What to look for in a Forex broker

First off, let me tell you who was on my list when it was compressed to 2.  Questrade and Forex.com.  FXCM came in close as well.  What do they have in common?  The most important part for my broker is regulation and protection.

So my main broker right now is Questrade.

There are 3 major steps to find a forex broker.

Use these suggestions to narrow it down to a few.  It shouldn't take long to do that.  The important thing to know is this – they are all out to take your money in fees of some sort. After you do some research you will see there is no perfect broker, they all have some way of getting the edge to take you money.

Step 1: Do some research
Before you compare brokers you need to list the criteria that you will compare. Add more to the list as you discover details. I used an excel spreadsheet to help me.  List the brokers as you find them, filling in the details.
Regulation

There’s regulation, then there’s protection. Do not confuse the two. I want both. Is the broker regulated, and registered with the regulator listed on their site? If they are, also go to the regulators web site and cross check to make sure they are actually registered and in good standing. For US resident, good luck, the NFA and CFTC are pretty useless for forex, and in comparison the rest of the world, totally useless as there is no protection (refer to my post of CIPF which offers solid protection).  I recommend a Canadian broker, if they let you open an account you have some real solid protection for your funds.  Also, ask “is the money deposited separated from operational capital, in other words, is it segregated”?  You want segregated.

Dealing Desk, Non-Dealing Desk ECN

I like ECN, it’s a straight through process with less screwing with your orders.

Spreads or commissions

Does the broker offer fixed or non-fixed spreads?  Depends on how much you trade.  Most MT4 brokers make money on the spread.  There are many tools on the net to check this.  How wide are the spreads?  Check the tools and get a demo to confirm when you narrow down to a few brokers. Spread is more important if you trade short term.
Leverage and margin

Demo accounts

Do they offer demo accounts?  You need this to get familiar with the software and it will prompt LOTS of question if you actually place trades and follow through.  How long until the demo account expires?

Account lot size (mini, micro, standard). A smaller lot size allows you to trade with less money.

Swap or rollover

Does this broker credit or debit daily rollover interest? Some brokers either do both, deduct interest, or neither.  This information is important to traders who hold positions overnight.Some even have negative swap both ways, meaning you have to pay them, how is this possible?  If you want to do carry trades this will impact you.

Trade rules

distance of stops, orders inside bid/ask, order types (brackets orders?), is hedging allowed?

Currency pairs offered

What types of customer service is  offered, and what methods can I contact them through? 

What times are they available?

What trading platforms are offered? Is there a mobile application as well?

What is the deposit/withdraw process / methods?

Step 2: Compare brokers now that you have a completed spread sheet

Step 3: Open demo accounts and ask questions.

Pick at least two brokers that fits most of your criteria and open up demo accounts. Trade in different market environments. Learn all the different features of each trading platform. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. Many brokers have excellent customer service support and would be happy to answer your questions.
Demo accounts are great for selecting a broker. make sure you call them to ensure your demo account would be set up exactly as your real account. Same deposit currency, same rules (hedging, leverage, etc.)
Most demo trading platforms are very similar to their live counterparts, but not exactly the same. There may be a difference in speed of execution, slippage, and platform reliability (most of the time live accounts are more reliable than demo accounts). When you do have your strategy down and you are ready to move to a live account, start off small, test the waters, and see if this particular broker will suit your trading needs.

Media Monkey - Announce the next song title

I wrote a script to announce the next song in MediaMonkey.  It uses a text to speech conversion process and the text to speech engine is not on your PC.  It works for both local music and streaming radio stations.  The voice is very natural and nice to listen too.  At the top of the hour it will announce the time with the new song, same for half past the hour.

Here is a sample of the transition and the song announcement.


It is absolutely fabulous!!

Do you want the script?  All it takes is a small $15 donation to help me out.

The MediaMonkey website is here.

Remembrance

Thank you, Soldier.

Play MP3 and have text to speech in MT4

In a few days the following packages will be released.

• Talker - Text to Speech
• PlayMP3 - Play MP3 files in MT4
• TalkMP3 - Plays MP3 files and does text to speech in MT4

Each one of these is a library file (ex4).  You place it in your experts/library directory.

To learn more about these, visit the MT4 Talker and PlayMP3 page (link also appears at the top of the blog.

Demo is available.

Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker - new price!

The price for Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker has been reduced!!
It's now ON SALE

Now $30 - grab it while it's on sale!

What is Tipster Trendlines for Amibroker?  Read all about it here.

Here is the FAQ

Crossfader EA - Gold - Safety Lines

There have been many ideas tabled on saving the mighty trading account from CF when she turns against you. 

I have been using two charts with one set for buys and one set for sells.  The idea was that the sell trades could start even if the buys trades were active.  I was hoping to see the drawdown controlled.  Not sure why it doesn't work so well, I haven't spent much time examining that though.  Most likely because CF holds losers and take profits quick (no runners).

I had another brain fart the other day.  How can I manually control DD, and not sit and ‘hope’ price returns.  As I was looking through the sub-forums at SHF to decide where to post I ran across varso using a 45 pip stop (MPTM).  It seems to work for him.  My idea is almost the same!  We all know that trading with the trend is the way to go, but there are problems with that.  Which time frame is the trend you should be following?  The trend for CF should probably be the 240 or max the daily for a couple of reasons, first, CF uses a 240 stochastic, and second, when a basket starts, and depending on how many maxorder you are allowing, a price reversal could last a long long time.

Picture this - Price has been ranging on the daily for weeks and CF is happy to make Buys and Sells inside this daily range.  Now you enter a few trades, I've notice 4 to 6 in a ranging market on the 1 hour TF or 4 hour TF then price snaps against you.  CF enters more trades, price keeps ranging and snapping against you.  "Snapping" is the term I use when price surges in the direction of the trend.  In a downtrend, if you look at the chart you see price slowly drifting up, then all of a sudden it hits a level that everyone wants and BOOM, you have a lopsided market and price moves fast.So what I'm going to try is to limit drawdown by turning off Buys or Sells once price passes a certain spot or level. 
Here is the research I did to arrive at the solution.  I'm going to use AUDUSD charts as I have trades shown on it.  Now remember,  none of these trades had any drawdowns I couldn't deal with.  The trade starts are marked with lines
Here is the daily, notice the daily trend is strong down - didn't matter, CF made coin.  We'll zoom in after this chart.

Below is the hourly of the same pair

Both directions made money - look where the buys are made in this downtrend, pullbacks and consolidation.  If the pullback is weak or the consolidation not strong what happens?  You get hammered.
Here is a picture of what getting hammered looks like.
EURUSD Buys in a down trending market.  This is the hourly - clearly headed lower. Everything looks good until the recent buy, notice the pullback was weak and we get smashed.

 
In this case - you could have drawn a line at the top of the range and call it "SellBelow", CF will only enter sell trade when price is under this line.  In my version, I will also add to the logic, once price goes over this line all sell orders will be closed.  Then get back to trading with a profit.
I don't know if this will work.  I've looked at the trades CF makes (myfxbook charts the trades) and this approach should work.  You could even follow the pivot points on the chart if you wanted too. 

How would I prevent this?  here is the idea.
Draw a line on the chart, a line in the sand.  Actually, draw 2 lines.  A green line and a red line.
Buys are only allowed ABOVE the green line, so you can trail it up if you want too.
Sells are only allowed BELOW the red line, you could trail this down if you wanted too.

One more thing - if there are open Buy orders and price drops below the green line, I close the basket.
So now I don’t have to worry about having two charts open, or having stupid large drawdowns.  You could even use SAR as your trend switch here instead of lines, SAR is more automatic.

Back to the first chart - where to put the lines?
On the downtrend, I plan to use the red line and the green line on a 1 hour chart to start.  The safe way to go in a downtrend, just turn off the Buy trades, chances are on your side that you wont get killed.  You wouldn't even need these lines.  

These are my Safety Lines.
So go ahead and draw the lines on the chart, the problem is if you change the timeframe CF needs to reload, I'm not sure if this is an issue or not.  Go to a 1 hour TF, put the red line above the high that price would have to get to and make the strong downtrend weak.
Here's an example (yes, hindsight is 20/20)
The red lines I show, the bottom right of each line is "when" I would move the line
The green lines - as soon as the Buy (long) trades are started, I would move the green line.  If you wanted “rules” – then as soon as the first trade is entered, draw a line.  You have lots of time to do it before you get smacked.
The yellow box below shows you the current Buy trades that are getting hammered, and where this system would have exited.


If you are familiar with supply and demand you shouldn't have a problem with this.  I'm going to try this and I'll keep you posted.  I won't be near a computer for a few days, so don;'t expect quick replies!!!  The code is NOT finished yet, maybe by the end of the weekend.  I would like your thoughts on this method.

Play MP3 sound files in MT4

Play MP3 files in MT4

Have you ever wanted to play a MP3 file in MT4?  

The built in function PlaySound() will only play wav files.

If you are interested in this, send me an email.  I can play mp3 files from MT4, it's easy!

Forex Trading Signal for MT4

If your interested in following forex trading signals, take a look at this link for the signal.  Good gains!