Forex Broker - A Quick Look at Oanda and FXCM Forex Brokers

Since the popularity of forex trading online, many new forex brokers have sprung up. And they all want a piece of the market since online currency trading is huge business. As such, we have the veritable pick of the litter when it comes to selection. But why are currency brokers so necessary? Forex Brokers perform the role of the middle man when investing in the forex market. In short, they place our order for us while charging us a small fee for doing so.
Forex brokers make their money by charging us something called the spread.Spreads vary according to the currency pair traded as well as the forex broker that is placing the order. Some brokers charge low spreads while others charge standard spreads across the board. Some even charge a commission on top of the spread. Below is a brief glance at two very popular and recognized forex brokers on the web today.
Oanda is an extremely popular forex broker. Even from the start, they offered trading accounts in different base currencies. Oanda actually started as a company converting large sums of currencies for large corporations. Oanda is the creation of Richard Olsen who founded the Olsen Group. Richard Olsen is responsible for two popular books on forex trading. The "Forex Traders bill of rights" and "Introduction to High Frequency Trading".
They have collected a good number of awards over the years including the 2009 World finance forex award. Their have variable spreads that are competitive. They have a web based trading platform that users can use from any computer terminal worldwide.
FXCM is the worlds most popular online forex broker to date. They are famous for having some of the lowest spreads on the market and have been slowly marketing themselves in a number of countries. They are a multi-lingual currency broker with all the key languages covered and it takes as little as $25 to open a micro account with them.
The FXCM trading station II is their platform of choice but they are looking at offering metatrader 4 in the future due to its popularity. They have a total of 6 base currencies for trading accounts that include the Yen, Pound, Euro and the USD. Their obvious attraction to the forex trader are their super low spreads along with the low deposit required for an account. This is good news as it makes forex trading accessible to most people as well as increasing competition in the online forex broker arena.
Hopefully, what this means in the long run are better spreads, more reliable currency brokers and more traders venturing through the internet to place their trades.
For further information on Forex Trading, please click on the highlighted links for a visit to a free investment information resource. Prema Laga has been trading currencies for years, as such, her interests tend to focus on investments online or otherwise. Mutual Funds, Bonds, stock trading are all in her area of expertise.