Trading: How to Choose the Right Broker?

Trading: How to Choose the Right Broker?

One of the most important decisions on your trading journey is choosing the broker that best meets your needs and that will set you up for trading success.

A good broker won’t make money for you. But without a good broker it will be much harder for you to be profitable as a trader.

What does a broker do?

The best broker will provide the stable foundation for you to trade financial markets.

Your broker is responsible for providing you access to the market you wish to trade. Whether you trade forex, stocks, commodities or cryptocurrencies, your broker provides you streaming prices, executes and settles your trades. They are also responsible for holding your funds and processing deposits and withdrawals. This is why trust is very important.

Choosing the right platform

Traders these days want to be able to deal in all products like forex, crypto, commodities and stocks through one broker and on one platform.

Look for a system that is intuitive, streamlined and not overly complex. Navigating around the platform and placing trades should be straightforward. Zentrader’s platform minimises complexity and provides tools so traders can clearly choose their asset, timeframe and execute fast.

When it comes to platforms, the most important factor to look for is stability. Zentrader has invested heavily in state-of-the-art technology, including hardware and infrastructure to provide the best trade execution possible.

All brokers should now offer a seamless mobile trading app which allows the user to trade and monitor markets and open positions on the go. Zentrader offers an app for both iPhone and Android devices.

The right assets to trade

Your broker should also provide access to a variety of markets and products for your trading needs.

Every individual trader has their own trading style. Some will stick to one particular asset or asset class like gold, crypto, forex or stocks, while others will trade all markets.

While the Zentrader platform caters mostly to day-traders, there are a variety of time-frames to suit various trading styles and strategies. The “On-Demand” options cater to short term traders and offer expiries of 30 seconds until 5 minutes. Whereas the Classic options are longer term, and have expiries of 15 minutes up-to 1 day.

Demo trading accounts

Before you start your trading journey, you should use a demo account to practice before putting real money to work.

Demo or paper trading allows you to test and optimise your trading and money management strategy before you enter the market and risk real money. The best brokers will provide a demo account that lets you trade in a virtual environment.

Zentrader for example offers live real-time data on their free demo account. Sign-up and start trading with $10,000 in virtual funds.

Easy deposits and withdrawals

You’re almost ready to trade, but you need to make sure you can deposit and withdraw your funds with your broker with as little hassle as possible.

This is often the most challenging aspect when choosing a broker to trade with. Even in 2018, expensive transfer fees, currency conversions and long delays are common in the industry.

Zentrader provides a wide range of deposit and withdrawal options. Having clients all around the world, Zentrader has invested heavily in developing payment infrastructure. They offer fast and most often free payments in many local currencies: AUD, USD, EUR, GBP, JPY and IDR.

Other payment methods offered include Credit Cards (Visa and Mastercard), Neteller and Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash.

Experienced customer support

Round-the-clock, same day support via phone or email is essential. It also helps to have support staff that not only know the platform but also understand markets and trading in general.

This is especially important when dealing with trade and platform issues.

Customer support is available in English, Japanese and Indonesian.

ThePayout has written a more in-depth piece on Zentrader here. Zentrader is also currently offering a cash-back bonus for all new traders.