I am new to forex and would like to find a good broker to use for live trading.The reviews I have read are not very encouraging and I don't have alot of money to start.
I can only recommend what I use, which is MBTrading. I can tell you that their Navigator platform is not a very user-friendly thing to work with, and it is terribly unforgiving of mistakes or ignorance in placing orders. Read the reviews for examples. Many of the things people complain about in there have happened to me.
However, it will always do exactly what you tell it, and so as long as you don't ACCIDENTALLY tell it to do what you didn't mean, it does become very easy to use after a while.
They are at last adopting MetaTrader as an optional platform. I don't think they are ready to roll it out to the public yet, but they do have a group of traders trading live with it in Beta. I imagine it will be available to the public pretty soon. If you have an account with them using their Navigator, you will have to change and open a different account to use MetaTrader.
They also at last are getting set up to do ACH transfers to your bank account when you want to request money. Currently the only ways to get money out are check or wire. I have never used wire because I don't want to pay the fees, but when we order a check on Friday morning by 10am Pacific, we have gotten it as soon as the following Wednesday, and never any farther out than the next Monday during weeks with a holiday in them.
Even once ACH is completed to receive money, they may still only accept deposits by check or wire, I don't know.
And as for a broker, they are truly a good broker in my experience.
By almost all reports they are a true ECN, which means they CAN NOT take the opposite side of your position, and they do not make any more when you lose than when you profit.
And while I have found the people at their order desk to be only just competent and occasionally rude, they do have people there 24 hours throughout the trading week. We have called them and chatted in their online chat many many times, at all hours and we have never had a case where we could not get them right away if we needed them.
Hopefully helpful --
Jeff