Brokers

1. How to choose your broker

Whether you are a new trader who is just ready to start trading, or an already trader who has just started, or an experienced trader who is unhappy with his broker, choosing a new broker can be a costly and tiresome process. Trying to search for information about a particular broker on the internet will often end up choosing a bad broker. This is due, many brokers, try to bombard forums with false positive comments about themselves, or even hire people to post positive comments and ratings for them on ratings websites.

Many brokers will put an explanation about their services and terms on their websites, but none of them will tell you exactly their rules or exceptions. For example some brokers would swear that their spreads are 3 pips for cable, but once news are about to be released, they raise their spreads to 25 pips. Many will swear that their spreads are constant at 4 pips. But when you try to take a position you will never get the quoted price. You will be filled at a much higher price than you see on your screen.

Today, almost all honest brokers are NFA registered. NFA stands for National Futures Association. Dealing with an NFA registered broker is preferred. Although the NFA does not guarantee your account or equity on the occasion your broker should shut down or file for bankruptcy, yet any dispute you have with such a broker while trading, provided your broker does not want to solve this dispute in your favor, you can file a complaint against it at the NFA. Now this is a pain in the ass for the broker. Because such complaint will be publicly shown on the NFA website, and many traders seeing several complaints against that broker, won't even think of opening an account at that broker. And if the NFA rules that  the dispute be solved in your favor, the broker will have to do so, otherwise its membership in the NFA would be revoked. This will guarantee that if your broker is guilty, he will try to solve the dispute with you because he does not want you to file a complaint against him.

 Funding and withdrawals are also an important aspect to look at. Before you open an account at a broker, you should check with him funding and withdrawals options and processing time. If the broker refuses to send your withdrawals after winnings, once because of extra due diligence, and once because they need extra identifications, and once because they found a mistake in your signature, and once they send the funds by wire but they need 3-4 months to reach you because of security measures, then this should alarm you enough to stop dealing with such a broker at once. The easiness of funding your account should reflect the easiness of withdrawals. 

Many factors should be taken into account when choosing your broker, including NFA registrations, spreads, commissions, funding and withdrawals options, platform, wireless trading, due diligence, capital, NFA data, etc… All these factors are outlined and reported for all brokers listed in this report. You can read more in the conclusions section.