How forex brokers work

Like any other business in the history of business, your broker’s raison d’etre, is to make as big a profit as possible. There are about as many ways to go about this as there are brokers.

 For those who are in it for the long haul, however, it is generally best to adopt a set of practices which are deemed fair by their clients: certain boundaries are set, and operating beyond them can cost a brokerage its reputation, and along with it its clients. Straying outside these boundaries, therefore, is not considered as being in line with the long term goals of the business.

How strictly these boundaries are enforced, especially when there is little chance of clients ever even becoming aware of any transgression, again varies from business to business. For the sake of simplicity, in this article we assume that everyone in the business is squeaky clean, as if every client could peek into the broker’s back office at any time and dissect every trade. This is obviously not the case, and many brokers do take advantage of this opaqueness, but the details of that are best left for another discussion.

So without further ado, let’s get into the details of how forex brokers function. Somewhat removed from the top-tier interbank market, retail forex brokers are there to provide a service that would otherwise not be available, that is, giving an investor with a $10,000 bankroll the chance to speculate in the up-until-recently very exclusive forex market. There are generally considered to be 2 types of brokers providing access at the retail level: Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) and Market Makers.

ECNs are generally somewhat more exclusive, requiring larger deposits to get started, but are seen as providing more direct access to the interbank market. As we will see, there are certainly advantages to this, but some disadvantages as well.

Market makers, on the other hand are more often than not, the counter party to their clients’ trades, creating somewhat of a conflict of interest, whereas ECNs profit from commission fees charged directly to the clients, regardless of the result of any trade, they are seen as being completely impartial – an ECN has no incentive for a client to lose money.

In fact, one could argue that an ECN stands to profit more if a client is successful, meaning that s/he will stay around longer and they will be able to collect more commission fees from them. A market maker, on the other hand, being the counterparty to a client’s trade, makes money if the client loses money, providing an incentive for some shady practices.

more information please vsit >>> click here