In this volatile Forex market, how hard is it for us to find a reputable broker that offers us the best service possible? How do we know which brokers have good spreads and which ones may widen spreads on us in times of unpredictable price fluctuation?

The answer lies in examining the brokers’ service and keeping an eye on how they deal with our accounts. This can be a time-consuming exercise, with many traders’ too busy analysing charts and watching for good opportunities to be able to closely monitor the brokers’ activities. However unless we can do that regularly, we may be susceptible to some creative market makers making off with more of our hard-earned pips than we want them to.

We all have stories of our successes and failures with brokers.

At the time of writing, some of us have had several negative experiences with brokers. One instance was when the broker closed a trade for a loss when price went nowhere near our stop – making it painfully obvious they were after our money. In this instance when challenged, the broker reinstated our trade, realising that they had hunted stops before price had even reached that point.

Another experience with a different broker came about when we had a stop at break-even and a news event occurred, causing price to spike. The broker stopped the trade out for -34 pips, even though it was at break-even. In this instance, they would not make good the trade nor reinstate it to break even and the money was lost.

The brokers’ reasoning was that they could not prevent some trades from being affected in high-volatility markets and they could not guarantee stops even though it was at break-even. In effect they assured us that having our trades at break-even was not safe during high-volatility market movement.

These and other instances leave us wondering how we find a decent broker and what does the term ‘decent’ mean?

Most people when asked what constitutes a decent broker will reply, ‘one where I know my money is safe, and where they’re not likely to go into liquidation, taking my money with them’.

Others might say, ‘a decent broker is one who doesn’t hunt my stops and allows me to have a fair go when trading’. Yet others have an opinion of good customer service getting their vote.

These things would be ideal but we know we don’t live in an ideal world. Brokers would not be in business if traders won all the time and they (the brokers) lost money.

So the hunt for a reliable, ‘decent’ broker is on.

We’d like your stories – horror stories or good stories so we can collate a general overview of traders’ best and worst experiences. Email your experiences to: info@fxgroundworks.com.