How to Choose Among Forex Trading Brokers- Top 10 Things You Should Know

One of the most important determinants of a Forex trader’s success is the forex trading brokers they choose. Excellent and reliable Forex trading brokers can offer you stable and easy to use trading platform to trade Forex with, and also give you better guarantee to the security of your fund and customer services. However, if you browse some Forex trading brokers’ websites, you would find all kinds of attractive advertising with huge profits temptations and different kinds of features that you might not familiar with. With so many shady brokers and conflicting reviews out there, it’s not always easy for Forex beginners to know who to trust and what to look for.

To help you to find a reliable Forex trading broker more efficiently, I have summarized a list of Top 10 things you should know before choosing among Forex trading brokers.

1.  Are the Forex trading brokers regulated?

Being regulated by authority is the most important criteria to evaluate the qualification of Forex trading brokers. Choosing a Forex trading broker that is under the regulation and supervision of the appropriate authorities doesn’t guarantee that they are legitimate and your funds are safe, however it is a good precondition. Since the Forex market is loosely regulated and full of scammers, being registered tells you that Forex trading brokers are serious about their business and has made an effort to align themselves with the regulations.

Here is a partial list of some of the most respected Forex regulating institutions:

NFA (US): http://www.nfa.futures.org/ ; CFTC(US):http://www.cftc.gov/index.htm
FSA(UK): http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/home.do
ARIF(Switzerland): http://www.arif.ch/en/index.htm
ASIC (Australia): http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf
SFC(Hong Kong): http://www.sfc.hk/sfc/html/EN/

If you check IKON Group’s website, you can find IKON Group are heavily regulated by various Governmental Financial Authorities, such as NFA, CFTC, FSA, RAK, FSP, etc, upholding strict financial Compliance and Regulations worldwide.

2. Are your Forex trading brokers well capitalized?

You should choose those Forex trading brokers with large capital and transaction volume. This typically makes them more stable and less likely to go bankruptcy, which means your funds are safer. IKON’s unique trading platforms execute trades worth over US$ 4 Billion per day. In 2010 the nominal turnover in IKON Group exceeded US$ 580 Billion, 60% of which is driven by Banks and Institutional Clients.

3. Do your Forex trading brokers offer reasonablespreads?

The spread is the difference between the purchased price of a currency and the price at which it can be sold at any point in time. Since there is no commission for the Forex trading brokers, they make their fee off of the spread. Lower spreads can save your money and increase your trading profits.

4. What trading platform your Forex trading brokers provide?

There are simple trading platform in the form of a web-based or desktop trading platform. You should make sure the trading platform is stable, simple to use, and can react rapidly. If you want to use advanced trading tools, like Expert Advisors, you should use a broker that offer the popular Meta Trader trading software.Meta Trader 4 is a very stable version and it is available if you choose IKON group as your Forex trading broker. It’s a good idea to first open a demo account to see if the trading platform meets your need.

5. Do the Forex trading brokers offer practicalmargin/leverage?

The amount of margin is important. Margin is used to leverage your money. A Forex trading broker that allows you 500:1 leverage is more valuable than one who only allows 100:1.

6. How is your Forex trading brokers’ customerservice?

Customer service is as important as all the other criteria since it related to your Forex trading and funds’ security. Their customer service should be easily accessible via phone, email, and/or live chat with English or your home language. Brokers with poor customer support should always be avoided.

7. Do your Forex trading brokers provide real time quotes?

Especially for scalpers, every second counts for the success of Forex trading and your Forex strategy rely on the accuracy of the price data. Therefore, it is important to make sure your Forex trading brokers offering real time quotes.

8. Do your Forex trading brokers offer a demo account?

A demo account offers you a chance to try out the broker’s trading platform to see if you like it and allow you to learn to trade Forex before risking any real money. IKON offers a 30 days free demo account that you can try with.

9. What is the capital requirement to open a real money trading account?

Account types differ a lot between Forex trading brokers. For Forex beginners, they can open a mini account because of the low initial capital requirement to get started. Some only requires a few hundred dollars to start with.

10. What is the Forex trading brokers’ reputation?

The best way to find out more about a potential Forex trading broker is to find out what other traders are saying about them. You can visit online Forex blogs, forums and read customer reviews.

Choosing a perfect Forex trading broker is not easy. Before you choose any brokers, make sure you have known the 10 things about your potential Forex trading brokers. By following that, I believe you can find the most suitable and reliable Forex trading broker for you.

What is a Good Forex Trading Plan

Nothing can be accomplished without norms and standards. Forex trading planmade by forex traders are norms and standards in forex trading. It is not difficult to understand why forex traders need to formulate forex trading plan. Most people who lose in forex trading are those who fail to set disciplines and make plans for themselves. Forex trading plan is just like GPS, it will take you whenever you want and if you get lost in forex trading, the GPS will direct you to the right direction.

How to make a forex trading plan? The content of forex trading plan may differ greatly because of different fund amount forex traders have and personal character etc. some prudent traders may choose to exit the market when they get a small amount of profit while some may decide to wait for a higher profit. But generally, forex trading plan are made according to the following three aspects: entry and exit plan, money management plan and emotional plan. I will explain them one by one as follows:

Entry and exit plan contains the exact description of the conditions for the trade entries and trade exits. For example, forex trader will withdraw capital from the market if he gets 2000$ profit in the forex trading plan. Making the entry and exit plan need some forex analysis on the market trend. But observing the plan is the most difficult part because forex traders intend to expect higher potential profit.

Money management refers to such things as how much money forex traders should invest and how much they should reserve in their account. If they get some profit, how much they should recoup for previous losses and how much to invest in the later forex trading. Generally, it is advised that forex traders invest a small percentage of their money in forex trading. Thus forex traders had better determine a specific percentage in forex trading plan and execute the forex trading plan no matter what happens.

Emotional plan is the most difficult part to observe in a forex trading plan. It contains the instructions for tracking emotional involvement of the trader in the trading process and the methods for controlling it. For example, in a forex trading plan, forex traders planned to leave the market when making 5000$ profit. But when other traders think that the market will continue to go upwards and they are not going to leave the market, the forex trading plan maker tends to follow suit. So once making a forex trading plan, just follow it and refrain from being controlled by emotion.

Forex Tips – How to Figure out a Forex Scam

Is it a forex scam? In the front of a bewildering number of forex brokers online, forex beginners can’t help feeling worried. Then what’s a forex scam? A forex scam can be a fraud of making huge profits for traders, a failure to return money owed to traders, a lack of transparency in the price and execution of transactions, unresponsiveness to customer complaints, and the targeting of vulnerable individuals.

Maybe it’s not easy to figure out a forex scam, but we can still make a basic judgment from some aspects. Here are some easy tips for you as reference:

Forex Tip 1: Is it regulated?

Forex market is not that closely regulated. If the broker is regulated in your region, your investment will be protected by financial authority to some extent. If not, it’s more likely that you are not adequately protected.

Forex Tip 2: What’s the promise?

Forex beginners tend to be cheated by the promise of huge profits. In fact, this is what the forex beginner should watch out! It’s a common sign of a forex scam. A responsible broker will remind their traders of the risks involved in forex trading.

Forex Tip 3: What is provided?

Usually forex brokers will provide traders with trading tools, resources and some market information. Are all these provided easy to understand from websites? Before starting trading, it’s essential for forex beginners to know about the related knowledge via various ways.

Forex Tip 4: Are the fees transparent?

If the relevant fees clearly stated? Are the spreads for currency pairs fixed or not? In a forex scam, forex broker may offer a very low spread but widen it when the market is volatile.

Forex Tip 5: How is the client service?

Does the broker participate in open communication with their clients through any of the more established networks like Face book, Linked In or Twitter? Does the forex broker will response to your questions in time? The attitude to clients’ needs is an important indicator to tell the broker’s reliability.

Forex Education, an Indispensible Step Leading to Successful Forex Trading

Less than 10% forex traders get huge profit by trading forex. The rest of forex traders earn a countable amount of money or get crushing defeat in forex trading. What’s the reason? Benevolent see benevolence. Some may think that they are hit by bad luck; some may hold that the timing is not ideal. Timing and luck, undeniably, do play a small part occasionally. However, they are not the krux in succeeding the forex trading. Then, what leads to the success of forex trading? We got the answer-forex education, after much survey.

Is forex education so indispensible? If so, some forex traders may feel confused because they have taken some instant lessons to learn forex trading tips and tricks. Then they take forex education the wrong way. Forex education not only includes forex tips. It also includes some other aspects. Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Instant lesson cannot do much to help. Instant lesson is only a small part of forex education. There is a long way to go if forex traders want to receive forex education comprehensively.

Then comes to the question of what forex education includes. To answer the question, forex traders should first consider what forex education is for? The purpose of forex education is to make more money in the fluctuating forex market. Thus, the first step of forex education is analyzing factors influence the forex market such as major political, economical and military affairs etc. The first step is always the most difficult step. Some people who have forex trading experience for many years cannot dare to say that they can analyze these factors thoroughly. Forex traders should learn to predict the market immediately after those unpredictable major affairs and learn to accumulate experience.

Second, forex traders are adviced to take some lessons. Web based forex lessons, seminars, books etc are good choices. This is also a vital part in forex education because those lessons are composed of comprehensive knowledge such as forex terms, forex chart reading, account management, forex trading strategies and timing the market etc. But don’t trust those webs that announce to help forex traders to be a millionaire without losing a penny, which is just a big lie. Forex education cannot be finished in a few days.

As the old saying goes, taste of pie is in the eating. Although forex traders have taken forex lessons, forex education shall not be finished as long as forex traders are trading in forex market. When forex traders trade with a real account, they are still receiving forex education because the forex market is unpredictable, forex traders will never figure out what will happen next minute. So forex education is still indispensible in forex trading.

An Introduction to Best Forex Trading Tools

Forex trading is not as easy as rolling off a log. Some forex traders are quite successful in forex trading while some others are beaten down. Many factors decide the success of forex traders. In order to get a higher possibility to earn more profit, forex traders not only need fundamental theory, forex analysis and forex tips well, but also need to get the help of best forex trading tools. With all this, forex traders are able to have better chances to succeed in forex trading. I hereby introduce some forex trading tools to forex traders for reference.

Best forex trading tool No.1: Expert Advisor

We all know that forex market opens around the clock, a great advantage of forex trading. Thus, in order to get the latest move of forex market, forex traders have to sit in front of the desktop for a long time, totally exhausted. Is there a way out? Expert Advisor, an advanced forex trading tool, is definitely a good solution to this problem. The highly functional and user-friendly Expert Advisor is one of the best forex trading tools offered by IKON. Using the best forex trading tool, forex traders are able to perform automated trade and place orders at any time, saving them much time and energy. Expert advisor can help forex traders watch the market 24 hours and will execute predefined orders.

Best forex trading tool No.2: MAM & PAMM Accounts

Managing numerous of account simultaneously is not so easy. That is why IKON provides MAM & PAMM to manage several accounts and provides solutions of managing multiple accounts effectively. With the best forex trading tool as MAM, Forex traders are able to check open trade, account balance and margin levels of several accounts. With PAMM, forex traders are able to appoint professional traders and assets managers to manage their trading account with the authorization of POA.

Best forex trading tool No.3: VPS

VPS, short for virtual Private Servers, is offered through reliable third party hosting vendors. With VPS solution, forex traders are able to trade 24 hours from any location of the world.  MT4 traders who use Expert Advisor technology are able to keep their automatic trading running even after switching off their computers or with awful web connection.

Best forex trading tool No.4: Electronic Communication Network

Electronic Communication Network (ECN) trading is a market network formed by major banks’ liquidity providers, ECN brokers, corporations and traders. ECN support advanced order execution algorithms, making unparalleled trading speed possible. ECN are used by such top forex trading platform as IKON. With the help of ECN, Forex traders are able to do charting and technical analysis, follow fundamental reports, improve in trading speed etc.

What’s the Use of Automatic Forex Trading Software to Trade Forex

All of us have experienced the convenience brought about by automation. For example, we don’t need to climb stairs up to 35th floor because of elevators. Automation makes our life easier. Automatic forex trading software is another example. Automatic forex trading appears with online retail trading as early as 1970s, becoming more and more popular worldwide. Why automatic forex trading software is so popular? Forex traders using automatic forex trading software may have the answer.

First, automatic forex trading software can help generate more trades than human being. We know that energy of human being is limited but automatic forex trading software is energetic and active all the time. They can follow the forex market time to time, which cannot be done by human being. Moreover, automatic forex trading software are able to handle information, make decision quickly, they also can replicate action across multiple market. Automatic forex trading software facilitate trading turnover to a larger extent

Moreover, automatic forex trading software can help overcome the weakness of forex traders. We all know that forex traders are easy to be attacked by emotion or psychological swings. For example, forex traders make analysis before trading and decide to exit the market when they make a certain amount of profit. But when their profit meets their expectations, they decide not to leave the market because of greed, which may lead to great losses. Automatic forex trading software is great in decreasing losses resulted from forex traders’ psychological swing.

Furthermore, forex traders who don’t have sufficient time to learn forex trading strategies, tips, market trend analysis etc. can trade forex with the help of automatic forex trading software. Forex traders don’t need to be expert but still have the possibility to earn money from forex trading market with the help of automatic forex trading software.

As a novice in forex trading market, forex trader needs the help of automatic forex trading software in order to control risks. Choosing a reliable and user friendly automatic forex trading software is utmost important, which will provide correct information and updated analysis.

Opening a Forex Live Account can Never be That Easy for Forex Beginners

Opening a forex live account is the first step in trading forex for real. Some people may say that things can never be that easy because there are unaccountable brokers providing platforms for traders to open a forex live account. Forex traders need to complete their application and fund their account, which are all that they need to do. But things might not be as easy as they look. Perhaps we have heard of forex scams. For the safety of your account, traders should pay extra attention in opening a forex live account. I hereby summarize several tips to be noticed in opening a forex live account.

Tip No.1 on opening a forex live account: Choosing a reliable and regulated broker

Forex scams happen now and then, some happens because traders didn’t choose right brokers. There really exist such forex brokers who disappear with many reasons, which may lead to closing of a forex live account. In order to avoid such troubles, traders should open a forex live account with a reliable and regulated broker who conforms to the relevant governmental financial authorities’ rules and regulations, integrity and upholding the highest standards coupled with the duty to protect the customer’s funds such as IKON.

Tip No.2 on opening a forex live account: Choosing a stable forex platform

A stable forex platform is also an important element in deciding to open a forex live account; an unreliable platform may bring losses to a forex live account. So before choosing the forex platform, traders should first open a demo account to test the platform. A good forex platform provides traders with speedy but stable services. Many brokers provide forex demo account to traders. So traders have many choices at hand.

Tip No.3 on opening a forex live account: Don’t use the same information used in forex demo account

We all know that people’s information can be stolen by hacker, viruses or Trojan as I mentioned in another article. So for the security of traders’ account, traders should avoid using the same information such as password with the demo account when opening a forex live account.

Tip No.4 on opening a forex live account: Google for the best forex brokers

Many forex brokers announce that they are the best and have successful history in helping forex traders make profit. Just take a second thought on that. Time reveals things. People who have used services of brokers have a say in that. So before opening a forex live account, remember to Google for the best brokers and go around forums, blogs etc. to find the best.

Tips on Forex Investment for Forex Beginners

Without any doubt, forex investment is prevailing around the world. Many forex investors are eager to try whether they are lucky in forex investment. Obviously, some of them are quite successful while some others keep losing. If forex traders keep losing and losing, they should stop trading for a while and learn some helpful tips in order to even up the odds. The following is some forex tips on forex investment for forex traders to refer.

Giving up dream of making great fortune overnight

A certain percentage of forex investments take place just because forex traders want to become a millionaire overnight. Perhaps they have heard that some investors start from scratch and earn a great fortune in forex investment. So they want to follow suit. The result, needless to say, is losing money. If forex traders have such dreams, what they should do is facing the reality of forex market or facing the music of their unrealistic dreams.

Take time to learn forex investment before real trading

As I have mentioned before, forex investment is never risk-free because the market is volatile and unpredictable. If forex traders invest blindly without doing research on the market and without learning about effective trading strategies, they will eventually lose their principal in their forex account. So before forex investment, take enough time to do research and learn what forex traders need in forex investment to get better chances in winning.

Learn to minimize losses when forex market goes downwards

It is unavoidable that the forex market goes against forex traders’ will. In such cases, forex traders should make plan to minimize their losses. Perhaps they are hoping that the market will reverse if they wait for a while. But as we all know, going upwards is not as easy as going downwards. Usually, waiting only results in bigger losses. Do not dream of falling of luck, that is realistic; after all, we are not goddess. So learning to control losses to the lowest amount is necessary. If forex traders cannot control their emotion, they can set a stop loss.

Choose to invest in the peak hour

Forex investment can be operated at any time of the day because forex market opens around the clock. But forex investment has its own peak hour too. Forex traders had better invest during the busiest time because the trading volume at peak hour is much higher, making it impossible for large companies to manipulate market trend in forex investment. The peak hour in forex investment guarantees the safety of forex investment to a certain extent.

What are Forex Futures Trading and its Advantages over Traditional Futures Trading

Forex futures trading, introduced in 1970s, is buying or selling a specified amount of a given currency at a predetermined price on a set date in the future. Forex futures trading are operated in various countries. All forex futures are written with a specific termination date, at which point delivery of the currency must occur unless an offsetting trade is made on the initial position. Typically, one of the currencies in forex futures trading is USD. Forex futures trading serve two primary purposes as financial instruments. First, they can be used by companies or sole proprietors to remove the exchange-rate risk inherent in cross-border transactions. Second, they can be used by investors to speculate and get profit from currency exchange-rate fluctuations.

Forex Speculation-a Blessing or a Curse?

Forex speculation is the behavior of taking advantages of forex market fluctuation or relying on the appreciation or depreciation in forex to make profit. The factors may influence the forex market cannot be well enough understood by the forex speculators. Some such factors vary from consumer tastes, fluctuating economic conditions, buyers’ changing perceptions of the worth of a forex to market timing etc. because of the uncertainty of forex speculation, potential risks exist along with profits in forex speculation. People who execute forex speculation are called speculators, some are regarded as voracious and some are admired for their accurate judgments for the forex market.

Forex speculation is necessary and unavoidable because there are substantial possibilities of both profit and loss, and the risks therein must be assumed by someone. So people who are fond of risks take part in forex speculation. Then is forex speculation beneficial or disadvantageous? It is a hard question to answer because advantages exist along with shortcomings. On one hand, forex speculation plays a key role in keeping the forex market balanced and active. The fluctuation of the forex is unpredictable. Thus exchange rate may go upwards or downwards. When the market goes down or goes up at a higher speed, amount of forex released by forex speculators who are anxious to make some profits will help curb the further fluctuation. On the other hand, over-speculation may lead to chaos of the forex market. Then come back to the question: is forex speculation a blessing of a curse? Answers may different form one to another because of the differences in perception, ability, capital and timing. If forex speculators are able to analyze potential market trend correctly, forex speculation definitely is a blessing for them; on the contrary, if forex traders fail to judge the market properly, it is a curse for them because they will lose money for that. So my conclusion is forex speculation can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how well forex speculators master the potential market trend of forex speculation.

Choosing the Best Time for Forex trading

Forex trading is accessible to everybody 24 hours, providing much convenience to forex traders. So forex beginners tend to operate forex trading whenever they want to. However, forex trading is like the sun, running 24 hours a day but is not able to give equal sunlight to people in different time. Forex trading has its peak time as well as sluggish time for forex traders. In peak time, forex trading volume goes up and in sluggish hour, turnover volume may go down comparatively. So when is the best time for forex trading? Forex traders may have a better understanding after reading what I will state below.

In order to choose the best time for forex trading, it is imperative to know the opening time and closing time of every market worldwide for forex trading. Only by knowing these, can forex traders decide the best forex trading time. The following is the forex trading session worldwide according to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and Eastern Standard Time (EST)

Region	City	Open (GMT)	Close (GMT)
Europe	London	8:00 am	5:00 pm
	Frankfurt	7:00 am	4:00 pm
America	New York	1:00 pm	10:00 pm
	Chicago	2:00 pm	11:00 pm
Asia	Tokyo	midnight	9:00 am
	Hong Kong	1:00 am	10:00 am
Pacific	Sydney	10:00 pm	7:00 am
	Wellington	10:00 pm	6:00 am

Region	City	Open (EST)	Close (EST)
Europe	London	3:00 am	12:00 noon
	Frankfurt	2:00 am	11:00 am
America	New York	8:00 am	5:00 pm
	Chicago	9:00 am	6:00 pm
Asia	Tokyo	7:00 pm	4:00 am
	Hong Kong	8:00 pm	5:00 am
Pacific	Sydney	5:00 pm	2:00 am
	Wellington	5:00 pm	1:00 am

From the chart above, we can see that every market except Wellington opens for 9 hours. And so, there are hours when two sessions are overlapped, for example:

New York and London: 8:00 am — 12:00 noon EST

Sydney / Tokyo: 7:00 pm — 2:00 am EST

London / Tokyo: 3:00 am — 4:00am EST

From the overlapped time, it is not hard to understand that trading EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CHF currency pairs would be more likely to get profit between 8:00 am and 12:00 noon EST when two markets for those currencies are active. The Asian forex session might be the best forex trading time for forex traders, if they were trading AUD/JPY. In total, when is the best timing for forex trading depends on what currency pairs forex traders are trading. According to the currency pairs they hold, forex traders are able to choose the peak time in forex trading. By the way, some days of a week are busier than the others generally; for example, turnover on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are much bigger than the other days of a week and trading volume on every Friday normally hit the lowest of a week.

What Makes the Popularity of Global Forex Trading?

I guess all of us have heard global forex trading, no matter where we are and what languages we speak. Global forex trading is borderless and it is the biggest market with the biggest daily turnover worldwide. What makes it so prevailing? Why global forex trading is able to overcome the limit of border and language? There are some distinguished features of global forex trading listed below:

Barrier-free communication platform used

People worldwide speak various languages, so how can they trade forex in the global forex market? The platforms provided forex traders with leading forex brokers such as IKON, who offers forex traders with multilingual services around the clock, which gives forex traders possibility to operate in global forex trading, making forex trading globally accessible.

Forex trading strategies: Choose the best time to Trade Forex

As we all know, the Forex market is a highly liquid and dynamic market, which offers many opportunities to gain profits from the trades since the price varies, even in one single minute. If you are familiar with Forex market, you would know Forex trading is open 24 hours a day. Does that mean you should trade Forex at any time you want? Is there “golden time” for Forex trading? Your questions would be answered if you read carefully as below.

Forex trading tip 1: Make use of Forex trading time in different Forex sections

When we consider the working hours of the market, we should know that there are three major Forex markets- London, New York, and Tokyo. The global Forex market operates throughout the whole day, starting from Sunday 5pm (EST) to Friday 4pm (EST).

Typically, a Forex trading day starts with New Zealand, before moving across to Australia, Japan and Asia, Europe and North America. The UK and the US markets account for around half of the total world market, therefore the times at which both are open are particularly busy.

Let’s quickly look at the Forex trading time in the major Forex markets:

New York Forex Market trade times: 8am – 4pm EST
London Forex Market trade times: 2am – 12Noon EST
Tokyo Forex Market trade times: 8pm – 4am EST
Australia Forex Market trade times: 7pm – 3am EST

Forex trading tip 2: Choose the “Rush Hour” to trade Forex

Like in other financial markets, there are also good times and bad times to trade Forex. It is better to enter into the forex market when the activity or the volumes of transactions on Forex markets are the highest. In other words, choose the “rush hour” to trade Forex.

Statistics shows, during the overlap period of major markets, the Forex Trading activities are the heaviest and the volume of transactions reaches its peaks. Nearly two-thirds of New York activity occurs in the morning hours when European markets are also open.

Forex trading tip 3: Choose to trade when the market is at its best

Choosing to trade Forex when the Forex trading market is at its best can increase efficiency and generate significant financial benefits. The Forex trading market is open 24 hours a day doesn’t mean that it is always active. You can make profit no matter the market is going up or going down. It will be very difficult to make profit when the market doesn’t move at all. Moreover, researches show that during the middle of the week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) the movement of all major currency pairs reaches their highest.

The time for trading Forex is important for your strategy of trading Forex. If you can’t trade Forex during specific hours, you can use automated Forex trading software to execute these trades.