If you are brand new to trading, it’s essential to find a suitable, reputable broker. Even if you’ve been around a while and are currently with a brokerage that is not a good match, now is the time to find a worthy candidate. What should you look for? There are dozens of factors, many of which pertain to your personal preferences. But no matter what style of trading you engage in, how much money you spend per month, or what types of securities interest you the most, there are several things to look for in a new broker.
In addition to reputation, pay attention to minimum opening deposit requirements. They vary a lot. Also, consider other features like customer support, research tools, simulators, trading tools, and the platform’s or site’s easeofuse. It’s a lot to think about. The best way to begin is to review each factor in isolation, one at a time.
Reputation
When attempting to discern a broker’s reputation, you have two very powerful tools at your disposal. One, check online reviews from trusted, established websites. Read dozens of reviews from at least five different sources. Avoid suspicious review blogs and independent reviewers. Stick with the main companies that specialize in posting authentic, verifiable reviews. Second, only work with a brokerage firm regulated by local authorities. Regulatory oversight is a major factor and serves as a safety net for people who hold large sums of money in online accounts and trust a particular broker with their personal information.
Minimum Deposits
For many investors, minimum deposits are a make-or-break factor when deciding which brokers are better than others. AvaTrade is one of the African providers that have low minimum deposit amounts, specifically $100. For new traders and anyone who wants quick account opening and funding, deposits in this range are ideal. Avoid any trading platform or brokerage firm that wants you to deposit more than $1,000 into an account just to open it. You can learn all about AvaTrade minimum deposit levels and ease of trading by visiting their site.
Customer Support
Aim to find a brokerage site that offers top-notch customer support. That typically means they keep business hours, answer their phones, and offer online chat, text, or email support as well. Trading is often a technically complex process, and glitches do happen from time to time. That’s why you want to investigate each prospective broker’s customer service offerings before opening an account.
Simulators
Even if you’ve been trading for several years, it’s very helpful to have access to a demo account, also called a simulator, that lets you practice order placement and other essential skills without putting your own money on the line. Most of the reputable brokers include demo accounts and simulated activity at no extra cost. Note that newcomers should plan to spend at least two weeks operating solely in a demo account. There’s a lot to learn, and you don’t want to take the chance of losing real money just because you placed an incorrect order or hit the sell button inadvertently. Simulators are excellent tools for people of all skill levels to hone their abilities and sharpen their reaction times.
Trading Tools
How many trading tools do you need? You won’t know until you become an active trader, so it makes sense to do a test-drive of prospective platforms to see if they offer a wide range of tools. Expect the better brokers to feature multiple technical indicators, different kinds of charting, back-testing functions, and more. Along with tools, you’ll want to find out what asset classes are available to trade. Keep in mind that some platforms and brokers are so specialized that they only have one kind of asset. Ideally, you should search for providers that let you buy and sell CFDs, foreignexchange pairs, and cryptocurrency. Those three are the most popular assets, so if you can find a site that has all three, you’re off to a good start.
Ease of Use
One factor that many people miss is easeofuse, or user-friendliness. Many online brokers meet most of the standard requirements but fall down on this essential feature. Fortunately, it’s simple to evaluate a site’s easeofuse by testing it out during a trial period. Look for things like how easy it is to place orders, how clearly you can see your account information, and whether it’s difficult to scroll from one asset class to another. Most new and experienced traders like to survey the market every day, evaluating action in forex and crypto, among other areas. You don’t want to work with a site that keeps getting hung up and often freezes.
