Best forex trading platforms and tools
TD Ameritrade offers a choice of high-quality trade platforms and advanced tools.
TD Ameritrade is hard to beat with its much-loved thinkorswim trading platform, which allows users to trade not just currency, but also a range of other investment products. The platform is professional-level, with advanced technical analysis capabilities and the ability to create custom forex pairs, and TD Ameritrade has an equally robust mobile app, Mobile Trader. Thinkorswim also offers up $200,000 of play money for practice with its paperMoney feature. One drawback: The platform is advanced enough that new traders can easily get overwhelmed.
In addition to all the other positives that made it one of our best overall picks, Forex.com offers a number of platforms for traders, allowing users to choose the one they’re most comfortable with. In addition to offering MetaTrader 4, the broker also offers its flagship platform FOREXTrader, which is available in browser, desktop and mobile versions. Forex.com also just added the Ninja Trader platform to its line-up as well as TradingView for users to chart currencies, provide technical analysis and develop a trading plan.
Best brokers for low-cost forex trading
In our analysis, these brokers offered the most value.
The costs associated with forex trading can be hard to suss out, as we noted earlier. Low-volume traders can often save money with a broker that marks up its spreads but charges no commissions, as long as those markups are competitive. OandA publishes both live and historical spreads on its website, and came out the clear winner in our analysis for the lowest spreads on major pairs. While the company charges a monthly inactivity fee of $10, it only kicks in after a year of no activity, so it’s hardly a dealbreaker.
High-volume traders may benefit from a commission-only broker. On this count, ATC Brokers’ flat commission pricing looks like a clear winner. The company prices its commission round turn (in other words, for both sides, when you buy and sell) and charges $1.00 per 10,000 units. One caveat: Though the broker allows trades as small as 1,000 units, that $1.00 is a minimum commission.