How to Choose a Forex Broker

When you are looking for a forex broker, it's not something that happens overnight. When you look at their credentials, you automatically think this is the one. It's important to check them out to know which one will be looking out for your financial interests and not just theirs. You should check that a broker is registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as protection against fraud or abusive trade practices. A Forex broker also needs to be associated with a financial institution, such as a bank in order to provide funds for margin trading. Picking the right Forex broker for you will take some work on your part. There are brokers who charge a flat fee and some that charge commission. It may be a good idea to talk with friends and business associates about their brokers. You may get some good leads, and you're certain to hear who to stay away from. There is nothing like word of mouth advertising. The trading platform is the investor's portal to the markets. As such, traders should make sure the platform and any software is easy to use, visually pleasing, has a variety of technical and/or fundamental analysis tools, and that trades can be entered and exited with ease. This last point is especially important: A well-designed trading platform will have clear ‘buy' and ‘sell' buttons, and some even have a "panic" button that closes all open positions. A poorly designed interface, on the other hand, could lead to costly order entry mistakes, such as accidentally adding to a position rather than closing it, or going short when you meant to go long. (For more, see What Should I look For When Choosing a Forex Trading Platform?)Other considerations include customization options, order entry types, automated trading options, strategy builders, backtesting and trading alerts. Most brokers offer free demo accounts so that traders can try out the trading platform prior to opening and funding an account.

How much or how little leverage will a broker give you? We highly recommend you review "Leverage the Killer"before deciding on how much leverage would be suitable for your trading style. The phrase, "Less is More," can save every newbie