Proposed SYSTEM for FINDING a good BROKER
After doing searches for brokers, broker evaluations, top brokers according to the likes of Barron's, etc, I took a closer look at zulutrade. I suppose everyone here know what zulutrade is: they allow you to mirror the trades of top performers. Because zulutrade is tightly integrated with the various brokers' accounts, I would assume that they wouldn't allow for a system integration with the more risky/shaky brokers. While this is not an endorsement of the broker on their behalf, I would feel more comfortable using
Zulutrade's list of brokers as a starting point. You can find them on the next page after you click signup:
https://www.zulutrade.com/signup-live
There is something else very helpful that you can find on the Zulutrade website: the
slippage of the deals made by the various traders. When you look at their list of traders, and click on the name of a trader, you will be taken to a page with a graph, that shows the progression of their account. Above the graph, you have tabs: one of those tabs is the slippage. You will find that the slippage will vary according to trader even for a given broker, because different traders will have done transactions at different times and dates... so you will have to look at several traders in order to get a picture of which brokers consistently have the lowest slippage. This is an indication of a good IT infrastructure and system that executes your trades immediately, rather than later. I think this is a great way to make yourself a shortlist of the brokers you want to investigate, as potentials for your business.
Here is the link to one trader, as an example that you can go and look at - I selected this because it shows a good variety of brokers through which mirrored transactions went through, a good frequency of transactions in order to get a good sampling, the slippage, and he's currently number 6 so not too shabby in terms of performance.
ZuluTrade - Trader Performance - GBPJPYxiong
So, to sum it up, check out zulutrade, look at their traders, find some who do frequent transactions, look at the slippage tab on their graph, and make yourself an idea of the better traders in the lot. Come back to forexpeacearmy and do a search on cases or complaints.
May I suggest that we start to compile a list, in table format?
Perhaps we could list them by slippage (for example, from 0.2-1.4 pips on average, for broker A), where they are regulated, complaints, minimum investment to open an account. It might be a great starting point to help others find a broker initially.
