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Forex Brokers

The Four Best Forex Brokers for Day Trading the Currency Markets

It is not easy to find the right forex broker for day trading. There are lots of brokers out there contesting for your business. Some FX brokers thrive on exploiting day traders, so you must spend some time researching honest and capable brokers.

As a day trader, rather than an intermediate or swing trader, your choice of a forex trade broker must be influenced by what's important to you and your success: low minimums, low spread, high leverage, instant execution and solid support are the big boys on our list.

Let's run through these qualities and why they're important for FX day traders:

Low Minimums

It is important not to trade outside of your means and you should not feel pressure to do so. It's your money. Be careful putting too much money up front into a day trading account with a broker that you're not familiar with.

As a day trader, you need to test out the system and understand forex charts before you commit heavy capital to it. For example, when you are day trading, you need truly instant execution, every trade--or else you need to find another broker.

Low Spread

The spread is difference between the bid and the ask price. The lower the spread, the less expensive it is to trade. When you trade many times per day, those pips add up.

Make sure to verify, though, that a low spread broker has the other qualities that you're looking for. Low spreads are less appealing, for instance, if your broker offers terrible customer support.

High Leverage

Leverage means borrowing money to trade. If you use 10:1 leverage you are trading with ten times the amount you put down.  If you put down one dollar, you are trading with ten. 

This can be a slippery slope, especially for high frequency day traders, because you stand to profit more but you also stand to lose more. At the same time, if your broker is not offering you sufficient leverage, day trading gets boring quickly.

Choose a forex broker that offers at least 100-1 leverage if you're day trading FX.

Instant Execution

This is vital because in the realm of day trading the market can shift so suddenly and go up and down so radically that even a few seconds will make the difference in entering your trade where you want or missing your window of opportunity.

For currency day traders, instant execution is probably the #1 quality to look for in a forex broker.

Solid Support

Day trading forex can be a lonely experience. When you need help with your account, you will need a broker you can count on to answer your phone call or email.

Furthermore, the best FX brokers for day traders proactively teach their clients about how to use charts, research, and other tools to spot trading opportunities.

Not every broker offers that level of service. Those that do are immensely valuable.

Four Brokers That Meet Our Criteria

Clearly this is a lot to ask for and there are a lot of brokers out there who offer on or two of these traits. But you have to look hard to find the ones that offer them all.

Four brokers that appear high on our FX day trading list are, in alphabetical order:

1. eToro

eToro has user friendly interfaces, free practice accounts, low initial investment, personal training coaches, spreads as low as 2 pips, automatic execution, personal account managers and leverage up to 400-1.

2. FXCM

Low spreads, high leverage, instant execution, and a plethora of charts and information in 30 different timeframes. FXCM also has no restrictions on entries, stop losses or limit orders.

3. FXDD

Free practice accounts with low download size, competitive pip spreads, instant execution, free charts, multiple account options, high leverage and lots of technical support. 

4. Oanda

Free practice accounts, tight spreads, lots of technical analysis, instant execution, lots of leverage, and reliable data.

No Accounting for Personal Taste, No Substitute for Broker Comparison

You may find the right broker for you among these four that we like, or you may want to look elsewhere. Ultimately, day trading forex is a personal experience and you will want to choose a broker that you feel is on your side and working hard for your business.

It's definitely a good idea to look around and research several FX brokers for yourself before deciding to commit all your day trading capital to one broker.



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