I’ve been reading Forex reviews on a couple of sites and it seems that on one site they can get rated good, on another site they can get rated bad. On a forum it could be anything.
I understand there are ‘white label’ brokers which are just resellers of larger brokers. I also see user reviews and on EACH ‘decent’ reviewed broker, they say the same thing:
“In the past 5 years I’ve been with 7 brokers and this one is hands down the best. Tight spreds, etc etc”
“I’ve traded with FXBroker for at the same time with this broker and the other broken couldn’t handle news events”
“I was with a broker for 2 years previous, now I’m finally making money. I thought I was doing something wrong the whole time, but my last broker was cheating me”
Then right after the good reviews someone will say: “typical chop shop stay away”.
These are all verified accounts of the broker being reviewed.
So it’s hard to know what is legit and what isn’t. I also hear that demo accounts won’t work because they have lag and poor service compared to the live accounts.
I have local Canadian brokers, but I read on TulipFX that their EA software requires brokers that have a very high ‘tick rate’ and the tick rate can make or break profits. A study showed up to 2 times the tick rates on various services and they said that the broker can use tick rates to take profits and the tick rate is one of the things that even experienced traders don’t realize.
They listed 5 brokers their software works with, but 2 of their top brokers seems to be surrounded with some controversy (Pepperstone and FinFX) although other people swear Pepperstone is the best there is. I have read about service outages during news days and read that it is a scam that smaller brokers like to pull. They also will not refund any money on loses from outages or other glitches from what a couple of reviews said.
So I’m totally confused about who I should deposit my money to.
Well i am quite new to trading but I have had a live accout with IG Index for he past 6 months. Had a couple of problems with slippage with trades I held ovder the weekend but both times i complained and got my money back. Their customer service is pretty good and I like the insight programme they have which is full of research. I only ever held one other live account a few years back with ETX Capital but I did not rate them at all.
Hope it helps
Oh and one more thing I’ve read several times people say that they learned the hard way to ONLY get an ECN account or don’t bother. I mention that because I just found a video where again someone says to only use ECN.
It won’t let my post the link because I don’t have 5 posts.
Thanks for posting but to be honest with you I could show you a list of complaints for every broker on thsi planet!! If you look most of the complaints are all from people who do not have proper money management and have lost money due to them having massive leverage on their accounts and so have been stopped out of trades.
Their is more chance of winning the lottery than finding a broker without any complaints against them. People dont like losing money and like to find someone to blame!
Yeah that’s what I also keep reading. Some swear that it’s just people who lost money and can’t own up to it hehe… It’s feasible that they could wipe out an account, but with a long standing, large regulated broker that’s been around since year 2000 in the uk,… it’s just hard to believe they would be wiping out accounts.
I’m a newbie and in the exactley same position on how do you trust broker reviews. I am currently using an FXCM demo and I have no problems, there is little or no slippage and the trades are executed fine and I am wanting to go live.
But I have read on certain FX review sites that when people go live with FXCM they say its just a bucketshop, they have massive delays, outages and large slippage, and they close people’s acounts, while other people then say they are fine and have had no problems. Although I do agree with the point that people will give bad reviews if they have lost their account and then blame it on the broker, it is hard to believe who is telling the truth.
Yeah now I’m even more worried because I heard someone say ‘what works in demo never works live’. I heard the only way to ensure there are no problems is to get an ECN account. I pinged FXOpen ECN server and it gets 49ms from Canada which is impressive. However, when I ping their regular live and demo trading, there is a 130ms delay so they seem to be to be two different services. I think at this point I"m ‘sold’ on ECN accounts only because the broker has no idea what you are trading and it’s in their interest for you to make more money and more trades. With retail the margins are so small that the real money comes from signing up noobs and then wiping accounts. It could take 6 months. Could take more. It’s like how a gym makes their money off ‘over selling’ 1 year memberships and knowing 95% of the people who signed up won’t really show up after a month. So it’s feasible they don’t make much of margins and prey on people opening the accounts and then eventually wiping them when in reality your trades were good. This is why the demo’s always come out rosy, but live trading fails possibly…
I wouldnt really agree with all of thar. Dont believe that really sceptical dodgy video which is posted on this thread. Yes that are bad brokers around but to say that they are all out to get you and wipe your acount is rubbish. Why would they spend so much on advertising, research tools/affiliates, offers for joining, speed of executing orders, if they were just going to steal your first account from you. Its rubbish. In fact in my experience it is the opposite. They will do what ever they can to keep you. For example i lost a 120 pip stop when i first startex trading because i didnt understand the risk of slippage over the weekend. I complained and although it was my fault they refunded my loss. The only other time it been a problem they did the same as well. Go with a big name broker and you will be fine. Dont believe all the idiots who write bad reviews because they have blown their accounts. They deserve to lose their money for not studying enough!!
I also use IG Index, in fact I’ve been using them for a few years now. The only drawback is they don’t have demo accounts. However, they do have a program for new clients where you can start off trading smaller amounts. I phoned them up about this and I was told it takes up more resources to run demo accounts, thereby increasing overheads.
It should be mentioned that IG Index is a spread betting firm. I don’t know if you’ve considered spread betting, but profits are tax free in the UK, and I believe the same applies to Canada. I know some people look down their noses at spread betting - it’s not proper trading, worse slippage etc. etc. However, if you stick to a good firm you shouldn’t have any problems, unless possibly if you are a scalper.
Yeh i agree that ig are very reliable. To be honest i have only ever considered spreadbetting in the uk because as you said it is tax free. Have you got any links to threads where they discuss the pros and cons of spreadbetting? It would be interesting to read.
I’ve been using Pepperstone for a while and am generally happy with them. I use the MetaTradre platform which seems quite fast and reliable. Ther support alos seems OK.
My only suspicions were whn I first sarted trading I was setting pretty close stop losses and sometimes I almost got the feeling my stop were being manipulated - just a suspicion can’t prove anything. These days I set stop losses quite far and will usually manually stop out if I feel the trade is moving against me.
There is a plugin for Metatrader called Virtual Dealer which is available to brokers, and enables them to manipulate trades. I’m not saying this is what happened in your case, but it’s worth considering.
My broker is FxDialogue but that just my 50cents. Why dont you do a bit of a reasearch online - like forexpeacearmy.com - and see the reviews of various brokers?