Hi Everyone, I am new to forex, been a stock guy for a 5 years or so, thinking of transitioning to forex. I have done fairly well using metatrader demo platform through alpari, now thinking of taking the next logical step to a real account. Could use any and all advice on brokers, as well as any unknown elements a newbie to forex may be unaware of. Thankx.
Oanda is great! No software installation. You can access your account from any PC. Your positions are plotted on the charts.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=195558 I posted some comments there on a couple of brokers. First, you posted this in the trading forum, not the brokers forum. In any case, there's at least one comment I would make and that is that you may want to avoid currency "pairs" like the EUR/JPY (actually a cross) because if you look at a weekly chart, it doesn't appear to have a clear trend. So, trend following with a trendless currency pair is a little more difficult in my opinion. Right now, and these are just my own personal opinions, if I wanted to go short, I'd rather do it on something like the EUR/USD because there isn't much interest to pay in doing so. But, if I wanted to go long, I'd rather do it on the AUD/USD because I'd receive an interest for taking the position. I'd prefer to avoid shorting the AUD/USD because of the difference in interest rates.
Interactive Brokers might be a good choice for you ... you can continue your stock trading, as well as futures, forex, options, etc. Good broker and also a fairly safe place to park your funds.