Selecting A Forex Broker – Part 2

The Forex market moves fast and you need “up-to-the-last-second” information to guide you in your trading decisions. It is urgent to have a high-speed Internet connection if you plan to trade online. A quality Forex broker should be able to offer you real-time quotes and enable you to enter and exit the market quickly. These are only the minimal requirements of any trading software. Brokers offer upgraded software packages for extra fees.

Very small “mini accounts” and even smaller “micro accounts” for as low as two hundred dollars are now offered by brokers. These very little accounts are an affordable way to get started and test your trading skills. This is an inexpensive way to gain experience on forex trading. When choosing the right online forex broker for you, you should first examine carefully their features and policies. Firstly, you should get a confirmation that it offers the seven major currencies at minimum. Costs of transactions should be calculated in pips. Traders can make more profit if broker requires lower number of pips per trade. If the major requirement is lower (meaning higher leverage), the chances for bigger profits and losses are greater.

The minimum trading size requirement may vary from broker to broker. A standard lot consists of 100,000 units, while a mini lot consists of 10,000 units. A micro lot consists of 1,000 units and some brokers even offer fractional unit sizes. These are called odd lots. These allow you to create your own trading size.

How do you determine the rollover charges? This is done by getting the difference between the interest rate of the country of the base currency and the other country’s interest rates. The rule here is the bigger the interest rate difference between the two currencies, the bigger the rollover charges.

Almost all brokers give interest on a trader’s margin account. The interest rates are unstable and fluctuate with prevailing national rates. If you extend your break from trading, money in margin account accrues interest and brokers do not allow interest accruals unless margin requirement is at least two percent. Brokers observe trading hours. Almost all brokers align their time with the time of the Global Forex Market. When examining a prospective broker’s fine print section of the application, be on the lookout for nuances that broker may impose on the new trader.

The above features and policies of a prospective broker should be examined thoroughly. Finding the right broker is not easy and requires some real efforts on the part of the would-be trader. Do not just pick out the first one that looks okay to you, instead keep on requesting for demos until you find the broker that you are comfortable with and you feel is the right one for you.

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