Best forex brokers in 2020

To help you to find the best forex brokers in 2020, we did the research for you. We checked and compared fees, currency pairs, charting tools, platforms, practically everything. We went deep, so you won't have to. And now, without further ado...

Our top 5 picks for the best forex brokers in 2020:

1. Saxo Bank is the winner, the best forex broker in 2020. Great trading platform. Outstanding research. Broad product portfolio.
2. TD Ameritrade in the second place. Low trading fees (free stock and ETF trading) . Superb desktop trading platform. Great customer support.
3. City Index rounded out the top three. Low fees for forex and index CFDs. Fast and smooth account opening. Diverse research tools.
4. Forex.com, number four. Low forex fees. Great variety of currency pairs. Diverse technical research tools.
5. Fusion Markets. Low trading and non-trading fees. Fast and easy account opening. Great customer service. Just made it to the list with being number five.

What makes a good forex broker? First of all, fair trading fees and low withdrawal fees. They should also offer a lot of currency pairs and need to have a great platform with advanced charting. These are easy things to list, but quite hard to figure it out. We test brokers based on more than 100 criteria with real accounts and real money. We know what's up.

If you are a beginner, be careful with forex trading. Forex products are complex and very risky, thus not suitable for everyone. You can easily lose all of your invested money. If you don't have a clue how forex trading works, start with forex trading 101.

Not sure which broker to choose? For a tailored recommendation, check out our broker finder tool. Just enter your country and it will show you only the relevant brokers. Want more details? Compare brokers with this detailed comparison table.

And now, let's see the top forex brokers in 2020 one by one, starting with the winner, Saxo Bank.

Saxo Bank is a Danish investment bank founded in 1992, providing online trading and investments. The company is regulated by several financial authorities globally, including the Danish Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). 

Saxo Bank is a global service provider. In the different regions, its subsidiaries are present in the form of separate legal entities. The services offered by each entity might change slightly especially in case of their fees and products available to trade. In this review, we tested Saxo Bank UK.

Saxo Bank is considered safe because it has a long track record, has a banking background, and is regulated by top-tier financial authorities.

Saxo stops accepting customers in the MENA region between May and August 2020. This is because of COVID-19 and the higher volume of account openings.

Recommended for investors and traders looking for a great trading platform and solid research

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#1 Saxo Bank
Fees

2.9

Saxo Bank has average trading and non-trading fees overall. The fees for forex, mutual funds and stock index CFDs are low, while they are average for real stocks, ETFs or stock CFDs. Bond, options and futures fees are high.

Forex fees are Average. To have a clear picture of forex fees we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

All spreads, commissions and financing rate for opening a position, holding for a week, and closing.

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#1 Saxo Bank
Markets and products

5.0

Saxo Bank's product portfolio is great. It covers all asset classes and a lot of markets globally. Mutual funds and crypto are the only areas where its selection could be improved.

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#1 Saxo Bank
Web trading platform

4.5

Saxo Bank's web trading platform is one of the best among online brokers. It's easy to use, but also provides features favored by professionals, such as an advanced order panel. On the negative side, there is no two-step login.

Saxo Bank charting

The interactive chart function is also great and user-friendly.
You will find ~50 technical indicators and can add many editing tools, like trendlines or Fibonacci tools.
In addition, there is a trading signal tool which gives a buy or a sell signal based on technical indicators. This feature is powered by Autochartist, a third-party.

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#1 Saxo Bank
Account opening

2.6

Saxo's account opening is fully digital, user-friendly, and available in most of the world. On the other hand, the minimum deposit is high in certain countries, and account verification can take longer.

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#1 Saxo Bank
Deposit and withdrawal

4.8

Saxo provides multiple deposit and withdrawal options free of charge on a user-friendly interface.

Why does base currencies matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

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#1 Saxo Bank
Verdict

Saxo Bank is a great broker, providing a complex and good service.

Saxo offers a user-friendly and well-designed trading platform, backed by great research. The product portfolio covers all asset types and many international markets.

It has some drawbacks though. The fees for bonds, options and futures are high. There is also a high minimum deposit for certain countries. Lastly, there is no live chat or 24/7 customer support.

In general, Saxo Bank is one of the best online brokerage companies out there. By opening an account, you will get a broad, well-developed service constantly responding to the needs of clients.

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TD Ameritrade was founded in 1978 and it is one of the biggest US-based stockbrokers. It is regulated by top-tier regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

TD Ameritrade is considered a safe broker since it has a long track record, is listed on a stock exchange, has a banking background, discloses its financials, and is regulated by top-tier regulators.

Recommended for investors and traders looking for solid research and a well-equipped desktop trading platform

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Fees

4.3

TD Ameritrade provides free stock and ETF trading. The forex, bond, and options fees are low as well. On the other hand, they charge high fees for mutual funds.

Forex fees are Low. To have a clear picture of forex fees we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

All spreads, commissions and financing rate for opening a position, holding for a week, and closing.

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Markets and products

3.8

At TD Ameritrade you can trade with a lot of asset classes, from stocks to futures and forex. We also liked the additional features like social trading and the robo-advisory service. On the other hand, the offered products cover only the U.S. market.

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Web trading platform

3.8

TD Ameritrade offers a good web-based trading platform with a clean design. On the flip side, there is no two-step login and the platform is not customizable.

TD Ameritrade charting

TD Ameritrade has great charting tools. You can use 400 technical indicators and the charts are easily editable. The number of indicators TD Ameritrade offers is one of the most extensive on the market.

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Account opening

2.9

As a new client, you can change from many different account types at TD Ameritrade and as US citizen you will face no minimum deposit. Unfortunately, the process is not fully digital.

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Deposit and withdrawal

2.2

TD Ameritrade has user-friendly account funding and charges no deposit fees, but are several drawbacks as well. You can use only bank transfer and a high fee is charged for wire transfer withdrawals.

Why does base currencies matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

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#2 TD Ameritrade
Verdict

TD Ameritrade is one of the biggest US online brokers. Reflecting the wave of introducing commission-free trading at the end of 2019, TD Ameritrade now charges no commission of stock and ETF trades.

Research and education are outstanding and covers a lot of tools. The Thinkorswim desktop trading platform is one of the best on the market. The customer service is great, you will get relevant answers within a short time.

It has some drawbacks though. It charges high financing (margin) rates and it doesn't provide credit/debit cards and electronic wallets for money transfers. Furthermore, the product portfolio covers products only from U.S. markets. 

As there are great education tools including a demo account, feel free to try it.

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City Index was founded in 1983 and it is a global CFD and FX broker. City Index is the brand name of GAIN Capital, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is regulated by top-tier financial authorities, such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) or Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

City Index is considered safe because it has a long track record, is regulated by top-tier financial authorities, and its parent company is listed on a stock exchange.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Recommended for forex and cfd traders looking for low forex fees and great research tools

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Fees

4.1

City Index has low fees for forex and stock index CFDs. On the other hand, stock CFD fees are high and there is an inactivity fee.

Forex fees are Low. To have a clear picture of forex fees we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

All spreads, commissions and financing rate for opening a position, holding for a week, and closing.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Markets and products

2.1

At City Index, you can only trade with CFDs, forex, and cryptos. Unfortunately, real stocks, bonds and ETFs are not available.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Web trading platform

4.3

City Index's web trading platform is user-friendly and extremely customizable. It has also a lot of order types. On the flip side, there is no two-step login.

City Index charting

City Index does a great job in charting. The charts are easily editable and there are more than 50 technical indicators.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Account opening

5.0

City Index account opening is fully digital and there is no minimum deposit. It took us one day to have an approved open account.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Deposit and withdrawal

4.0

City Index provides multiple options for deposit and withdrawal and they are free of charge. However, the withdrawal with some credit cards is not possible.

Why does base currencies matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#3 City Index
Verdict

City Index is a great CFD and forex broker regulated by top-tier financial authorities, such as the UK FCA.

On the bright side, it has low forex and stock index CFD fees, a smooth account opening process, and high-quality research tools.

It has some drawbacks though. The product portfolio is limited, the stock CFD fees are quite high, and the desktop platform is not easy-to-use.

As there is no minimum balance, no withdrawal fee and inactivity fee only kicks in after one year, feel free to try City Index out.

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71% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Forex.com is a global FX and CFD broker established in 2001. Forex.com is the brand name of GAIN Capital, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is regulated by several financial authorities, including the top-tier Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK or the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Forex.com is considered safe because it has a long track record, is regulated by top-tier financial authorities, and its parent company is listed on a stock exchange.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Recommended for forex traders looking for low fees and great research tools

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Fees

4.1

Forex.com has low fees for forex trades and stock index CFDs. On the other hand, stock CFD fees are high and there is an inactivity fee.

Forex fees are Low. To have a clear picture of forex fees we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

All spreads, commissions and financing rate for opening a position, holding for a week, and closing.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Markets and products

1.9

At Forex.com, you can only trade with forex, CFDs and cryptos. Other asset classes, like real stocks or funds, are not available.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Web trading platform

4.3

Forex.com's web trading platform is user-friendly and extremely customizable, with lots of order types. On the negative side, there is no two-step login and we found some bugs.

Forex.com charting

Forex.com does a great job in charting. The charts are easily editable and there are more than 80 technical indicators.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Account opening

4.4

Forex.com's account opening is seamless and fully digital, with a low minimum deposit. On the other hand, account verification takes ~2 business days, which is not the fastest on the market.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Deposit and withdrawal

4.0

Forex.com provides multiple options for deposit and withdrawal, all free of charge. However, withdrawal is not possible with some credit cards.

Why does base currencies matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#4 Forex.com
Verdict

Forex.com is a great forex broker regulated by several financial authorities, such as the UK FCA or the US CFTC.

On the positive side, it has low forex fees, many tradable currency pairs, and high-quality research tools.

It has some drawbacks though. Popular assets, like real stocks or bonds, are not provided. Stock CFD fees are quite high, and the desktop platform is not easy to use.

Since no withdrawal fee or inactivity fee kicks in until after one year, feel free to try Forex.com today.

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69% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Fusion Markets is an Australian forex broker. It was founded in 2010 and is regulated by both the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC) depending on your residency.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Recommended for forex traders looking for low fees and a chance to use the metatrader 4 platform

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Fees

4.8

Fusion Markets has low forex fees and charges neither an inactivity fee nor a withdrawal fee.

Forex fees are Low. To have a clear picture of forex fees we calculated a forex benchmark fee for major currency pairs. This catch-all benchmark includes commissions, spreads and financing costs for all brokers.

All spreads, commissions and financing rate for opening a position, holding for a week, and closing.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Markets and products

1.8

Fusion Markets gives access to a lot of currency pairs and some CFDs. On the other hand, it lacks a lot of popular asset classes, such as real stocks, ETFs, funds, etc.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Web trading platform

2.8

The web trading platform of Fusion Markets is provided by MetaTrader. It is highly customizable and has a clear fee report. On the other hand, it lacks a two-step login and price alerts, and the design is outdated.

Fusion Markets charting

Uses Metatrader 4 charting tools. You can use 31 technical indicators and other technical tools, such as trendlines and Fibonacci retracement.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Account opening

5.0

Account opening at Fusion Markets is user-friendly and fully digital. It is also very fast, as it took only one day to get our account approved.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Deposit and withdrawal

4.4

Fusion Markets doesn't charge fees for deposits and most withdrawal options. You can use a bank transfer, credit/debit cards, and electronic wallets for transferring money but the withdrawal is slow.

Why does base currencies matter? Because if you fund your account in the same currency as your bank account, currency conversion fees won't be charged.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

#5 Fusion Markets
Verdict

Fusion Markets is a great forex broker. 

It offers low trading and non-trading fees. Account opening is fast and easy. Customer service gives quick and relevant answers.

On the negative side, Fusion Markets has limited research and educational tools. The product offering covers only forex and some CFDs.

As you will have an account within a day and there are low fees, feel free to try Fusion Markets.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Trading with forex has become really popular over the last decade. Keeping your eyes on important criteria like fees helps you to find the best forex broker for you.

At BrokerChooser, we test online brokers along more than 100 criteria, with a real account and real money.

The most important factor for selecting the top forex brokers is the fees of forex trading. Not just the trading fees, but the withdrawal fees are important to take into consideration. We also score positively if the broker provides a great amount of currency pairs, great desktop platform, and advanced charting tools.

Fees, fees, fees. We bet this is at the top of your mind when you're looking for the best forex broker. It can be complicated. Let's see how we did it.

It is not easy to compare forex broker fees, but we are here to help. Forex brokers can charge commissions, spreads and financing fees.

For commissions, there are two versions forex brokers use:

1. All trading fees are included in the spread except the financing rate. Basically, think of it as the broker giving you a wider spread than it gets from the market.
2. You get the market spread, but you pay a commission based on the traded amount.

The latter is more transparent, but this doesn't mean the first method cannot be cheaper.

When you trade forex on leverage and hold your position overnight, a fee will be charged. This fee is called a rollover or financing fee. The financing rate depends on the currency pair and the broker.

To make your life easy, we calculated everything for you. We calculated what your overall fee would be if you take a $20,000 position, hold it for a week then close it. We used a 30:1 leverage.

You see this for the EURUSD, GPBUSD, and AUDUSD currency pairs.

Forex trading looks simple, but it carries serious risks. Before trading, understand the basics and ask yourself: is this for me?

Understanding the forex market

Forex, FX, foreign exchange or currency market: you have probably already heard one of these expressions. They all mean the same: a market where you can exchange currencies or bet on the price movement of currency pairs.

The forex market has several outlets, from the currency exchange booths on the street to the currency trading desks of big banks.

For a layperson, a non-professional individual as you probably are, the easiest and safest way to trade forex is by opening an account at a reliable online broker.

The vast majority of currency transactions are conducted on OTC (over-the-counter) markets. An OTC market is a non-regulated market. On a non-regulated market, you have to assess for yourself how safe your counterparty is. For example, when you travel abroad to an exotic country and you need to exchange some money, you usually go to a bank branch instead of changing money on the street. This is how you minimize your counterparty risk. You have to do the same risk minimization when you select your online broker for trading forex. You should always choose a reliable broker.

Forex trading is very tempting for the following reasons:

• everybody has an opinion on where the currencies are going

• on first sight, the forex market is relatively easy to understand compared to other markets, like the stock market

• by using leverage, a trader can easily trade with 100 times more money than they have on their trading account and thus also increase profits (or losses!) 100 times

• the market is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week

• it is the most liquid market in the world, meaning there are huge numbers of transactions every second and you don't have to worry about not finding a partner to trade with

Although it looks easy, trading with forex can be risky if you don't know what you're doing. By using high leverage irresponsibly, you can easily lose all of your money within a couple of seconds. So you better start off slow, learn and open a demo account first. If you want to study more, check out our blog post about the best trading apps for learning.

Forex market trading hours

The forex market is open from 11:00 PM on Sunday until 11:00 PM on Friday, London time.

The highest trading activity within each day is when London and New York are open.

It is good to know that there is a difference between currency conversion and forex trading.

The end result of a conversion is basically changing one currency into another. Imagine that you receive your salary in euros (EUR), but you spend it in British pounds (GBP). In this case, you exchange the euros to pounds. Before the transaction you had euros, and after it you will have pounds.

When you trade with currency pairs there is no physical conversion happening. Imagine that you have an online broker account in US dollars and you want to bet on the price movements of the EURUSD. In this case, you effectively never convert your dollars to euro. If your bet was correct, the profit from your trade will be booked to your account in US dollars. If you were wrong, the loss will be deducted from your account in dollars as well.

Breaking down the forex trading jargon

When you trade forex, you bet on the price change of a currency pair, for example, the EURUSD.

First of all, you need to understand what the bid and the ask prices are. Let's take the EURUSD again as an example. The 'bid' is the price at which you can sell the EURUSD, or in other words to go short in it. If the price goes lower, you will generate a profit. The 'ask' price is the opposite. If you want to bet on the price increasing, you can open a trade at the 'ask' price. The mid-price is usually halfway between the two, but this is just a theoretical price that is not used for trading.

The actual bid and ask prices together are called the quote.

A long position is when you bet on the price going up, while a short position is when you profit from the price going down.

The spread is the difference between the ask and bid prices. In the example above, the spread is 0.0005, which is calculated as 1.1705-1.1700.

The pip is the smallest amount of a currency pair. One pip is equal to 0.0001 for most of the currency pairs. In case of our example, the spread is 5 pips, or 5 times 0.0001, equalling 0.0005. For some currency pairs like the USDJPY, one pip is 0.01.

Leverage allows you to take bigger positions than the amount of money on your account. Imagine this as a multiplier of your profit or your loss. This can be as high as 300. Imagine you have $1000 on your account and your applied leverage is 100. If you open a long position by using all your $1000, this means you open a trade for $1,000*100, or $100,000. If the price decreases 1%, you will lose $1000 (1%*$100,000), that is, all of the money on your account. And the price of a currency pair can very easily decrease by 1%. In case of EURUSD, this would mean a price decrease from 1.1705 to 1.1588.

A lot is the standard number of units of a forex contract. It is usually 100,000 units of the base currency. The base currency is the first currency in a currency pair. For EURUSD, the base currency is the EUR and one lot is €100,000. A mini lot is 10,000, a micro 1,000 and a nano 100 units of the base currency.

In forex trading, you can encounter three types of contracts: spot, forward and futures. The spot forex contract is the type that is traded by most people, and this also what you trade when you use an online broker. A spot contract by definition is settled two days after the trade. Settlement means that the counterparties who traded are converting their currencies between each other at the price of the trade made two days earlier. Imagine the settlement as a currency conversion made at a money exchange office on the street. The only difference is that this happens two days after the price was agreed on.

However, in most cases, the settlement doesn't actually happen, because spot contracts are rolled over before the settlement. This is always the case when you trade forex with your online brokers. The rollover happens because when you are betting on the direction of a currency pair, you do not want to actually convert money into the other currency, you just want to bet on the price movement. The rollover ensures that the conversion will not happen.

When your position is rolled over, your online broker in the background basically closes your current spot position and opens a new one. This is not visible for you, but it has a fee, called the rollover or financing fee. The rollover fee is calculated from the interest rate difference between the two currencies you are trading. In some cases, you may also receive a fee from the broker, if the interest rates you trade are in your favor.

A forward forex contract is a contract made on the OTC market. The specifics of the contract, like the term, the price and the settlement are defined by the counterparties case by case. For example, imagine a company which will need $100,000 in 30 days for paying its employees, but it will receive its revenue in euro. Since it wants to specify the exact exchange rate it can get in 30 days, it will seal a forward contract with a big bank at a fixed price, let's say 1.1710. After 30 days, they will exchange the currencies and the company will receive €85,397 ($100,000/1.1710). In this case, the settlement actually happens.

A futures forex contract is traded on a regulated market, for example, a commodity exchange, like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). When you trade futures, your counterparty is the exchange and the specifics of the contract are predefined by the exchange. When your counterparty is a regulated exchange, you don't need to check your counterparty risk, as this is one of the safest modes of trading. However, the exchange requires a large amount of initial money for trading, so this is not suitable for you if you have little money to invest. For example, if you want to trade one EURUSD futures contract on the CME, you need to have more than $2000 on your account.

What drives the forex market price?

As we said above, everybody has an opinion about the forex market, because it seems simple. However, currency markets are among the most unpredictable ones in the world.

Everything from monetary policies and government spending to politics and wars can influence the price change of currency pairs. So many different factors can affect prices that it is difficult to make a prediction on which way they will move.

Nevertheless, economic calendars can help, so at least know about the scheduled events that could have an effect on the forex market.

You saw the details, now let's zoom out. Here are the top forex brokers in 2020:

Saxo Bank is our winner, the best forex broker in 2020. Great trading platform. Outstanding research. Broad product portfolio.

All are great great choice. Watch out, FX can be risky. If you know enough and are good to go, pick your winner and take the next step in your trading journey. Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Still unsure? Use the broker finder and find the best broker for you.