I am currnetly going through the babypips course and trailing strategies through MT4 demo account and I have tried Plus 500 as well as Oanda demo’s to get a feel for different platforms. So far going well.
When it comes to the real thing though I seems to be really difficult to find the best broker with a large amount of mixed reviews.
I am looking for FCA regulated, tight spreads and easy withdrawl as I am leaning towards a day trading strategy and looking to open with £2000.
In addition, as I am in the UK, Spread betting is an option here, what are your thoughts on a spread betting account rather than the other types. The main reason is being exempt from tax, is spread betting the obvious choice? It seems it doesn’t have the same “repuation” as other forex accounts
I have done a bit of research and I have identified a few potential brokers:
IG
EagleFX
Oanda
HFmarkets
But all seem to have mixed reviews.
But what are your thoughts on a UK broker, who/what to look for, your experiances as a UK trader, most cost effective for day trading.
Newbie here too, but the defacto tool is Meta Trader 4, which at least IG and Oanda integrate with. I’m personally with IG, but I use Oanda’s buy/sell widget to help price things by pip.
I can recommend IG but to be honest, the big ones are all much of a muchness. If you choose not to use MT4 (or 5), and rely on the vendor’s charting platform then understand you are shutting off a massive marketplace of add on indicators, knowledge, EAs etc.
I day trade full time and I use IG. Withdrawing is easy, never had any problems whatsoever. They have offices in london and are FCA regulated. So definitely have a look at them.
I trade via spreadbetting and its tax free in the UK. I use their own platform and now on hindsight I think it’s great lol. This is because I’m now learning mt4 and it is quite difficult to get used to and trade effectively. However if you have already been using mt4 then they have a spread betting mt4 platform too. So theyve really catered for everything.
Thanks both, IG does seem to have more of a reputable name and has been around for a while, nice to hear that others like yourself are happy with their service, I’m leaning towards them as a broker.
I probably will go with MT4 or 5 as a platform since I have familiarised myself with and it does seem to offer a lot and find it user friendly (Possibly because it was the first demo I used) but I will take a look at the IG demo to gauge how effective I find it.
As spreadbetting is tax free, it seems like the obvious choice over a CFD account, unless there is something I am missing with spread betting.
HF markets is an awesome choice, they offer very flexible choice of account types and great variety of withdrawal options (even some exotic options like bitcoin). I would also add to your list Tickmill, as far as I know they are located in UK too.
Turnkey Forex is a good choice as a broker. Have good trading conditions, low spreads and low commissions. Give it a try to them. You will not be disappointed.
Since you are residing In UK, Cysec/FCA brokers will do the part. I had an account with IG in the beginning, good broker. Since I wanted to segregate my funds, I tried Fxpro and pepperstone. but their commission charges are aching ($7/RT). Other than that, both these brokers are good. Testing Fxview demo currently since commission charges are low ($2/RT). Will update how it goes.
Almost all popular brokers offer segregated accounts, as far as I know it is regulation requirement which ensures broker bankruptcy won’t affect client funds.
Just to let you know im also looking at another broker now called corespreads. It’s also fca regulated and offer fixed spreads but I need to do more research. Have a look too.
I am now using CWG Markets, it is a UK based company and most importantly it is FCA regulated. If you are interested, you can try out their demo account before proceeding to a live account.
If I were you, I would end up with Hotforex out of these list. The experience is fairly good. But their spreads get widen lately. There are also other good brokers including tickmill, fxview. Their spreads are reasonably low, green signal for day trading IMO.
eToro is very good if you want to trade unleveraged stocks or build a stable portfolio made of stocks and ETFs .
Spreads for forex trading are high but they lowered them recently.
I’m from the UK and after researching I decided to go offshore for my brokers. I don’t have a large trading bank so was happy to go unregulated as well since some offshore brokers put the funds into cold storage so there is some protection. I started with IC Markets as they allowed for more preferable leverage options for me and a raw spread account. Reviews suggested they were largely trustworthy and so it has seemed for me a few years on.
I also expanded to crypto trading and wanted same day withdrawals so started researching. I landed on CedarFX as they also offered 0% commission too and looked a polished broker. Generally favourable reviews helped and so far so good. Don’t feel confined to only using a single broker.
I use etoro and trading 212 for stocks mainly. My main interest is forex trading and I use IC Markets for my day trading strategy but also use EagleFX for my scalping and lower balance sizes. EagleFX have 500:1 leverage which is ideal for depositing 250-500 and they have same day withdrawals so always have access to my money basically instantly. They provide crypto as well so been able to trade some bitcoin. Both serve a purpose and happy with both and how they are. Agree with the post above no need to constrain yourself to one broker you can use many for many different purposes.
From what I have researched and experienced myself there is a lot to be said about regulations, however, excuse my biased ass, but I am an advocate for unregulated brokers as I feel there are more advantages for the clients trading via an unregulated broker compared to regulated brokers.
My reasoning:
Becoming regulated, for the broker as a company is a very expensive thing to do, therefore they look at recuperating those funds back in, VIA their clients. SO, what they tend to do, is bump up the client costs through widening the spread, offering lower leverage, and bumping up the trade commission charge per trade that gets placed.
UNregualted brokers on the other hand, do not have this grand expense, therefore they make money via alternative ways, but allow the clients a little more freedom for example by offering a higher leverage- which I myself find to be more useful and beneficial to my style of trading, better spreads and lower trade commissions.
Also got to mention JP markets and Pepperstone shady cases. They are regulated right? And what that’s not stoping them to play against their clients.
In short i prefer to have good trading conditions and smooth trading at all than to rely only on regulations. That’s it!
From what I have researched and tried, fxview is one good broker for UK traders. Not saying it is the only one, but the conditions of this broker are quite good.