Broker... Broker... Broker...

Hi everyone!

How's 2010 been so far for you guys? It is my hope that you guys having a consistent profitable trade so far, could be double, triple or more your account than last year. It's been great for me too, life, business and trading. FYI, I've just married last June and now my wife shows a great enthusiasm to be a fulltime trader. Keep on working toward that, honey! ;)

I got many emails, asking me about which FOREX broker that I use and which one I most likely recommended. I try to answer them all here at once. First, I need to emphasize here that Meta4 is the best reference platform so far, so I use Alpari's and ACM's for my graph reference. For trading, I'm using Oanda (www.Oanda.com)platform since last two years and Oanda has been a reliable broker for me, UNTILL I fall in love with a strategy calls 'Hedging'. As a U.S broker, Oanda tied with NFA (National Future Association) new rule, NO HEDGING! You can check that policy here : http://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsNotice.asp?ArticleID=2273

To execute the position, I highly recommend to use any broker with ECN (Electronic Communication Network) or STP (Straight Through Processing) so it wont be any requote problem. I will discuss this matter in next post. By the way I never use instant execution to open position, I only use instant execution to cut loss.

Yeah, there is a loop hole for NFA rule, to hedge the position by using two different accounts. One account for buy, and another for sell, but that also means I need to split up my capital, and there it goes margin calculation all the way. I found that, using this way makes me not really interested to hedging. One solution now is LOOKING FOR ANOTHER BROKER.

I started to list down main criterias : Islamic account (No Swap), Regulated by government body, PayPal or Credit/Debit card transaction, Outstanding Client Service(Oanda has been so great at this), NDD (Non-Dealing Desk), no restriction to hedging and scalping, low spread and ECN or STP brokers. So far, some brokers caught my attention, they are Alpari, ACM, Instaforex, & Marketiva.

Starting on May 3rd, I give myself three months try out with real account for all four brokers. By the end of this try out, I will pick one broker. For now, Alpari, ACM and Marketiva have been great. But, let's see how thing is going on for another month. :)