Looking for Forex broker (frustrated)

Hi,

I'm on week two of looking for a broker and all I've learned is not trust anything I see. It's like this Forex world is filled with vultures. Nothing you read or see is real. If they are real they are gullible or haven't margined out yet.

There seems to be some normal people on this forum, and I'm sure the vulture's with 3 post counts will be responding, but I hope some non-paid or affiliated people can help me.

I'm looking for a forex broker that will not try to empty my account and it would be nice to have some good leverage more than 1:100. I would prefer to deposit under $500 (because that's what I'm comfortable losing right now).

I've been pulling my hair out looking for a broker and prefer not to deal with Virtual Brokers as they are local to me in Canada and I'm guessing they have low leverage.

I'm totally lost and don't know where to go. Regulation is not a priority right now if they have street cred (by non paid/affiliated traders).

Also if there is a site on Forex that has no ads/vendors/non paid affiliated bias please let me know because this world of Forex is like strawberry fields- nothing you see is real.

My trading style will vary but mostly day trading. Swing trading. Not really scalping. I Don't mind trading without stop losses or take profit to ensure they don't hunt out my stops. I'm willing to do those sorts of things.

Anyhow any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

mikedavid00 said:

Hi,

I'm on week two of looking for a broker and all I've learned is not trust anything I see. It's like this Forex world is filled with vultures. Nothing you read or see is real. If they are real they are gullible or haven't margined out yet.

There seems to be some normal people on this forum, and I'm sure the vulture's with 3 post counts will be responding, but I hope some non-paid or affiliated people can help me.

I'm looking for a forex broker that will not try to empty my account and it would be nice to have some good leverage more than 1:100. I would prefer to deposit under $500 (because that's what I'm comfortable losing right now).

I've been pulling my hair out looking for a broker and prefer not to deal with Virtual Brokers as they are local to me in Canada and I'm guessing they have low leverage.

I'm totally lost and don't know where to go. Regulation is not a priority right now if they have street cred (by non paid/affiliated traders).

Also if there is a site on Forex that has no ads/vendors/non paid affiliated bias please let me know because this world of Forex is like strawberry fields- nothing you see is real.

My trading style will vary but mostly day trading. Swing trading. Not really scalping. I Don't mind trading without stop losses or take profit to ensure they don't hunt out my stops. I'm willing to do those sorts of things.

Anyhow any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Click to expand...

Oh dear...leverage needs to be more than 100:1, regulation is not a priority, trading without stop losses?

Do yourself a favour and keep your 500, and forget trading, otherwise you'll lose it fast. If you really intend to trade, then you need to have a long hard think about what you've just written, because in my opinion, you have no chance with the attitude shown in your post. Not a hope.

You need a regulated broker so that your funds at least have some protection. You don't need to trade forex, but if you do, then you shouldn't need anywhere near 100:1 leverage. That's a sign that you're undercapitalised and about to blow your account.

Rethink everything, because you don't appear to know what you're doing. Sorry if that's harsh.

That's part of the problem. Every time I read about regulated brokers who have been around the longest they seem to be amongst the worst bucket shop market makers who have multiple actions taken against them. Even IB is a market maker trading against its clients now and seem to be using a virtual dealer. Would you recommend I go to Alpari, Oanda or Fxcm? Those are big regulated guys wit low leverage.

I want to suggest you for OANDA.

mikedavid00 said:

That's part of the problem. Every time I read about regulated brokers who have been around the longest they seem to be amongst the worst bucket shop market makers who have multiple actions taken against them. Even IB is a market maker trading against its clients now and seem to be using a virtual dealer. Would you recommend I go to Alpari, Oanda or Fxcm? Those are big regulated guys wit low leverage.

Click to expand...

my opinion
u can try finfx.fi
but check all reviews both here and on forexfactory forums
i found it coz i wanted to try forex
but after some demoscalping and pipping and swinging
come to conclusion 99% chance a trader will lose his deposit
and returned to stockmarket

try indexes say in form of cfd
if u wish then PM me
regards.........

I am searching for a broker to trade with just 100 dollars as i am a beginner in this field. Does anyone know such one? Please recommend me if so.

Hi, mikedavid00

Here is a comparison site for forex brokers that service Canadian/US clients. As previously mentioned, do your research and look at the feedback. Make sure that they are regulated in your country. Most have a demo account and I like to check this out to make sure I like the layout and if I feel comfortable I will open a live account. Check the FAQs on the sites. Give them a call to see what their customer service is like.
I also use Oanda as one of my brokers and have no problems with them.


Forex Broker Canada - How to Find a Canadian Forex Broker

Hope these tips along with other might help.

D

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Please note that I am not affiliated to any broker.

Retail forex exists purely to rip people off. Of course some brokers are worse than others but at the end of the day if you think you can put $500 into a forex account and make some spare cash every month you are sorely mistaken. If you think it's a good idea to go with high leverage and an unregulated broker then there is no hope for you, I used to say 'save your money' but it might be better just to go ahead and lose $500, that would be a cheap lesson and might save you losing a lot more at a later date.

forex peace army is a great place to identify the right broker or market maker. As for leverage it doesn't need to be high at all - depending on your trading style and frequency of course. i have a very small live account over at MahiFX for scalping (£200), with leverage at just 1:50. I chose £200 as thats what I was ultimately prepared to lose, but enough that I care about it. There is no problem with this level at all. Sure i'm not going to make millions with the little cash I have put into it. But at this level of capital, it is about learning.

The key to understanding fx brokers is to not look at the product but to look at how they could possibly make money on a £500 account.

It costs money to market and acquire a client, it costs money to set an account up and it costs money to run the account.

So, when you look at fx spreads how can a broker even cover their costs from just earning on spread?

Then look at the serious providers and see that they don't accept small accounts or deal sizes but charge a comm.

It's a multi tier market where below the comm charging firms it is all about managing and profiting from flow and losses.

The reality is that the only way a firm can profit from a tiny account is to run a pure 'B Book' model and deliver a platform that assists in converting client balances to the broker balance sheet as effectively as possible.

In the worst case scenarios some of these firms don't even bother with flow but solely on losses as rapidly as possible.

fact of the matter is that in forex, unlike you're run of the mill level 2 sets stocks where a retail guy can still quite happily jump in the order book, you will never get true DMA unless you trade with ppl like Hotspot fx etc....as these retail fx brokers pool orders together. That said you still can trade the damn stuff just dont expect to be on a level playing field with institutions.

but anyway im going off on a tangent because there are clearly unscrupolous brokers who not only give retail style fills, employ bucket shop tactics. I mean why would they bother with TCF with a 500 quid account?

maybe dukascopy? but what the hell do I know, i never worked in forex, only equities

Wish you luck brother

(for small retail sums) I still haven't started trading but having done 3 months of research last year, the ones that are still on my short list were Dukascopy, Oanda. FinFx looks also plausible.

The problem I have with each is that when I demoed them, all had glitches in the tick data. To me that just tells that somewhere along the line things aren't handled as professionally as I'd like.

eg. finfx apparently has ECN from Integral (truefx.com lists finfx as partner). That sounds good, but I saw a complete freeze in both finfx and truefx.com feeds at the same time for quite a while. And no explanation from Integral to my emails.

As a result, if I were to trade I'd look at using more than one broker with different liquidity providers, so if such problems occur on critical moment, atleast one should be able to hedge the trades or something.

edit: Another thing I didn't like about finfx were their horrible swaps last year (atleast on demo ecn). Now they appear to list swaps on their web page so it's possible they have better swaps but are they now competitive with eg. Oanda?

mikedavid00 said:

Hi,

I'm on week two of looking for a broker and all I've learned is not trust anything I see. It's like this Forex world is filled with vultures. Nothing you read or see is real. If they are real they are gullible or haven't margined out yet.

There seems to be some normal people on this forum, and I'm sure the vulture's with 3 post counts will be responding, but I hope some non-paid or affiliated people can help me.

I'm looking for a forex broker that will not try to empty my account and it would be nice to have some good leverage more than 1:100. I would prefer to deposit under $500 (because that's what I'm comfortable losing right now).

I've been pulling my hair out looking for a broker and prefer not to deal with Virtual Brokers as they are local to me in Canada and I'm guessing they have low leverage.

I'm totally lost and don't know where to go. Regulation is not a priority right now if they have street cred (by non paid/affiliated traders).

Also if there is a site on Forex that has no ads/vendors/non paid affiliated bias please let me know because this world of Forex is like strawberry fields- nothing you see is real.

My trading style will vary but mostly day trading. Swing trading. Not really scalping. I Don't mind trading without stop losses or take profit to ensure they don't hunt out my stops. I'm willing to do those sorts of things.

Anyhow any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Click to expand...

Try Hirose UK, see how you feel about them.

It depends on you trading strategy, if you trade trend or swing you can go to oanda. But if you scalp you should take pepperstone, universal-fx or finfx.

tbh i dont think any broker available to traders that small are perfect. I think a more useful exercise for you might be to spend the time crossing off the brokers you really should avoid. Anyone like to kick it off?

I recommend Dukascopy or MB Trading (they both allow deposit of that amount). I'll be changing brokers next year and I'm already scouting, I'll probably go with Dukascopy unless I change my mind the last second and choose another broker. Both are STP/ECN with their own platforms, I like 'em both (I like the one-click-order button on Dukascopy's JForex), fast execution, tight spreads and they both have great reviews. MBT has been on the market a bit longer and is well established on the US market and also has cheaper commission, but Dukascopy is a bank and your funds are save with them and they also have much bigger liquidity. MBT charges $2.95 for 100k (and also pays you $1.95 for limit orders), Dukascopy charges $4.8 (for accounts under $5k), slightly higher commission but you can get 45% back if you sign up with their popular IB, so that's an even trade. Dukascopy's commission depends on your deposit, account balance and volume traded so it goes from $4.8 to $0.5 for 100k rounds. Check their commission chart here:

Trading Fees :: Dukascopy Bank SA | Swiss Forex Bank | ECN Broker | Managed accounts | Swiss FX trading platform
MB Trading - Forex

MBT offers 50:1 leverage, Dukascopy offers 100:1, they both offer USD,EUR and GBP as account base currency. With MBT you can also trade stocks, futures and options if that's what you're interested in. Beware that Dukascopy's servers/price feed is GMT (London) while MBT's is EST (GMT-5 - New York), so choose wisely. There's really nothing to be none the wiser about, they're both very good brokers so go with either.

i concur with the above

mikedavid...I've been checking out Forex brokers for quite some time and came to the same conclusion that you posted here. It's a shady world, but there do seem to be a few 'bright-ish' spots.

As mentioned by flbroker, MB Trading looks to be rather reputable and has a fairly clean record on the NFA website (MB Trading Record). They claim they are an ECN (termed EXN by MB) and offer tight spreads, so no worries about them taking the opposite side of your trade.

I've also seen good things about Oanda. One of the interesting points was that you are able to open an account with them with no inital deposit and can trade values as low as 1 unit of currency!

Also, I'd highly recommend going with a regulated broker. I know US brokers don't offer the extreme leverage we see offered by the offshore brokers, but I'll happily trade some of that for the semblance of safety that the CFTC and NFA provide. Plus, if you can't find a strategy that will make you money at 50:1, then you should probably stay far away from the 100:1, 200:1, 400:1+ leverages anyway.

Hope that helps!