Which Forex brokers offer the best spreads (EUR/USD is primarily what I am interested in)? I've looked at a few and they have 3 pip spreads. I find that a bit extreme. Are there any that have better spreads? If not, would I be better off trading the futures? Thanks in advance.
IB is good (~0.5-1.0) and Oanda is fine (0.9+). EDIT: IB you've got the spread plus min $5.00 commission.
While I am not a FX trader I have heard that with FX brokers you want to look for honesty and integrity as a higher priority over the smallest spreads. Remember your broker has to take the other side of every trade you make so if you are making money they are losing it. Supposedly, this makes some of the more dishonest ones anal rape you with slippage, bad fills, misleading data feeds, etc.
See that I didn't know. I can't see IB as an ECN though so wouldn't that make them a dealing desk making them want to screw their customers?
Oanda is best with 0.9 pips spread. You can check on their site calculation how much difference in spread is worth over year. I don't know any valid reason for small trader with high trading frequency to trade any other place than Oanda. You can't trade eur/usd with 3 pips spread 5 times a day and that way lose 10 pips versus if you trade the same trades at Oanda. It's 2000 pips over 200 days. For different trading styles it's not so important.
No-one thought to ask the OP how much trading equity he's going to have? ECN style brokers, dealing desk brokers, not much difference if you're trading a mini account! In any event they're all counterparty to your trades, in theory your loss is their gain and vice-versa. Like Maverickz said, integrity is far more important than advertised spread. No point in going with a broker simply because he offers .9 on Eur/Usd to entice you through the door if you don't get orders filled at the price you want or mysterious spikes appear all over the place taking out your stops.
oanda is excellent for filling orders. i had some issues with fxcm not filling orders for 5+ minutes even when there was no news coming out. granted i don't push much money but oanda has been good so far.
I agree, after prolonged platform connection problems it looks like Oanda have finally got their act together. Over the past few weeks things have been near perfect, trading right through last weeks NFP was a breeze, and .9 and no commission on Eur/Usd is hard to beat.