Chapter 38, Part II. Things to Think About. Page 2

3. Customer service continued.

At the same time be careful, since a broker could serve differently before opening an account and after that. Sales personal can be very polite and earnest while trading and technical support could be rude and hardly reachable. It’s better to spend some time and read feedback about a particular broker.

4. Next is a Trading platform – here we’re passing to trading process.

First, the trading platform should function stably. Second – it should be friendly. You should have any tools that you need – necessary technical tools, free news announcements, statistical statement and other tools. At least it should have options that are not worse than with rivals.

5. Orders execution

I have to say, since I trade futures, that CQG DOM software shows time spent on execution of every order – even on transferring it to the CME exchange. It comes with tens milliseconds – approximately 20-40 milliseconds. This is really fast. What am I talking about? You have to get fast execution. If you have fast internet and a relatively calm market – you should not have some pips different between your order and execution or trading delays for 10 seconds. Your order should be executed fast and preferably without difference, although some pip fraction is possible. Another important signal of a broker’s quality is execution during real Doom & Gloom time – important macro data release. So, it would make sense to open a small account initially and test the broker during a couple of releases before trusting him at 100%.


6. And, finally transaction costs.

The cheaper your transaction costs as more money you leave for yourself. You may depress transaction costs with higher security, faster execution and other important issues, but if you see the broker with relatively similar quality but higher transaction costs – why should you have to pay more?