Why IC Markets is a Good Forex Broker

I've been dealing in forex for more than 11 years, I first began buying and selling back in 1999 when there were just a couple of forex companies in Australia, as most of these companies were relatively new and not familiar with managing frequent investors like myself I was forced to search for a provider offshore. After much searching I was able to locate a company in Switzerland that could cater for high volume traders. It’s only been in the last 6 months that I again commenced my search for a decent local Australian forex broker and what I discovered was amazing to say the least.

After several days searching the web I noticed that the forex landscape has changed dramatically, there is allot more choice than there was previously. In the past there we only really 2 main forex brokers and both of them were market makers, of course the days of forex trading desks is over, most companies now offer straight through processing a number of the top tier brokers even have an ECN forex offering.

I downloaded a few platforms, when I say a few I mean my monitor was covered with shortcuts to nearly every single platform in existence. Many trading platforms offered by providers were online, although on-line platforms may well initially appear less difficult to use as no application needs to be downloaded they often lack the highly developed charting features of downloadable trading platforms and as an experienced trader I can tell you that excellent charting is important.

After road testing all the online trading platforms that I had installed I found that a good number of them were not really suitable for professional investors. The spreads on most of the trading platforms widened dramatically over news periods, even though this isn't uncommon as this is often when the market is the most volatile, I really did not expect the spread in EUR/USD to blow out by thirty five pips. Some of the broker platforms had fixed spreads, however I actually noticed a worse problem with these guys, their price feed just froze and I couldn't place any orders or get out of my open positions, in actual fact twice the trading platforms simply stopped.

Out of every one of the forex trading platforms that I trialled 2 were actually ECN’s or electronic communication networks. An ECN is actually a mini marketplace where the forex company enables numerous banks to quote prices flowing into their trading platform. ECN brokers regularly have tremendously tight spreads and so much more transparent pricing than fixed spread brokers and market makers. When buying and selling with an ECN broker you will find that your spreads will not dramatically blow out over news periods, the main reason for this is that with numerous banks taking part in the price creation it’s expected that there will be buyers and sellers even during market instability.

It goes without saying as an expert trader my preferred alternative is definitely an ECN forex broker, out of the two that I found in Australia I found that only one of them consistently had tighter spreads than the other on all the main currency pairs. I would say that it is because they most likely have more liquidity providers providing them with prices.

To cut a long story short I ended up picking IC Markets, it really wasn’t a hard decision as these guys were really the only provider that could give me consistently tight spreads even during news announcements in addition to a stable trading platform. So far so good, I have been trading with them for about 3 months now and have had no problems. As their spreads remain tight over the news I have had allot more buying and selling opportunities than I'd have had with the other brokers. If you happen to be in the market for a trustworthy forex broker who's an ECN and can provide you with razor sharp spreads I can unquestionably say that form my experience IC Markets is one of the best out there.

Article Source: http://www.newsarticlessite.com

Marcus Murphie is a professional forex trader with many years experience. Allthough IC Markets is Marcus's www.icmarkets.com.au/forex_ic_markets.html>">forex broker of choice you ought to do your own groundwork and trial a few trading platforms before you make a selection. Marcus has also published many articles on trading many of which you are able to obtain on his www.icmarkets.com.au/forex_ic_markets.html>">forex trading webpage.

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