Which Broker to choose from

Beginner Questions
1

Hi everyone.
I start to learn about forex for 3days now. Seem very interesting to me, So far I only open forex.com free account.
Anyway I plan to put in 5K in to real account whenever I feel like I’m ready.
Anyone have any suggestion for which broker I should use?
I do bet on sport year around and I know that 5% juice is the best way to do in the long run.
I play poker everyday so I know which site I with softest game and enough traffic.
In Forex I do believe some site got better deal than other. I plan to trade daily about 2hrs per day so which site should I use???
I know that my 5K is not enough for Mini account so I think about start with Micro account. And work my way up.
Which site should you prefer?
Low spread?
Fix rate
and Bonus also??

Please help.

Thanks.

4

Ignore the last scammer.

If you are new to trading there is no good reason to put 5K into an account. If you losing 5K is nothing to you, then go ahead. IMO, start a micro account and start very small and work your way up and learn.

If you are going to approach trading forex like gambling, then you shouldn’t bother. You will probaly lose badly and even if you win it will be short lived and inconsistent. Yes, trading has some similarities to gambling, but to do it successfully it shouldn’t be approached as such.

I have only traded live with one broker thus far. IBFX I started a micro account with them for $100. It has worked very well so far. They are one of the highest rated brokers. You can also fractionalize lots, which is very important when you want to trade lot sizes based on the percentage of your account. On my micro account I can trade anywhere from. .01 cent a pip to 5 dollars a pip. So, there is quite a bit of room to trade small on a small account and grow it larger, even on a micro account.

P.S. do yourself a favor and ignore jokers on sites like these that give you an e-mail and tell you to contact them so they can train you and tell you the best broker. They are simply trying to scam money out of you by selling you something and getting kickbacks for signing up to a broker they work for.

5

I had the same question-and I liked what phoenix said then and now- I have about 4000 to start trading with. but per advice from phoenix and others, I think am going to start with about a couple hundred.

The rationale is that if I can profit with 200 then there should be no problem with being profitable with 4000. Also it is ok to mistake and lose but then the mistake should not be too costly.

Any broker is good who can give you fractionalized pips based on the trading lot. so chose a broker that allows you to be able to trade the min pip cost possible, may be $.1 a pip.

Hope it helps!

6

Thanks Phoenix for your advice also.
I’m so news to this that I don’t even know market close on late Friday. LOL dumber there.
I also like to learn the game and want to move it up slowly. Reason I think about put in 5K so I can have enough bankroll to play in Micro account and I’ll not have to worry too much about losing and play with scare money. (#Huge advantage there think if you have enough roll to play for, when you down for the session just hey stop and comeback tomorrow. However, with short roll I’ll play with scare money and I’ll not confidence enough to make a move when I suppose to make.)
Couples thing I’ll need to add on because I plan to do day trading about 2hrs everyday.
SInce I plan to make a lot of trade every day I don’t want to juice kill me that’s why I plan to look for some site with better spread.
Do they have anything like rakeback in poker??? I play in Fulltil poker and make around 1.5K in rakeback alone everymonth which really help.
Here is the list I see so far but still not sure which 1 to go with.

Compare forex brokers
Forex broker Regulated by Spread (majors) Commission (in pips) Maximum leverage Minimum deposit
Alpari FSA 2.0-4.0 0.00 100:1 200

Ava FX British Virgin Islands Legislation 3.0-4.0 0.00 200:1 100

ClickForex GSCGI 2.0-4.0 0.00 200:1 1000

Deltastock FSC, BNB 0.1-4.0 0.00 200:1 100

Dukascopy ARIF, FFA 0.0-1.0 0.02 100:1 50000

Easy Forex NFA, CFTC, CySEC, ASIC, AFSL 3.0-6.0 0.00 200:1 100

eToro NFA, CFTC 2.0-3.0 0.00 400:1 50

Fastbrokers NFA, CFTC, NIBA 0.0-4.0 0.00 200:1 500

Finexo BaFin 2.0-5.0 0.00 200:1 25

Finotec FSA 3.0-5.0 0.00 200:1 200

Forex Club NFA, CFTC 0.0-0.0 6.00 100:1 10

Forex Metal 2.0-5.0 0.00 500:1 50

ForexWebTrader BaFin 2.0-4.0 0.00 100:1 25

Forexyard 3.0-4.0 0.00 100:1 100

FXcast 3.0-4.0 0.00 400:1 10

FXCM NFA, CFTC 2.3-3.8 0.00 200:1 50

FXOpen SIBA 2.0-3.0 0.00 500:1 1

FX Solutions NFA, CFTC 3.0-4.0 0.00 400:1 250

GFT NFA, CFTC, FSA, ASIC 1.0-2.0 0.00 400:1 250

HY Markets FSA 3.0-7.0 0.00 200:1 50

Interbank FX NFA, CFTC 2.0-4.0 0.00 200:1 250

InstaForex BVI 3.0-3.0 0.00 500:1 1

LiteForex SIBA 3.0-4.0 0.00 500:1 1

Marketiva NFA, FSC 2.0-4.0 0.00 100:1 1

MB Trading NFA, CFTC, FINRA 0.1-1.0 1.00 100:1 400

Oanda NFA, CFTC 0.9-3.0 0.00 50:1 100

Saxo Bank Bank registered in Denmark 2.0-4.0 0.00 100:1 2000

7

PHoenix, is that IBFX is this site?

Interbank FX NFA, CFTC 2.0-4.0 0.00 200:1 250

so the spread is alway around 2-4 pips with fix?

Thanks.

WT.

8

Yes and I doubt you are going to get “Fixed” spreads anywhere.

They keep on changing-just open an account and do not over analyze. I wont even bother about the spreads that much-just ensure that the broker has enough liquidity and ease of transactions.

9

Don’t want to be mean Onetexan, I think you’re very nice person and I’m looking into your system also. I heard it do well but I got no clue how it work just yet maybe by the time I finish school I’ll able to understand it more.
To me low spread is one of the biggest reason for you to win in this business.
Very much like sportbetting I do bet alot of game everyday and I alway look for 5% juice site instead of 10% juice site.
With 5% juice site I only need to get pass 51.5% win to be breakeven.
While 10% juice site I need to win 52.5% of my bet to be breakeven.
Yes those number very small if you only bet 1-2 games per day but it big % off if you do bet alot of game and they will up so much at the end of the month. Your extra winning or less losing will come from there.
Speaking of Forex here.
If 1 site you got 2pips spread while other site you got 3pips.
1 trade you suppose to win 12pips
while that same trade you can only win 11pips.
Yet if you do 1 trade perday and your average 1 win and 1 lost
then after 1 month you’ll see that 15win = 180pips @ 2pips spread site
but on your same record you only see 15win = 165pips.
These number only for 1 trade per day. If you do 10 trade per day you can see that 150pips that you can earn extra from 1 site to other.

WT.

10

Okay I see the need. And if this is going to be your style all the time then definitely go for the one with the lowest spreads-but I was saying that the spreads are not fixed during all times.

I mean for example, FXCM-they usually have a 2.2 spread on eur/usd. but then there are days when the traffic is heavy, and the spreads dip down to 1.8, even 1.4 pips. And then there are early Sunday trading hours where the EUR/USD Spread could be as high as 8-9 pips.

Do research on this aspect when you do find the lowest spread broker.

Wish you luck in trading!!

1texan

11

:stuck_out_tongue: It’s all about try to make extra money and I don’t want to lose any edge on it. I did try demo on Forex.com which the lowest I can see is 3pips spread and alot of 5pips spread and more which I think very bad for high volume players.
I try to see the feed back from other people to see which is good and which is bad. Sometime spread too good to be true then those site could go under with your money also.

12

yeah thats why we are all in it for :slight_smile:

i tried forex . com web client-they are not the ones to offer the lowest spreads.

I like fxcm-they are well established-spreads are not the best but I know my deposit will be safe. Never tried any others.

I stick to a broker and my system-

Do let us know which one you went with and if they are any good at it

13

White Tiger

Take a look at Oanda. Not an MT broker but you can still use MT charts from a demo account and trade on their platform. I believe they might be what your looking for and you can manage your money/leverage very well with Oanda.

14

Thanks Onetexan and EZ.
I really enjoy this site so far. My plan is I’ll try to search for couples of low spread site download and run it @ the same time and try they free demo to see which site offer better deal on spread.
EZ I see quite a fews poster on Oanda I’ll take extra look into them.

WT.

15

I have a micro with FXCM, and a mini with CMS. Gonna open one with IBFX as well. Haven’t done well with either, cuz I’m a noob. Both brokers have been helpful with any questions I have.

There [B]ARE [/B]fixed spreads out there—CMS has fixed spreads. But, they freely admit they have a Dealing Desk to fill (read “oppose”) your trades, so there you have it. That’s probably the only way a broker can offer fixed spreads is if they themselves are going to fill it. CMS’s spreads are very reasonable: 2–5 for the 7 most popular.

Potaire

16

If you are going to try and scalp for 2-10 pips at a time and trade a whole lot, then ya you have to worry about beating the spread. Beating the spread doesn’t guarantee a good trade and is not a key to, “winning the game.”

Scalping for a few pips is fools a game IMO. Lets put it this way. Say your scalp target or loss is 10 pips and the spread is consistently 3 pips. For you to get your 10 pips you have to go 13 pips positive from your entry point, for you to lose ten pips you only have to go 7 pips negative from your entry point. So, if you want to talk about odds, strictly from that stand point, the tighter scalping targets you go for the less your odds of conistently being a winner.

The longer time frame and higher amount of pips you go for the less the spread works against you. In higher time frames it’s actually a non issue. So, unless you are really set on scalping for tiny profits the spread isn’t an issue that will effect your trading greatly. Trading longer time frames is actually much easier than scalping and much more profitable if you learn to trade with the larger trend.

As far at IBFX, I currently only trade GPD/USD. As qouted by the site the spread is consistently between 4-5 pips. It widens for a few minutes during news to 10-20 or so pips. I’m usually already in the trade or out or not trading during news, so it’s non issue for me.

I say this again, as a friend. If you treat trading like sports betting or cards you are going to eventually lose. Yes, in trading you have to consider odds and probabilities and develop an edge, but it is not gambling unless you treat it like it is.

17

Well said, Phoenix.

18

I would just like to add another note as to my opinion on scalping and why it is a fools game. Just about everything you will read about Forex states that is it one of the most, if not most trending, market.

So, if that is true why would you want to even waste time scalping, when you can just learn to identify the trend, get in at a good spot and go along for the ride?

Especially if your aim is to make money. With scalping and getting in and out of a trend, or counter trending on retraces all you are doing is paying the broker the spread over and over and over. Ask your self do you want to make money or are you really looking for some gaming action that gets your heart beating.

The only reason I can see for scalping is to do it for a bit to work on mechanical entry.

19

I dont scalp and I dont have anything against those who do- the only reason why I dont scalp is that Id ont have time to scalp. It sounds ironic but true- I only have enough time to do some reasearch, determine the general trend (if any at all), and then may be if I am lucky place 3-4 trades at max a day. If I scalp, I know I will have to compromise on my stop-loss by setting it tighter. If that is broken then I will have to trade again…if that is broken too then I will have to trade again and again just to break even (I am not immune to psychology of loss) So I play it safe, I target 20-30 pips a day and use extreme caution- I do a top down analysis (as MP noted as well)-look at the daily, then do a H4 and if that looks good, then and then only go on H1 level and place the trade. Most of the times, yea most of the times I am right- I also get to have a liberty of having a wide, really wide s/l.

1tex

20

Thanks everyone for Feedback.
Well said again Phoenix, yes I plan to do day trading on here with 5mins candles on major pair of
US/Euro , US/ Japan , Euro/Japan and CHF.
Everyone have their own trategy or system for me I’ll treat this same as sport betting and poker which both of them I only bet sport when I can see edge or I only play bigger pot with Fish play much smaller pot control type with TAG in Poker.
I’m still learning here and try to look for some system as well and I’ll slowly adjust it into my style.
You seem into more of longer term invest than me there. Also seemlike you do your homework very well. Very sure that you are solid trader here base on your knowledge. :o

WT.

21

OP asked a couple of specific questions in his original post. Perhaps specific answers to those questions would be more helpful to him and others. Just one man’s opinion.

22

Let update with what I try so far today.

#1/ Forex.com
Good is spread is great
Bad not that great of software.
Min start with 10K lot (mini account)

#2/ Oanda
Good is start very low lot with $1
Bad spread seem to be higher than Forex which i see by 1-2 pips

#3/ FXCM
Good Great and easy to use provide much more info than forex.
Spread very low also I see often with less than 3pips

  Bad: Not yet since I only try it for 2hrs.

Hope this will help some other new member like me.

WT.