volatility. When it comes to extrem volatility with events like NFPs some instruments were however disabled for a few seconds. Mind you thats just a demo account and not a live one.
Sadly I had to read that they often labeled scapling as “abusive behaviour” on live accounts which of course isnt allowed. This resulted in locked down accounts. I couldnt find any solid definition from them for whats abusive and whats not.
As far as I know, Plus500 does offer negative balance protection which is a huge Plus ;).

Then I tried out FXCM with a Demo for MT4 and TradingStation2. A big STP broker.
MT4 is not really to my taste, its personal preference of course. TS2 is perfectly fine for analyzing charts as well as trading. However, it seems to me that sometimes MT4 updates prices more often than TS2 does. Its not bad but in direct comparison I could notice a difference.
During normal trading times, execution of (demo) orders is instant and reliable on both platforms.
So far I only used TS2 for trading bigger news and while it ran stable all the time. During severe volatility a slightly profitable position closed at a different price than what was shown and became a small loss. Only 4-5 pips difference but its annoying clicking close at a profit and getting a loss.
I did look at the right chart and price was quite stable for some seconds before/after closing. Cant come up with an explanation for what caused it on a demo account. Do they simulate the effects of insufficient liquidity on non-live accs?

Theres some statements floating around that FXCM will compensate for negative balances of up to 50000 and only collect everything above that from the customer. However, theres wording like “regular market conditions” thrown around so I dont consider such statements to be of any value.

FXPro is quite a short story. Gave their ECN account a try.They make use of cTrader for that. Not bad of a software but I wouldnt want to use it every day. Again, this is purely personal preference.
What really puts me off is that there are small gaps in the chart, even in calm times. For example, one candle just starts about two pip higher than the last one closed. Not even their wicks connect. Just a plain gap that isnt there with other brokers I tried.
If its allowed I can post screenshots of that.
After that happened more than just once I didnt try them any further. Commission is about 10% higher for the majors I trade too.

Once markets open on Sunday evening, I will give exness a try.
Theres also shops like IronFX but everything I havent read much positive things about them.

Seems quite hard to find a good broker for scalping that offers negative balance protection, wouldnt have expected that.

#4

Hi Brokersbrokeme and Samuelrichard,

Negative balance proctection is a good points, some brokers do it for clients but most do not have that service. When you say scalping, then frequency is of course a question and when you say low spread then it is relative. Many brokers have a lot lower spread than some year ago, like around 1 pip. Still, there are many trader who critisize everything and they basicall do not want to pay any spread so for them 1 pip spread is also too expensive. For longer term traders those 1-2 pip differences do not matter at all.

Regulation is an interesting question. History has shown that regulation is not always helping at all to save your account, on the other side it can have the affect of having higher costs.

I checked and couldn´t write private message to both of you, you can get into touch with me there. Of course there are brokers for your expectations but not easy to find. I like to write here in the forums but when it gets personal (like different deposit possibilities etc.) then I prefer private messaging or email sending.

I wish you good trading.

#5

Hi,

I just want to wish you best of luck in your research and start of live trading. I believe that eventually you will find your broker to suit your needs, I just want to recommend you to start only with some small account with not that big amount of money because as you said you will lose it no matter what and I can guaranty you that you will lose lot more accounts than one especially since you do not have any live experience. What ever you have learn on demo trading you should know that it is just a wasting of time, it wont work in live trading.

#6

I just want to wish you best of luck in your research and start of live trading. I believe that eventually you will find your broker to suit your needs

Thanks a lot :). If I managed to find the holy grail of brokers Ill let you guys know ;).

I just want to recommend you to start only with some small account with not that big amount of money because as you said you will lose it no matter what and I can guaranty you that you will lose lot more accounts than one especially since you do not have any live experience.

The 1-2k already is the minimum deposit for some non-MM accounts I checked, like FXCM for example. The less the better, of course its micro lots only and no more than 1-2% potential loss of equity per trade for me.

When you say scalping, then frequency is of course a question

That ranges from 1-20 trades a day. Or even 0 if I cant spot any solid opportunities. Positions are typically held for a few minutes, most less than ten.

…when you say low spread then it is relative. Many brokers have a lot lower spread than some year ago, like around 1 pip.

1 pip is totally fine with me, especially if spreads stay in roughly that region for most of the time during normal market activity. News, high impact events and generally all episodes of higher volatility are a different story of course.

Strange that you could not write me a PM, I checked and didnt encounter any settings in my profile which would block PMs. Ill give it a try to send one.

#8

Well, your criteria are well organized. I am sure you would love Profiforex. My account was reset to Zero some months ago when it ran negative, so I owed nothing. You’ve got to try the execution, it is really fast. I won’t recommend if am not sure. I hope this posts helped.