I’ve spent some time this weekend on the [B]Forex Broker Guide[/B] site, sifting through their listing of forex brokers —
Forex Broker Guide | Rate, Review & Compare Online Forex Brokers | Forex | Forex Brokers.
I was using this particular site mainly because it has a longer list of brokers (over 300) than any other site that I am aware of. At the end of this post, I’ll explain a little about how this site gathers data, and how their [I]Advanced Search[/I] feature works (or doesn’t work).
I used this site to compile lists of “trusted” offshore forex brokers, sorted by country. For this post, I’m listing only brokers domiciled in Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand. More on what “trusted” means, or doesn’t mean, at the end of this post.
These lists have to be taken as raw data, at this point. The brokers listed here may or may not meet your particular criteria for a forex broker. For example, these lists have not been filtered for any of the following criteria: (1) are U.S. clients accepted?, (2) minimum deposit to open an account, (3) payment methods allowed, (4) platform type, (5) available leverage, (6) pip spreads, etc. In other words, there’s a lot of due diligence yet to be done.
U.K. Brokers
CMS Forex — Forex - Forex Trading - FX - FX Trading - CMS Forex UK
Activ Trades — Activtrades - Forex, CFD, Futures. New MT4.Low or Zero Commission
Alpari UK — Forex trading (FX) with Alpari UK - Online currency trading
Finotec — Forex, Forex Trading, Online Forex Trading Platform - Finotec UK Trading
HY Markets — HY Markets Home
MF Global — Stock Trading, Shares & Currency Market Trading System | MF Global
One Financial — One Financial Markets | Trading Broker –Regulated by FSA | London, UK
ODL Markets — Forex Trading, Broker & Software provider for FX, Spead betting, CFDs- ODL Markets (Powered by FXCM)
Swiss Brokers
ACM — Online Forex Trading | Currency Trading | ACM
C.I.M. Banque — CIM Swiss Forex Bank - Private Banking Geneva, forex broker
Dukascopy — Dukascopy Bank SA | Swiss Forex Bank | ECN Broker | Managed accounts | Swiss FX trading platform
MIG Bank — Home - MIG BANK
Tadawul FX — Online forex trading with leading online forex broker Tadawul FX
German Brokers
Finexo Global Investments — Online Forex & CFD Trading|Trade Currencies, Gold, Oil and Major Indices
Forex Web Trader — Online Forex & CFD Trading|Trade Currencies, Gold, Oil and Major Indices
dbFX — Forex Trading | Online Currency Trading Rates | FX Research | dbFX
Varengold — Successful Forex Trading with Varengold Bank FX
Australian Brokers
Axi Trader — Forex Trading | Forex Broker | Forex Brokers | Forex Trading Platform
GO Markets — Online Forex Trading | MetaTrader 4 Brokers - GO Markets
IG Markets - Australia — CFD Trading Account | CFD Account
Latitude FX — Trade foreign exchange online - Live currency trading
New Zealand Brokers
Latitude FX — Trade foreign exchange online - Live currency trading
Danish Broker
Saxo Bank — Forex Trading Online | Trade FX, CFDs, FX Options at Saxo Bank
The [I]Forex Broker Guide[/I] site is owned and operated by a New Zealand company, and it seems to work this way: the website lists every forex broker they have ever heard of, and then those brokers are invited to furnish and maintain the information which is displayed in their own listings. In most cases, the brokers have furnished enough information that you can decide whether you want to take a closer look at them.
However, some brokers (for whatever reason) apparently do not furnish information about themselves, and this results in a number of bare-bones listings which don’t tell you much. In most of these cases, it’s not possible to tell from the listings even where those brokers are domiciled, or how they are regulated.
This site has an elaborate filter/search mechanism, called [I]Advanced Search[/I], which turns out to be a big disappointment. It supposedly allows you to search for brokers based on almost any criteria you can think of: country, language, regulation, type of platform, pip spreads, etc. However, the search feature seems to search only the minimal data which has been displayed by the brokers themselves in their respective listings, and this leads to search results that can be bizarre.
For example, I filtered the entire list of over 300 brokers with just two criteria: (1) brokers in the United States, and (2) brokers who accept U.S. clients. Obviously, every broker in the U.S. accepts U.S. clients, but that’s not what the [I]Advanced Search[/I] feature told me. The search feature returned exactly 6 results, and you’ve probably never heard of 4 of them. When I removed the “U.S. client” search criterion, and just asked for U.S. brokers, the search feature returned 51 broker names.
Obviously, the [I]Advanced Search[/I] feature is a work-in-progress. It does seem to work accurately when you search by country, and/or when you search for “trusted” brokers. So, those are the search criteria I used to compile the lists shown above.
Which brings us to the question: What is a “trusted” broker? I can’t answer that question, and the website does not reveal how they made the determination to award some brokers the “trusted” badge, and not others. I applied the “trusted” filter purely as a matter of expediency, to cut the lists down — not because I can vouch for the trustworthiness of any broker.
If you filter the entire list of 300+ brokers, to include just the 6 countries I have listed above, you will end up with 6 lists totaling 66 brokers altogether. That’s a formidable list of brokers to phone and chat with. Applying the “trusted” filter reduces 66 brokers down to the 24 brokers listed above.
Is it just me, or do the Swiss have “girl’s banks” and “boy’s banks”?
C.I.M. Banque sure looks like a girl’s bank to me.
And MIG Bank is obviously a boy’s bank — they’ve got the Michael Schumacher Formula One race-car thing going on. Too cool.