talhayousuf
Member
Do your research before choosing a broker. Here’s a list of some of the most important considerations:
- Is the broker legal in your jurisdiction? (Some countries like the US and India have, in their wisdom, decided to limit your choice.)
- Is the broker properly regulated? The most trusted regulators are the UK, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and, despite some egregious failures, the USA. Avoid unregulated brokers or any “regulator” based on a small offshore island.
- Does the broker offer good liquidity, spreads and execution?Compare spreads, and if you have any ambitions to scale, research the depth of their book and the speed and reliability of their order execution.
- Does the broker offer a suitable trading platform and/or API? MT4 may be the standard, but it has some pretty glaring weaknesses, particularly for serious automated trading. A small number of brokers offer more powerful and flexible alternatives, and an even smaller number offer powerful APIs for serious automated trading.
- Does the broker offer a competitive fee structure? You can save a lot of money by comparing costs.
- Can you afford the minimum deposit? Many of the more professional brokers set quite a high minimum compared to the mass-market retail brokers.
- Does the broker offer decent customer service and technical support? I suggest testing them out with a couple of pre-sales questions to see how they respond.
