Yeah that's a tough question. Many of my trading friends still don't know how to evaluate a broker properly from all forex brokers out there. I think I have a solution. I created a set of standards that help me check if a broker is a good one. My standards are simple and focus on the aspects that a great fx broker must have. They are: - Credibility - Cost - Trading conditions - Customer support If a broker checks out all of these, it's definitely a good forex broker and you can trade there without a doubt. For more details, check my full article.
Right, your top recommendation, Exness, that charges 0.8pips in spreads alone for major pairs like eurusd and Usdjpy? I had a quick glance at the crap you are peddling and honestly it stinks to heaven. Your language skills and quality of your website and writing is representative of the typical Asian upper middle class kid who was pampered all their life, mama and daddy probably still renew your diapers, yet you just can't get your shit together on your own because you probgably attended some sort of C-level college in Australia or UK or US. Tell me which part I am right and wrong about, I am honing my people reading skills. I think I am pretty close.
The best forex brokers are the ones that operate as close as possible to a true ECN, i.e. having your trades executed by not the brokers themselves but by as many 3rd parties as possible. In retail forex trading, that is very rare as retail forex trading is conducted OTC i.e. as without on any exchanges. So if you follow this principle, three best forex brokers come to mind, IB (as much as I hate them for everything else), LMAX (they operate an actual exchange for forex trading) and Baxter. They are pretty much the only ones that are within reach by retail traders. After that, you would have to go for prime brokers which most of them require $10 million as min. starting capital.
I considered LMAX but went ICMarkets as had to go Australian?? seem good and no issues so far, but when I come to withdraw 10K profits soon, will my account be put on hold?? That's the real issue with Forex brokers, most profit from your loss and they don't like to pay up.
Lmax is reputable ecn and quite unrelated to shady fx firms that pop up and disappear overnight. Any firm that poses problems with client withdrawals should be avoided like the pest. They are not just shady but criminal.
Well obviously, but until I withdraw a large sum I've got no idea if I'm wasting my time, which is kinda worrying. LMAX added 50% to your opening balance or something, which sounded kinda dodgy so I went ICMarkets. Only trading YM so I'll switch to a Micro Futures like NinjaTrader if that happens.
IC Markets is good and they do not hold accounts ever for withdrawal. But you do have to realize that IC Market is NOT a true ECN either. They are not too bad of a broker but they do NOT operate on as true of an ECN broker as brokers LMAX, IB or Baxter or the other prime brokers. You just need to keep this in mind when you trade with them otherwise they are not too bad. They like to make themselves out to be but in reality they are not like the majority of the foreign brokers in the world. They are what is called an "AB Booking shop". They categorize clients into 2 types or 2 "books". For those who trade with large account balance, at least $10K+ and trade really well, they categorize these clients as "A Book" or A type clients. For these clients, they send their orders to real 3rd-party like their "liquidity providers" to be executed. The rest, those who trade with less money in their account with large losses, for these clients, AB Booking shops take the opposite side of the clients' orders and execute their own clients' orders themselves. That way, those brokers wins either way. They win by trading against the losing traders aka their B-book clients and earn commissions from the winning traders, their A-book clients while their "liquidity providers" take on the risk of trading against those winning traders. If you ask them, they will never admit to it. They will just tell you "it's proprietary". But if you check their "Disclosure Document" which is what all Australian brokers licensed by ASIC are required to publish on their website, it is stated clearly there that they do become principal to your trades, aka taking the opposite of your transaction basically trading against you. Those are what is called "bucket shops" where they exist solely just to make money off you by trading against you. And if you somehow made money, that's when they don't let you withdraw your money and/or even ban you from trading with them. That's the nature of trading. If you are making money then whoever takes the opposite side of your transaction must be losing. You think those brokers would be content to let you win all the time at their expense when they are not even charging you commissions? They will be like just giving you free money and why would they do that?
Thanks for the info Explains why my orders only market fill instantly, they’ll just have to take a loss on me to they switch me to other book, as 98% of retail lose, I would do the same. Not putting account on hold at withdrawl time is my only real concern.
Have you considered trading FX futures on the CME. You get price transparency, good leverage, and the CME as your counter-party.
Trust me IC Markets won't put hold on withdraw requests cuz they've made plenty money against their clients of B-books and are not taking risks with A-book clients. I traded with IC Markets before and my withdraws were instant. Got my money in 5 minutes!