Choosing a Broker for an Expert Advisor

Before you can test an Expert Advisor (EA) properly, you need a demo account with the broker you'd actually use with real money, because its prices, costs and rules are the ones the EA will live with. This page shows you how to check a broker yourself, and how to open its demo. It doesn't recommend or name a broker.

Step 1

Check the Regulator, at the Regulator

A broker that holds your money should be authorised by a financial regulator. Check that on the regulator's own website, never just on the broker's. Look the firm up by name and by its reference or licence number, and check that the website address and contact details match the ones the regulator lists.

Where to look, for example:

• UK: the FCA's Financial Services Register (register.fca.org.uk).
• Australia: ASIC's registers (asic.gov.au).
• United States: the firm that would hold your forex account must be registered with the CFTC as a retail foreign exchange dealer (RFED) or a futures commission merchant (FCM), and be an NFA member. The NFA's BASIC search (nfa.futures.org/BasicNet) shows whether a firm is registered as an RFED or FCM and is an NFA member; check that the firm named on your account documents, with its exact legal name, is that firm. Being an NFA member in some other role, such as an introducing broker, isn't enough.
• Cyprus (many EU brokers): CySEC's list of Cyprus investment firms (cysec.gov.cy).

If you live somewhere else, find your own country's financial regulator and use its register.

Step 2

Watch for Clone Firms

A clone firm copies the name, details or website of a real, authorised firm. The register shows a real firm, but you're dealing with someone else. Regulators warn about them and list known clones. To protect yourself:

• Use the contact details and website the regulator's register gives, not the ones in an email or advert.
• Check the firm's exact legal name and its regulator's reference number on the account documents.
• When you log in to MT5, check the server name you're given belongs to that same company.

If the details don't match, stop.

You can also search IOSCO's I-SCAN (iosco.org/i-scan), which collects warnings about unauthorised firms from regulators around the world. It isn't a complete list: a firm that isn't on it isn't authorised because of that. Authorisation is only ever checked on the regulator's own register.

Step 3

Check Which Company You'd Actually Be With

Many brokers are groups of companies, each regulated in a different country. The one you're signed up with depends on where you live, and it decides your regulator, your protections, the leverage you can have and what you can trade. Check:

• Which entity your account would be with, and its regulator.
• That this entity offers MT5 (not just MT4 or its own platform) for your account type.

Step 4

Check It Allows What Your EA Does

Read the broker's terms, or ask in writing:

• Expert Advisors allowed? Some brokers restrict automated trading, or particular styles such as scalping, very high trade counts or holding trades for only seconds.
• Hedging or netting? MT5 accounts are one or the other. On a hedging account you can hold a buy and a sell on the same symbol; on a netting account they merge into one position. If your EA needs hedging, the broker must offer it on your account type.
• Account types: brokers give their accounts their own names. Write down the name of the one you'd use live, with its spread and commission (page 0.3), its swap terms and its minimum deposit.
• Symbols: the symbols the EA trades, often with a suffix on the name (such as ".m" or "-pro").

Step 5

Open the Demo

There are two ways, and both end with an account number, a password and a server name:

• On the broker's website: open a demo there, then in MT5 use File → Login to Trade Account with the details it gives you.
• Inside MT5: File → Open an Account, search for the broker by name, and choose a demo account.

Some brokers give you their own copy of MT5 with their name on it. It's the same platform, installed separately: download it only from the website address the regulator's register gives for that company, and use that copy from then on.

Match the live account as closely as you can. Pick the same account type, currency and leverage you'd have live, and a balance close to what you'd really trade. A demo often offers different choices from a live account. If anything doesn't match, write it down, so you know which demo results may not carry over to live.

Keep your login details safe: the account number, the main password (the one that trades), the investor password if you're given one (it only lets someone watch), and the exact server name.

About the Site's Broker Pages

The Robotic Trader also publishes a broker comparison. It's general context, with its own disclosure, not part of this guide and not a recommendation. Whichever broker you consider, check it with the steps above.