Request help in selecting a Forex broker from experienced traders with more than 1 year active trading. Just to avoid from being burned by scammers! Also, please provide info on spread difference, scalp policy, restrictions on trade size and customer service.
Any feedback on Forex.com and FXCM? Currently using their demo account.
Forex.com
Accessible from anywhere.
Cannot set trailing stop on entry or order.
Java app is good though chunky!
FXCM
Download software and not able to trade from anywhere.
Chart intimidating for beginners.
Well I use Forex.com right now in combination with X-tick charts. The in-program charting tool is pretty crappy nobody will deny. But if you put 1000 in your account they will give you eSignal ForexCharts which are a drastic improvement and is quite usable. However X-tick really caters to visuals and organization which makes trading a lot less stressful IMO.
My only complaint is the rollover rates, which can be unfair at times. I contacted them and they said rollover rates improved for the larger accounts (10,000+) and for the 5,000 accounts. How much I don’t know, I’ll have to ask that too. The spreads improve in the same way. But I’m a long term trader so the spread isn’t all that important to me. I’ve noticed that the spreads are pretty fair on the majors, a little shaky on the crosses, but that spreads stay pretty consistent through news and volatility. They don’t expand by much, so that might be a large bonus if you are a newstrader/scalper right?
I don’t know the scalping policy, you could ask however, they are very easy to access on their livechat. But personally, I don’t think scalping is your best bet as a retail trader. I’m sure there are many banks doing a lot better job of it.
But anyway, trade sizes are limited to 10,000k (minilots) as the smallest amount. The highest lots you could put in a single order is 25 standard lots or 2.5million currency. And customer service is really good as I said.
They keep fairly good records of your trades, with profits/gains, and rollover transactions, but don’t provide any information on your performance like I’ve seen on MT4.
So that’s a bit of info from what I’ve been trading live for 3 months and demoing for over a year. You’ve got some strict guidelines for someone wanting free advice, but I hope it still helps you.
Thanks, you are observant.
Well your feedback on Forex.com sounds positive and I will keep in touch with their customer service. I did try contacting them twice but the response was rather “dry” and delayed. It gave me an impression that the customer service staff maybe ill-prepared hence professionalism is questionable, not to mention integrity too. I have to be defensive since real money is involved here.
Since you have a live account, are you using their trailing stop feature? If yes, how or where and when do you set them? FXCM’s plaform is better, you can set it on order entry. Your feedback restored some confidence
samcrus
I am new, so it beats me! Haven’t heard of them, sorry!
daydreamer65
Thanks for the input. However nothing concrete there to help me, besides there are too many threads to sift through, haven’t got the patience!
You can only do OCO’s when you set the orders. So maybe you should use FXCM if trailing stops are important. So you scalp and use trailing stops? Do you think this could be profitable long term?
Well I was just curious about scalping. I don’t apply it. I prefer holding on to positions for a week. It would help if trailing stop is set when you are in profitable state and let the profits run. However I have not encountered hefty profits by setting trailing stops but stopped at a “undesirable” profit points. The purpose of applying trailing stop is, I don’t want to sit too long monitoring the trade, it’s too tiring! I just want to set it, as I mentioned earlier, at a profitable state and let it take care of profits.
Their(Forex.com’s) OCO and IF/then OCO are great! I don’t have any problem with their Java version except that it fail to execute transactions and order acceptance seemed hanged during high volatility, that’s understandable given the magnitude of transactions and it’s isolated to currency pairs!