Broker

OANDA broker - www.oanda.com
Needless to say they have the best offer for micro accounts. It is not an advertisement, it is what I've learned while looking for a Forex broker and calling, chating with several other brokers.

There are three most crucial things for micro account holders:

- spread for chosen currency pairs;
- leverage options;
- minimum lot size required to open a position;

Majority of Forex brokers have ridiculous offers as to micro account trading. Their conditions of huge fixed lot sizes, extremely high leverage (which can't be altered) and high spreads are made for nothing but creating the riskiest trading environment possible, which leads to small investors losing their money quickly (usually after several losing trades as little as 15-20 pips each a trader can no longer open a new position because of insufficiency of funds), while brokers will have their regular benefits from spreads and large lot sizes...
In addition traders that plan to open a micro account are fooled by demo account trading, where a broker wants you to trade with initially too high account balance, which is inadequate of what a trader wants to invest. Therefore an illusion of easy trading and making big money can be created.
That's all very sad, but is a very common practice among Forex brokers today.

What I personally like about OANDA:
- they have lowest spreads
- they offer a leverage that a trader is comfortable to trade with, in addition they do not try to overleverage traders' investments, and thus don't even offer such ridiculously high leverages as 1:400 or even 1:200
- they don't set restrictions on how much you want to trade at any time, you can open a trade worth 1 dollar if you wish.

I know OANDA is known on this website, I think Edward also uses it. I support his choice.

Mike

Hi dear Mike.
Thanks alot for your detailed informations.
I'm goiong to open a real micro account.I think OANDA will be a good choice. Are you have a real micro account? How is this broker when news released? Does the spread stays unchenged?
what is it's software? I like to work with Meta Trader4.
good trading
Reza

Hi Reza,
I have real one. During news time OANDA as any other broker can't promise you no slippage. Spreads there are adjustable, not fixed. When volatility is high, spreads could be high, but believe me, high spreads in OANDA = regular fixed(!) spreads for majority of other brokers. When volatility is low, spreads in OANDA are lowered.
They use their own software, which is java based.

I used to work with MetaTrader before, and MT4 platform has a lot of options and settings OANDA's platform doesn't offer. I cannot state that OANDA's platform has everything a trader would like to have (however, if you read in their forums - they regularly update and add new features that traders ask about), but I like its simplicity.
I think you should try their demo FXGame.
I'd like to hear what other brokers you are or were considering to open account with. What do they offer on the recent market.

Have a great one!
Mike

Gee, is anyone trading supermini account with GFT?
Is this true, they leverage you to 400:1... but no less then 100:1 and then require 10,000 units limit to trade with... I wonder how you people trade with them??? I mean, how you win, considering also that their spreads aren't that low as well...
I thought I would trade with them, now I'm not sure...
Any comments?

Skyfx, if you are concerned (which is good) about trade sizes for mini accounts, you should know that GFT is not the only forex broker who restricts mini traders to 10k lot size. There are only few brokers that can offer smaller lot sizes, among brokers known to me are Oanda and FxSol. They allow 1k, 5k, 10k and up for mini accounts. I would say they are the closest competitors: both require small initial investment for mini account, both have smaller than with other brokers lot sizes, both offer flexible leverage options.

If to compare declared spreads, then Oanda with its variable spread would win in non volatile market. FxSol has higher spreads, which are fixed.
If to compare their charting software, FxSol wins 100% of votes. In fact, I've seen several different platforms: Dealbook360 from GFT, Metatrader4 from various brokers, FXTrade from OANDA, FXCM Trading Station, ICTC-Wintrader from Forexyard well, may be some other, but I can't recall now. So far, the best preformance, feel, flexibility and execution holds FxSol's GTS and Accucharts.

So there you go, decide for yourself.
Rich

Hi,
As you mentioned Mike, it's not clear about fixed spread. how ever I try to avoid very high volatility. I have tried North Finance for mini account. I did not know about money management and it's easy to guess the end of the story. North was good and during my trades I didn't have any problem with it. the spreads was fixed? and good backup. Unfortunately it didn't have micro account.Micro account and low leverage is exactly I'm going to try. Be careful about this guy: LEVERAGE. It fools every novice. 500:1 - 400:1 and so on.
Nice opportunities.

Reza