How to choose wisely a FOREX broker

How to choose wisely a FOREX broker

by Stefan Everaet

Most traders use a FOREX broker to handle their transactions. What exactly are brokers? Strictly speaking, brokers are individuals or companies that buy and sell orders according the investor's decisions. Brokers earn money by charging a commission or a fee for their services.

FOREX brokers need to be associated with a large financial institution such as a bank in order to provide the funds necessary for margin trading. In the United States a broker should be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as protection against fraud and abusive trade practices.

Before trading FOREX you need to set up an account with a FOREX broker. You may feel overwhelmed by the number of brokers who offer their services online. Deciding on a broker requires a little bit of research on your part, but the time spent will give you insight into the services that are available and fees charged by various brokers.

The best advertising is word-of-mouth advertising, and this is just as valid in FOREX trading as it is for any other type of business. Talk to friends and associates to see who they are dealing with and find if they have any complaints or difficulties in dealing with a particular broker.

You could try selecting a few online brokers and contact their Internet help desks to see how quickly they respond to enquiries and whether or not they answer questions to your satisfaction. Keep in mind, however, that pre-sales service may be better than after sales service. This can be true for any online business, not just FOREX brokers.

Customer satisfaction and safety are just part of the story. You want to find a broker who executes orders quickly and with minimum slippage. All online brokers should offer automatic execution and have clear policies regarding slippage. They should be able to tell you how much slippage can be expected in both normal and fast-moving markets. Next you want to know the fees involved. What is the spread? Is spread fixed or variable according to the type of account? Are mini accounts subject to wider spreads? Are there any other charges? Smaller spreads mean more profit for the trader, but there may be a trade-off between spread and service. Look at the overall picture before deciding to go with a particular broker. Margin accounts are the lifeblood of FOREX trading, so be sure you understand the broker's margin terms before setting up an account. You need to know the margin requirements and how margin is calculated. Does margin change according to the currency traded? Is it the same every day of the week? Some brokers may offer different margins for mini and standard accounts.

Trading software is very important for the online FOREX trader. Get a feel for the options that are available by trying out a demo account at a few online brokers. Above all, you are looking for reliability and the ability to perform well in fast-moving markets. The software should offer automatic trading and may have special features such as trailing stops and trading from the chart. Some features may only be available at an extra cost, so be sure you understand what your trading needs are and how much the broker charges to provide them.

Other information to find out about includes the broker's policy regarding minimum account balances, interest payments on account balances, which currencies can be traded and whether or not non-standard sized lots can be traded. You should also find out whether clients' funds are insured and the extent of that insurance.

Forex Future Trading

Forex Future Trading

by Uma

The profits of forex over currency futures trading are significant. The difference between the two instruments range from truth-seeking realities such as the history of each, their objective viewers, and their importance in the modern forex markets, to more concrete issues such as transactions fees, margin necessities, access to liquidity, easiness of use and the technical and educational support obtainable by sources of each service. These dissimilarities sketched below:
More Volume = Improved Liquidity. Daily money futures volume on the CME is now above 2% of the volume seen each day in the forex markets. Incomparable liquidity is one of many advantages that forex markets clutch more currency futures. The truth told this is old news. Any currency professional can tell you that cash has been king since daybreak of the modern currency markets in the early 1970's. The actual news is that individual dealers from every forex risk profile now have full right to use to the opportunities offered in the forex markets.

Forex markets give tighter bid to offer increases than currency futures markets. By reversing the futures cost to evaluate it to cash, you can willingly see that in the USD/CHF example over, inverting the futures selling price of .5894 - .5897 results in a currency price of 1.6958 - 1.6966, 8 pips vs. the 5-pip increase available in the forex currency markets.

Forex markets offer higher advantage and lower margin charge than those found in currency futures trading. When trading currency futures, buyers have one margin charge for "day" buy and sells and another for "overnight" situations. These forex margin rates can differ depending on business size. When trading cash markets, you have admission to the same margin rates day and night. Certainly, trading on margin enlarges equally your fx profits AND your losses.

Forex markets make use of easily understood and across the world used terms and cost quotes. Currency futures quotes are inversions of the cash value. For instance, if the cash price for USD/CHF is 1.7100/1.7105, the future corresponding is .5894/ .5897; a method followed only in the limits of futures trading.

Currency futures charges have the added difficulty of with an advance forex part that takes into account a time factor, interest rates and the interest disparities flanked by different currencies. The forex markets need no such changes, mathematical manipulation or thought for the interest rate factor of futures agreements.

Forex trades performed through FOREX.com are charge free*. Currency futures have the extra baggage of trading commissions, trade fees and defrayal fees.