New Trader in U.S. - ECN - spreads or "free" stuff?

Broker Discussion
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I am a brand new trader located in the United States. I have researched basically every broker that accepts U.S. clients and have narrowed it down to two ECN providers: Trader’s way and Vantage FX.

Trader’s way seems to have slightly tighter spreads, but Vantage FX has additional free offerings such as News Terminal, MT4 Smart Trader, and free VPS. These “free” offerings are available if I trade 20 or more standard lots of a currency in a month.

As a new trader (I’ll be trading on demo server for a while btw), should I expect to trade 20 or more lots of currency in a month? Let’s say I start with $1000 in capital, and I use like 50:1 leverage?
Also, are these Vantage FX free offerings worth giving up the slightly tighter spread? Does anyone have experience with these two companies in these regards?

Finally, from everything I am reading, Oanda seems to have a pretty slick integration with Trading View in terms of charting. Any validity in dropping ECN brokers for the newer tech from a market maker like Oanda? (cTrader is not available in the U.S… we are kind of stuck with MT4, MT5)

Thanks so much!

John

1 Like
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I think Oanda is the best for US traders

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Are there any comments addressing the items above?

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I am not sure if using a market maker would be a better idea than using ECN broker. It all depends on your trading style and strategy and what you would like to achieve.
You mention only tighter spreads as sort of advantage…what about the other conditions like commissions, slippage, overnight costs, executions, etc? I think they should be taken under consideration as well.
If you think that you should use News Terminal and a VPS, then go for it but if the brokers’ servers are located in the US, I don’t think you would need that VPS.
As you will be trading on Demo first, why don’t you open demo account with both brokers and see how it will go? Check whose conditions and services are better and choose the right one for you.