What to look for in an ECN broker right now
ECN vs dealing desk: understanding what you're trading through
A lot of the brokers you'll come across fall into two execution models: those that take the other side of your trade and those that pass it through. The distinction matters. A dealing desk broker becomes your counterparty. An ECN broker routes your order directly to liquidity providers — you get fills from genuine liquidity.
In practice, the difference matters most in a few ways: how tight and stable your spreads are, fill speed, and order rejection rates. ECN brokers will typically give you tighter spreads but apply a commission per lot. Market makers mark up the spread instead. Neither model is inherently bad — it depends on how you trade.
For scalpers and day traders, ECN is almost always worth the commission. Getting true market spreads more than offsets the commission cost on most pairs.
Fast execution — separating broker hype from reality
Brokers love quoting fill times. Figures like "lightning-fast execution" sound impressive, but how much does it matter when you're actually placing trades? More than you'd think.
For someone making a handful of trades per month, a 20-millisecond difference won't move the needle. But for scalpers working small price moves, slow fills means worse fill prices. Consistent execution at 35-40 milliseconds with a no-requote policy gives you noticeably better entries compared to platforms with 150-200ms fills.
Some additional info brokers have invested proprietary execution technology that eliminates dealing desk intervention. Titan FX, for example, built their proprietary system called Zero Point that routes orders straight to LPs without dealing desk intervention — the documented execution speed is under 37 milliseconds. For a full look at how this works in practice, see this review of Titan FX.
Raw spread accounts vs standard: doing the maths
This is something nearly every trader asks when picking a broker account: is it better to have a commission on raw spreads or markup spreads with no fee per lot? The maths depends on volume.
Take a typical example. A standard account might show EUR/USD at 1.1-1.3 pips. The ECN option gives you true market pricing but charges around $3.50-4.00 per lot traded both ways. On the spread-only option, the cost is baked into the spread on each position. If you're doing moderate volume, ECN pricing works out cheaper.
Many ECN brokers offer both as options so you can pick what suits your volume. Make sure you work it out using your real monthly lot count rather than relying on hypothetical comparisons — those usually be designed to sell one account type over the other.
Understanding 500:1 leverage without the moralising
Leverage polarises retail traders more than almost anything else. Regulators have capped retail leverage at 30:1 or 50:1 depending on the asset class. Brokers regulated outside tier-1 jurisdictions continue to offer up to 500:1.
The usual case against 500:1 is that inexperienced traders wipe out faster. This is legitimate — the numbers support this, the majority of retail accounts do lose. But the argument misses a key point: traders who know what they're doing rarely trade at 500:1 on every trade. They use having access to high leverage to lower the margin tied up in each position — leaving more capital for additional positions.
Sure, it can wreck you. No argument there. The leverage itself isn't the issue — how you size your positions is. When a strategy requires less capital per position, access to 500:1 frees up margin for other positions — and that's how most experienced traders actually use it.
Choosing a broker outside FCA and ASIC jurisdiction
The regulatory landscape in forex exists on tiers. At the top is regulators like the FCA and ASIC. They cap leverage at 30:1, mandate investor compensation schemes, and generally restrict the trading conditions available to retail accounts. Tier-3 you've got places like Vanuatu (VFSC) and Mauritius (FSA). Lighter rules, but that also means higher leverage and fewer restrictions.
The trade-off is straightforward: offshore brokers gives you 500:1 leverage, lower compliance hurdles, and often cheaper trading costs. The flip side is, you have less investor protection if the broker fails. You don't get a investor guarantee fund like the FCA's FSCS.
If you're comfortable with the risk and pick better conditions, tier-3 platforms can make sense. What matters is checking the broker's track record rather than just trusting a licence badge on a website. An offshore broker with a long track record and no withdrawal issues under an offshore licence is often more trustworthy in practice than a newly licensed broker that got its licence last year.
Broker selection for scalping: the non-negotiables
Scalping is one area where broker choice has the biggest impact. When you're trading 1-5 pip moves and keeping for less than a few minutes at a time. With those margins, seemingly minor gaps in spread become real money.
What to look for isn't long: raw spreads from 0.0 pips, execution consistently below 50ms, zero requotes, and no restrictions on scalping and high-frequency trading. A few brokers claim to allow scalping but throttle fills if you trade too frequently. Read the terms before depositing.
ECN brokers that chase this type of trader tend to make it obvious. Look for their speed stats disclosed publicly, and usually include virtual private servers for automated strategies. If a broker doesn't mention execution specifications anywhere on their site, that's probably not a good sign for scalpers.
Social trading in forex: practical expectations
The idea of copying other traders has become popular over the past decade. The concept is obvious: identify traders who are making money, replicate their positions in your own account, collect the profits. In reality is less straightforward than the marketing imply.
The main problem is execution delay. When the trader you're copying opens a position, the replicated trade goes through after a delay — during volatile conditions, that lag transforms a profitable trade into a bad one. The smaller the strategy's edge, the more this problem becomes.
Having said that, some implementations work well enough for people who can't trade actively. The key is finding platforms that show real trading results over a minimum of a year, rather than simulated results. Metrics like Sharpe ratio and maximum drawdown tell you more than raw return figures.
Some brokers offer in-house social platforms within their standard execution. This tends to reduce the execution lag compared to external copy trading providers that sit on top of the broker's platform. Research the technical setup before trusting that historical returns will carry over with the same precision.