What makes up a good forex trading platform?
Trading Forex can be a lucrative, exciting and also very risky venture, therefore, you need to have the best tools available at your disposal based in order to be as successful as possible.
With hundreds of Forex trading platforms, it can be a nightmare sifting through all the articles available at your disposal of which half are probably paid promotion.
But do not worry if you’re a beginner Forex trader because in this article we are going to go through the 7 key elements that make up a good Forex trading platform.
7 Key Elements That Makes Up a Good Forex Trading Platform
Why should you care about these things that make up a great forex trading platform? It is simple: very little things count!
Your success as a trader (especially for beginners) is also dependent on the type of brokers you use. The founder of theforexprogrammer.com has always said that “brokers can make you broke if you’re not careful”
So, what are those things? Let’s get started
The Commissions
Forex trading platforms like all businesses need to make money and the way these brokers do this is by charging you commissions on the trades that you make regardless of if they are profitable for you or not.
Furthermore, when you are not trading, there are so-called inactivity fees which tend to range from $10 to $20.
Yes, these are charged to users that have not done any trades in a particular month in order to ensure that the forex trading platforms can be financially healthy.
For example, during some periods such as the summer months and the month of December, people on average trade less due to being preoccupied with being on holiday or celebrating.
Must Read: Is there a Forex holy grail that never lose?
The Customer Service
Another important factor that you need to consider when choosing a forex trading platform is customer service
Forex trading requires you to be there in the real-time so you need to make sure that everything is running smoothly.
This is so because you are required to make the needed decisions (either to buy or sell currencies), otherwise you stand to lose a lot of money.
Features of good customer service include the customer service avenues such as email, chat boxes and phone lines working at least Monday to Friday in time frames that correspond with when the majority of users are online.
Another important feature of good customer service is one that manages to get your problems fixed quickly and without much hassle, as time is money and you do not want to be spending hours upon hours dealing with customer service hotlines.
Also Read: What is the difference between trading Forex and CFDs
Regulatory Approval
Often overlooked by a lot of avid Forex traders, you need to make sure that the Forex trading platform you are planning to go with has the necessary regulatory approval and is also part of legitimate trading standard bodies.
There are a lot of dodgy Forex trading platforms out there that may not know what they are doing and also not meet the necessary customer service standards required to maintain a beneficial service for the users.
You can very easily verify if a trading platform is part of a regulatory body by searching the database of the regulatory body in question.
If no results come up for the Forex trading platform you are using then it is not part of that regulatory body.
High-Quality Software
The truth is that you can technically trade Forex without a Forex trading platform, however, it is a lot more tedious and inefficient compared to using a Forex platform.
Therefore, when choosing a forex broker to use, you need to make sure that it is the best of the best as otherwise there is no point of you giving your hard-earned commissions to them if their software is sub par.
Useful features of high-quality software that newbie traders need to be aware of include order positions that are essentially computer commands that carry out a certain action when the variables become true.
For example, if a currency begins to fall over 5% in value it will be automatically sold. This is very useful as you cannot be awake for 24 hours a day.
Although, most expert forex traders use forex robots and host their trading activities on quality Virtual Private Servers, you must be certain that your chosen platform allows your trading ideologies.
Another great feature is having detailed statistics on your performance as this will save you a lot of time of doing it yourself.
It also gives you an overview of your strategies if they’re effective in case you need to adapt them or change them altogether.
Also Read: What is Pip in the Forex market
Large User Base
It is also recommended to go with a forex trading platform that has a large user base as a large base means that the platform will be able to offer you a lot more competitive pricing which can save you a lot of money in the long run.
Furthermore, a large user base means that if you ever have any problems or questions it will be very easy for you to find a solution as there will be a lot of content online about how to use the chosen platform.
Moreover, it will be much easier for you to learn how to use the platform and therefore be able to achieve success much more quickly.
Research Tools and Materials
It is important to stay updated with the world around you by following the news if you are planning to be a forex trader. It is the real-world events that will have the biggest impact on whether a currency falls or increases in value.
There is a lot of good sources of information such as well known news sites like the BBC, CNN and the New York Times.
However, most good forex trading platforms provide their own tools and even news platforms to keep their users as updated as possible about news concerning the forex markets.
The top forex trading platforms even have their very own T.V channels and radio stations that are available for all forex traders to use and benefit from.
Related: 7 Forex myths and facts you should know
Accessibility
In the hectic modern world, you cannot simply rely on sitting in your office all day on your computer, you need to have the ability to trade even when on the go.
For this reason, it is suggested to go with a forex trading platform that has a high-quality app for mobile and also tablets.
When checking if a forex platform has an app for mobile and tablet you should also make sure that it is compatible with your type of device.
For example, if you are using a device with the Android operating system then you need to make sure this app is available on your operating system.
Furthermore, you should be assured that the app is actually high quality as a lot of apps are very bad compared to the software available for computers.
Quick Check: Top 10 Forex trading brokers in the world
More Factors to Note When Choosing a Forex Trading Platform
Above, we covered the 7 key elements that you need to look out for when choosing the right fx trading platform. Below we have included some other interesting tips that are worth a read:
Choose a Forex platform that is right for the stage you are at, it may be recommended to go with a more basic Forex trading platform when just starting out and when you are ready to join the experienced Forex traders then you can go and use the trading platforms with more advanced features.
Jumping into the advanced Forex trading platforms first will increase the chances of you failing so you need to be cautious.
Another important thing that you need to consider is if the Forex platform you are considering accepts users from your country.
There are a lot of the top platforms that work just in the United States and Europe so if you do not live there you may need to find other alternatives.
Account minimums are often hidden deep in the terms and conditions. An account minimum is the required amount of money you need to put into your account on a particular forex trading platform.
Some forex trading platforms have low account minimums ranging between $50 to $250 but there are other platforms that have much larger account minimums that can range from $3000 to $10,000+.
Therefore you need to make sure that the Forex trading platform you are planning to use has reasonable account minimums for your situation.
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