Best Forex Brokers: 4 Recommendations by Urban Forex

At Urban Forex we are all about helping our students as much as possible. We often get questions from you looking for advice on what broker to use or what broker we use ourselves. 

So now I'm bringing you this article with our recommended brokers. 

First, let's look at some of the most important features to keep in mind when choosing an online broker for Forex trading...

Regulation

Not all regulatory jurisdictions and licenses are created equal for international forex Brokers. You should take note of which country your broker is based in and which country’s laws apply to your account.

To avoid fraud, it is critical to use a broker that is well-known and well-regulated.

The range of markets offered

First, you determine which markets or individual trading products (currency pair or stock symbol) you want to trade, then check to make sure they are offered by the broker.

You should also check to make sure the products you want to trade are available in your region.

Forex spreads, commissions, and overall trading costs

For forex trading: spreads and any round-turn commissions will make up the all-in cost to complete (open/close) each trade. 

Forex trading costs are not easy to break down. Bid/ask spreads can vary across venues (because forex is decentralized), forex spreads may be either fixed or variable (floating), and variable spreads may widen or narrow (vary) at different rates across brokers.

While the all-in cost to trade can be critical for many traders, it is important to look at the whole picture in terms of how a broker’s overall offering could best suit your needs.

User Interface and Usability

Some brokers are easier to use than others. Some look nicer than others. There are brokers that make things very simple to use and can be useful for beginners while there are also more complex platforms that might take a while to get familiar with.

Forex Trading has also taking larger steps towards mobile so finding a platform that provides a practical APP should also be taken into consideration.

Order Type and Execution

Some execution methods or order-types may incur negative or positive slippage. This means orders will fill but the fill price could be better or worse than requested. Since each broker is different, some firms may re-quote an order with a new price for you to accept (or reject) in the case the price has changed.

Customer Service

The quality of customer support can be a major differentiator across online FX brokerages, ranging from the speed and overall quality of assistance to the availability of help across global trading hours and international markets.

Now let's find out the brokers we recommend...

Who we Recommend...

We only recommend brokers we have experience with or brokers that long-term members have experience with. Having said that, none of them are flawless, they all have their pros and cons.

OANDA

Pros:

• Regulation: OANDA is regulated by entities including the CFTC, IIROC, FCA, ASIC, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
• Account Size: There is no minimum account size or trade size with OANDA.
• Board range of trading pairs: Traders can access 71 currency pairs, 16 stock index CFDs, 8 commodity CFDs, 6 bond CFDs, and 23 metals CFDs.
• Trade from the charts: Traders can open and close positions directly from charts in both the OANDA and the MetaTrader 4 desktop applications.

Cons: 

• Slow Customer Service: OANDA's customer service representatives are good but can be slow to respond. Hold times can be unusually long.

OANDA rates highly in most categories. It offers demo accounts that do not expire, giving you the ability to practice trading until you are ready to go live.

The minimum deposit is only $1. The max leverage is 1:50.

Deposit/Withdraw methods are bank wire, credit card, and PayPal.

 OANDA is used by our Senior trader Armand who commented that:

"Oanda's spreads on majors are pretty tight but the spreads on exotics like EURNZD and GBPNZD is fairly high (think 10pips and during volatile market behavior (major news events) it may spike up to 20+). However, there are no commissions.

It has a very user-friendly desktop interface and user-friendly phone app."

FXPRO

Pros:

• Breadth of Trading Products: FxPro offers trading in Forex, cryptocurrencies, commodities, stock shares, and indices.
• No Dealing Desk Execution: Orders are executed without intervention from the dealing desk, which should be faster and provides anonymity.
• Registration and Regulation: FxPro is registered with the FCA in the UK which increases oversight and transparency

Cons:

• No Guaranteed Stops: Even at a higher cost there is no way to guarantee a stop loss order. 
• Average Costs and Fees: While not disproportionately large, trading costs and account fees are merely average for the industry

The FxPro platforms now process over 5,000 trades per second, and 99.9% of all orders are executed within 50 milliseconds. FxPro rates very highly in terms of desktop and APP usability.

It has a minimum deposit of $100 which is not high while also offers maximum leverage of 1:500 and a minimum lot size of 10k units.

Deposit/Withdraw methods include bank wire, credit card, PayPal, MoneyBookers, Neteller, NetBanx, Webmoney, FasaPay.

Dukascopy

Pros:

• Well-Capitalized Institution: Backed up by $160 million in assets.
• Competitive Pricing: 0.2 EUR/USD basic spread for all accounts.

Cons:

• Minimum deposit: $5k minimum deposit for non-Swiss residents.
• Markets available: Limited beyond popular forex and CFDs.
• Inadequate Security Layers: No security token or secondary smartphone authorization for trading platforms.

Dukascopy is a Swiss Forex broker that offers both personal retail forex trading and binary options accounts.

Dukascopy’s flagship platform is JForex3, a desktop and web-based platform that supports both Windows and Mac. This platform is rich with trading tools and easy to use. 

While the minimum deposit is $5k to open an account on its Swiss website, it is also possible to open one for as low as $100 with its European of Asian platforms.

Maximum leverage is 1:100 while the minimum lot size is 1k units.

Deposit/Withdrawal methods through bank wire, debit card, and credit card.

IB (Interactive Brokers) 

Pros:

• Low Commissions/Spreads: Some of the lowest commissions and spreads in major markets, including stocks, bonds, forex, CFDs, futures, and options.
• Trading Technology: Highly regarded proprietary trading technology with smart routing capability.
• Sophisticated Order Types: Comprehensive menu includes more than 60 order types and algos.

Cons:

• Minimum Deposit: Steep minimum deposit of $10k to open an account.
• Technical Charting: Trading platform charts and indicators don't meet modern standards

Interactive Brokers is Navin's preferred brokerage, the one he uses himself.

IB's trader workstation is considered one of the best trading platforms available for advanced traders. It's old-school, to say the least.

While IB is not exactly ideal for beginners, it can help you gain a better understanding of the details of the trades as it requires more attention to detail.

I compare it to learning to drive a manual car compared to an automatic. Learning to drive a manual (stick shift) car is more difficult but once you learn how to do it you will also know how to drive an automatic car. If you learn to drive an automatic car first you would not necessarily know how to drive a manual.

Minimum lot size is 25k units while the maximum leverage is 1:40.

Deposit/Withdrawal methods through bank wire or cheque.

So, there you have it. A list of the important factors you should consider when choosing a broker and 4 of the brokers that are used by Navin, the Urban Forex team and some of the Elite members.

At the end of the day, you need to choose a broker that suits you and your needs and I hope this article helps.

I want to hear from you!

Do you use any of the above brokers? 

If not what broker do you use?

Let me know in the comment section below.

With Pip Love,

Garry at Urban Forex