The process of choosing the right broker can be stressful as there are a plethora of brokers out there. If you don't know what you are looking for or let me say things to look for, you might choose the wrong broker and that will come at a financial cost to you.
Choosing a financial broker needs to be done diligently. What you want is a safe place where you don't have to worry about a whole lot of things aside from trading. Trading requires a lot of concentration on its own, and mastering the forex market is a lot of work. A good broker will make the experience worthwhile as they support your journey by giving you fewer technical issues to deal with. If you sign up with a bad broker during your early stage in your forex journey, the bad experience might make you call it quits. This is because you will have a lot of technical issues to deal with and this is not healthy for a beginner like you.
And if you have been trading for a while but you are not getting a better service from your current broker, you might want to check the following for things to consider to know when choosing a broker;
Fast Execution
Executing your order as fast as possible is one of the things you should look out for in choosing a broker. Trading on a real account is different from a demo account as the price gets executed differently. If you are trading on a live account, getting your orders filled might be delayed as bad brokers manipulate the price and get you filled in at the worst possible price.
The forex market is very volatile, especially during news events, and if you are using a broker with slow execution, your orders will be executed at a bad price, far from where you entered as the market might have moved in a few seconds depending on volatility.
Albeit, most brokers promise micro-second execution but not all of them can fill in your orders as fast as they promised. So, watch out for the ones that can execute your trades faster.
Slippage
This is inevitable in trading, but it can still be managed with a good broker. Slippage occurs during high volatility in the market – news events/the release of economic data – when the spread widens more than usual.
I don't know how to measure how much the spread should widen, and in my experience with different brokers, I have noticed that slippage in brokers differs. I can't count the number of times the market has taken me out due to slippage, either at SL or break even. I will then watch the market go in my direction without having a position. You might be wondering, why didn't I enter again？ Well, it is not as easy as it seems because you get frozen out for a few seconds, and the price must have moved away from my entry area before I could realize what was going on.
A high number of instruments
Even though this might cause you to over-trade, if you are using high leverage on your account, I still consider it a necessity when choosing a broker.
A good broker should offer you more instruments to trade because the forex market can be less volatile sometimes. And for us traders, we need volatility so that we can trade. So, it is advisable to choose a broker that offers more than just the currency pairs alone. Metals, commodities, shares, indices, and even stocks are other instruments.
Good Customer Support
Fast and reliable customer support is another thing to watch out for when choosing a broker. That will save you a lot of stress and time because the customer service of a good broker is readily available to attend to your needs and complaints.
If you haven't been enjoying good customer service with your current broker, I think it's high time you considered changing to another broker.
Fast Withdrawal
Having to withdraw your profit from your trading account at any time is quite blissful. That is what you are here for as a trader, to make a profit and use it on the things you want to use it for, be it bills or savings. And to be able to do so, you will need a broker that processes withdrawal faster. You won't like it if your withdrawal is taking more than a week to get into your bank account. It might mess up your trading activities for that time as your mind won't be stable.
I remember when my withdrawal was delayed for ten days during an Easter Holiday in Cyprus, I couldn't do anything meaningful in that period because I spent the whole time talking to my account manager to know when the withdrawal will come through.
Various Deposit Methods
Lastly, the more deposit methods a broker has, the better for its clients. That makes it easy for you to deposit funds into your trading account from any method that is convenient for you.
Most people have a problem using the bank wire method as it takes time before it gets processed. But with the birth of cryptocurrencies, it has made it possible and easy to deposit funds with ease, even though it comes at a small fee.
In conclusion, when choosing a broker, all of the above must be considered. You must be diligent in choosing your broker as they make your trading journey worthwhile.
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