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Best Expert Advisor Forex Brokers

BrokerNotes.co

Written by BrokerNotes.co

August 29, 2023

Trading With Forex Expert Advisors

Expert advisors, also known as forex robots, offer a way to trade the markets in an automated fashion. Expert advisors eliminate the need of sitting in front of the computer all day, poring through charts, figures, setups, indicators, news, etc, it is possible to use software to do all this for you and then execute a trade on your behalf, saving you all the trouble.

These robots can then be used to trade the markets while the user attends to some other business. Many traders are actually day workers who use trading as a second income stream, and this category of market players will benefit from the use of forex robots.

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

Best Forex Brokers for Expert Advisors (EAs)

Here are the best forex brokers for Expert Advisors.

  • IG
    - 9.9/10 Overall
  • Saxo Bank - 9.7/10 Overall
  • Interactive Brokers - 9.7/10 Overall
  • CMC Markets - 9.6/10 Overall
  • TD Ameritrade - 9.5/10 Overall
  • FOREX.com
    - 9.3/10 Overall
  • City Index - 9.2/10 Overall
  • XTB - 9/10 Overall
  • eToro - 8.8/10 Overall
IG
9.9/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit£250.00
Tier-1 Licenses8
Tradeable Symbols (Total)19537

Year after year, IG has shown itself to be the best broker in the forex industry and a fantastic choice for forex traders. Highly trusted and regulated across the globe, IG delivers a wide variety of rich features, market research, and powerful trading tools. Fans of copy trading will appreciate IG’s seamless integration of trading signals into its web platform.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Visit Site

Join 239,000+ traders worldwide.

(Trading forex carries a high level of risk.)

Saxo Bank
9.7/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit€2,000
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)70000

Saxo Bank is a highly trusted broker that operates multiple banks and is regulated across the globe. Saxo Bank delivers an incredible cross-platform experience alongside powerful research and a vast selection of more than 60,000 symbols across multiple asset classes. It’s worth noting that minimum deposits at Saxo are steep.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
Interactive Brokers
9.7/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses9
Tradeable Symbols (Total)8500

Interactive Brokers is a highly trusted broker regulated across the globe that delivers access to over 100 markets, including forex and CFDs. Its Trader Workstation (TWS) platform offers a variety of advanced trading tools for experienced traders, and IBKR's web-based platform is great for beginner forex traders.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
CMC Markets
9.6/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)12074

CMC Markets is a highly trusted multi-asset broker regulated in multiple Tier-1 jurisdictions. CMC's powerful Next Generation trading platform for web and mobile delivers a huge selection of markets and a fantastic user experience. CMC Markets also ranks highly for its high-quality research and educational content.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
TD Ameritrade
9.5/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses5
Tradeable Symbols (Total)0

TD Ameritrade, part of financial conglomerate Charles Schwab, is a leader in platform technology and trusted by millions of investors globally with trillions in assets under its brands. Available exclusively to U.S. residents, TD Ameritrade's forex offering consists of just over 70 currency pairs, along with powerful research and trading tools.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
FOREX.com
9.3/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$100
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)5500

FOREX.com is a highly trusted brand with a long history of offering forex in the U.S. and across the globe. FOREX.com offers its own flagship trading platforms for web and desktop, as well as the full MetaTrader suite. Though its pricing is higher than average, FOREX.com is a balanced choice for traders of all experience levels.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)Yes
Visit Site

A Global Market Leader!

(Trading forex carries a high level of risk.)

City Index
9.2/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit£100.00
Tier-1 Licenses7
Tradeable Symbols (Total)13500

City Index, part of StoneX Group, is an award-winning, highly trusted broker with a long history of offering forex and CFDs across its global offices. City Index delivers a well-designed mobile trading app and a powerful web platform, as well as a large range of tradeable markets (though pricing is just average).

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
XTB
9/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$0
Tier-1 Licenses2
Tradeable Symbols (Total)6010

XTB is a highly trusted brand with a proprietary platform (xStation 5) that delivers a rich selection of trading tools. XTB also offers CFDs for a wide range of asset classes, including multiple cryptocurrencies. Beginners will appreciate XTB's excellent educational content and the hundreds of lessons that are available via its Trading Academy.

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)Yes
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No
eToro
8.8/10 Overall
Summary Review Trading Platforms
Minimum Deposit$10-$10,000
Tier-1 Licenses3
Tradeable Symbols (Total)3479

Best known for its copy trading platform suite, eToro is a highly trusted broker offering a large selection of cryptocurrency products, CFDs, shares, forex pairs, and a wide range of powerful trading tools. It’s worth noting that eToro is not a discount broker (though it offers zero-dollar commissions for U.S. stocks).

Apple iOS AppYes
Android AppNo
Proprietary PlatformYes
Desktop Platform (Windows)No
Web PlatformYes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4)No
MetaTrader 5 (MT5)No

What is an Expert Advisor?

An expert advisor for the forex market is a software system that is built to analyze the currency pairs in the forex market to identify trading opportunities, and then implement buy or sell signals on the forex charts. Usually, trades in forex involve analyzing the market by going through several chart setups, then deciding whether to buy or sell, as well as making a decision on which kind of orders will be used to produce the best trade outcomes. These are all automated when a trading robot is used.

Expert advisors (EAs) have undergone a lot of modifications from the early days in which they were introduced. These expert advisors have moved from simple robots which did analysis and then traded accounts to complex algorithmic trading software which is used today for advanced forex trading. So we will talk about this experience not just from the standpoint of the simple software, but also from the complex ago trading systems that trading robots are today.

Trading with robots is also known as Quantitative Trading. The basis for algorithmic trading or trading with robots is for a computer software system to run analyses on several forex pairs and to generate and ultimately implement buy and sell signals on the forex platforms.

Featured EA Broker: ETX Capital

If you have decided you want to use an expert advisor for your trading strategy and are looking for a broker that supports the use of automated trading with expert advisors, ETX Capital is one of the most popular choices. Some of the why people choose ETX Capital are:

  • Established broker – over 10 years in business (in business since 2002)
  • Regulated by the Financial conduct authority (UK) #124721
  • Tight spreads
  • Offers Forex, Spread betting, CFDs, Binary, Equities, Commodities and Indices
  • Wide range of markets

The two types of forex robot algorithmic trading:

  • High-frequency trading.
  • Low-frequency trading.

High-frequency trading with expert advisors focuses on creating an edge with speed. The speed of the connection is the main advantage that high-frequency trading robots confer on the trader.

High-frequency trading robots aim to make a profit from arbitrage. In other words, they scan several exchanges or data centers where there are even the smallest of differences between the prices of the same asset.

The high-frequency robots then place a large volume of trades on the lower price (for buy orders) and offload them to other traders in the market at higher prices. For example, a high-frequency expert advisor may buy gold at 1,200.30 from one exchange and re-sell the same to other traders at 1,200.35. The price difference is 0.05, which may look very small. However, the high-frequency forex robot may place 10,000 lots on this trade, which confers on the pip movement a value of $100,000 per pip.

Considering that this trade moved just 5 pips or 0.05 points, the profit made by the high-frequency trading robot would be $100,000 X 5 = $500,000. High-frequency trading robots are mostly used by institutional traders and big banks who trade the forex market. These institutional players have access to very large capital and are able to afford the relevant tools and software which can scan the market for such opportunities and execute the trades within milliseconds. These robots can trade several times in a matter of milliseconds. Retail forex traders in general, do not have access to these systems and therefore have to make do with the second model of algorithmic trading, which is low-frequency trading.

Low-frequency trading is a model which aims to use the soundness of the utilized trading model to gain an advantage. This is not dependent on speed. Therefore, low-frequency trading robots are looking to profit from price movement over time. These price movements are determined by:

  • Trading fundamentals such as earnings reports and interest rate statements.
  • Macroeconomic news such as the Non-farm Payrolls report, inflation reports, housing data, etc.
  • Statistical models e.g. price correlations, mean regressions, etc.
  • Technical analyses e.g. chart patterns, candlesticks.

Low-frequency trading EAs are developed from several viewpoints. These viewpoints aim to ensure that:

  • That the idea behind the construction of the robot strategy is sound both economically and technically.
  • The strategy is based on sound statistical methods.
  • That the basic principle of using sound models and not speed are what governs our trading robots.

This means that robots must not be used blindly. This is why it is very difficult to make a profitable commercial robot as they cannot be assessed to see if they obey the rules set out above.

How Expert Advisors Work

EAs work with algorithms which are usually programmed with specialised programming languages. The trading platform the trader uses will determine what language will be used to program the forex robot. Here is a list of platforms and the programming languages used in programming the robots:

  • The MetaQuotes Language 4(MQL4) is used to program expert advisors for MT4.
  • TradeStation: The Lua programming language is used to code expert advisors for the FXCM platform.
  • The ActFX programming language is used to code robots for the ActForex platforms. An example is the AvaTrade platform.
  • Many professional ECN platforms are coded with more specialized languages such as C#.

Characteristics of a Good Expert Advisor

A good expert advisor must meet certain basic criteria that enable it to work perfectly. These are listed as follows:

  • The parameters for trade entry and exit must be well defined.
  • The EA must have acceptable money management parameters.
  • The expert advisor must be able to evolve with the market. For this to happen, the creator of the EA must make it amenable to periodic updates.
  • A commercially sold EA must have adequate protection from decompiling software. Essentially, it must be hack-proof.
  • Code must be bug-free and error-free.

Where can you obtain Expert Advisors?

There are two main sources of expert advisors, buying a pre made EA or creating your very own EA from scratch. Each pathway has its advantages and disadvantages and you must be aware of these before you make a choice on which way to go.

Buying a pre-made EA

There are literally thousands of expert advisors sold online, and even more which are offered for free either as standalone bonus products or as lead-in products to other forex products. It is very difficult to get a forex robot that works from an online source. This is because there is no way for the trader to know the performance and the risk management profile of any expert advisor before purchase.

It is always a mistake to believe anything written about an expert advisor (EA) on the sales page of the vendor. You must have a way of subjecting the EA to evaluation to see if it meets the parameters for a good robot before you spend your hard-earned money. Usually, the way to do this is by making use of any free trial offers provided by vendors of such products.

Developing Your Own EA

There are several advantages of using this option. Perhaps the most important is that you will end up with a forex robot for you, by you and created just for you. You get to setup the EA with your strategy, fitted to your trading circumstances, your capital and risk management profile. The challenge is getting a programmer who can adequately translate your performance metrics into an actionable EA without messing up the coding process. Having your own expert advisor also allows you to edit the code as you wish.

Approaches to Building a Trading Robot

No programmer should just wake up blindly and start programming a trading robot. There is a time-tested approach to building a trading robot. The approach to building a trading robot is to:

  1. Design
  2. Program
  3. Backtest
  4. Execute

In performing this four-step approach to trading a forex robot, the trader must consider the platform to be used, the tools to be used, the platform infrastructure, and how the robot can be analyzed in the future to assess its trading performance.

Designing an EA is where the trader looks at the strategy to be used, the money management parameters, and the conditions for buying or selling a currency pair. After the design, the programming aspect comes to play. This is where the design of the robot is translated into a programming code. When the code is all done, the EA must then be tested and optimized, before it is finally executed for use.

It is essential to get a skilled programmer to do the job of coding. However, building a good EA is usually a multi-disciplinary approach. It requires input from various fields such as statistics, mathematics, programming, and a little common sense.

BrokerNotes.co 2023 Overall Rankings

To recap, here are our top forex brokers for 2023, sorted by Overall ranking.

Company Overall Rating Minimum Deposit Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard Trust Score Tradeable Symbols (Total) Read Review Visit Site
IG logoIG 9.9 £250.00 0.86 99 19537 IG Review Visit Site
Saxo Bank logoSaxo Bank 9.7 €2,000 0.9 99 70000 Saxo Bank Review
Interactive Brokers logoInteractive Brokers 9.7 $0 0.6 99 8500 Interactive Brokers Review
CMC Markets logoCMC Markets 9.6 $0 0.51 99 12074 CMC Markets Review
TD Ameritrade logoTD Ameritrade 9.5 $0 1.25 99 0 TD Ameritrade Review
FOREX.com logoFOREX.com 9.3 $100 1.4 99 5500 FOREX.com Review Visit Site
City Index logoCity Index 9.2 £100.00 1.4 99 13500 City Index Review
XTB logoXTB 9 $0 1.07 96 6010 XTB Group Review
eToro logoeToro 8.8 $10-$10,000 1 90 3479 eToro Review
Swissquote logoSwissquote 8.7 $1000 N/A 99 472 Swissquote Review
AvaTrade logoAvaTrade 8.6 $100 0.92 94 1260 AvaTrade Review
FXCM logoFXCM 8.5 Starts from $50 1.38 95 440 FXCM Review Visit Site
Plus500 logoPlus500 8.5 €100 0.8 (August 2021) 99 2800 Plus500 Review
Capital.com logoCapital.com 8.4 $20 0.65 87 3119 Capital.com Review
XM Group logoXM Group 8.4 $5 1.6 88 1429 XM Group Review
Pepperstone logoPepperstone 8.4 $200 0.77 95 2342 Pepperstone Review
OANDA logoOANDA 8.4 $0 1.26 93 124 OANDA Review
Admiral Markets logoAdmiral Markets 8.3 $100 0.8 93 6942 Admiral Markets Review
FP Markets logoFP Markets 8.3 $100 AUD 1.2 87 10000 FP Markets Review
IC Markets logoIC Markets 8.2 $200 0.62 84 3583 IC Markets Review
Markets.com logoMarkets.com 8.2 $100 1.9 96 2179 Markets.com Review
FxPro logoFxPro 8.1 $100 1.51 90 2249 FxPro Review
Tickmill logoTickmill 8.0 $100 0.51 83 725 Tickmill Review
Fineco Bank logoFineco Bank 8.0 $0 N/A 95 126 Fineco Bank Review
BlackBull Markets logoBlackBull Markets 7.9 $0 0.827 77 26000 BlackBull Markets Review
DooPrime logoDooPrime 7.8 $100 N/A 83 10000 DooPrime Review
Vantage logoVantage 7.8 $50 1.30 90 1000 Vantage Review
BDSwiss logoBDSwiss 7.8 $100-$5000 1.6 81 1081 BDSwiss Review
HFM logoHFM 7.8 $0 1.2 86 3500 HFM Review
FlowBank logoFlowBank 7.7 $0 N/A 80 408600 FlowBank Review
HYCM (Henyep Capital Markets) logoHYCM (Henyep Capital Markets) 7.7 $20 0.6 88 1199 HYCM Review
Trading 212 logoTrading 212 7.6 €10 N/A 77 1785 Trading 212 Review
ThinkMarkets logoThinkMarkets 7.6 $0 N/A 88 4000 ThinkMarkets Review
Eightcap logoEightcap 7.6 $100 1.0 85 736 Eightcap Review
Trade Nation logoTrade Nation 7.5 $0 0.6 83 601 Trade Nation Review
Moneta Markets logoMoneta Markets 7.5 $50 1.27 72 1016 Moneta Markets Review
VT Markets logoVT Markets 7.4 $100 1.2 70 1000 VT Markets Review
TMGM logoTMGM 7.8 $100 0.96 83 12000 TMGM Review
ACY Securities logoACY Securities 7.4 $50 1.2 75 1600 ACY Securities Review
easyMarkets logoeasyMarkets 7.3 $50 0.9 80 199 easyMarkets Review
RoboForex (RoboMarkets) logoRoboForex (RoboMarkets) 7.3 $100 1.4 71 12000 Roboforex (RoboMarkets) Review
IronFX logoIronFX 7.2 $50 1.2 84 340 IronFX Review
Exness logoExness 7.2 $1 0.9 68 112 Exness Review
Spreadex logoSpreadex 7.2 $0 N/A 71 2000 Spreadex Review
IFC Markets logoIFC Markets 7.2 $1 1.44 67 630 ATFX Review
Trade360 logoTrade360 7.1 $250 N/A 76 1062 Trade360 Review
Axi logoAxi 7.1 $0 N/A 81 175 Axitrader Review
GKFX logoGKFX 7.1 $0 N/A 65 354 GKFX Review
Vestle logoVestle 7.1 -1 N/A 78 750 Vestle Review
OctaFX logoOctaFX 7 $25 0.9 70 229 OctaFX Review
FXOpen logoFXOpen 7 $100 N/A 80 87 FXOpen Review
TeleTrade logoTeleTrade 7 $100 N/A 71 500 Teletrade Review
FXPrimus logoFXPrimus 6.9 $100 N/A 71 140 FXPrimus Review Visit Site
Forex4you logoForex4you 6.9 $0 N/A 61 150 Forex4you Review
LegacyFX logoLegacyFX 6.9 $500 N/A 67 425 LegacyFX Review
GBE brokers logoGBE brokers 6.8 $500 N/A 71 500 GBE Brokers Review
Alpari logoAlpari 6.8 $20 N/A 68 105 Alpari Review
TopFX logoTopFX 6.7 Depends on payment method N/A 67 655 TopFX Review
Libertex (Forex Club) logoLibertex (Forex Club) 6.7 $10 N/A 73 300 Libertex Review
ATFX logoATFX 6.6 $500 N/A 67 150 ATFX Review
UFX logoUFX 6.6 $100 3 67 619 UFX Review
Xtrade logoXtrade 6.5 $250 N/A 80 142 Xtrade Review
View More

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Methodology

At BrokerNotes.co, our data-driven reviews of online brokers are based on our own extensive testing of each broker's products and services as well as the qualified observations of our expert editorial team. In conjunction with our sister site, ForexBrokers.com, we’ve published well over 100,000 words of research and collected thousands of data points across hundreds of variables. Our in-depth trading guides are created with the same rigorous, data-driven approach.

Our proprietary Trust Score rating system tracks data from over 100 regulatory jurisdictions to help forex traders understand the regulatory status of their forex broker and choose a broker that they can trust.

Our editorial team is led by Steven Hatzakis, an industry veteran with decades of experience and a deep understanding of the forex market. Our team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of brokers, platforms, products, technologies, third-party trading tools, and mobile apps. We also test for the availability of high-quality educational content, actionable market research resources, and the accessibility and capabilities of mobile platforms. All of our ratings and rankings are based on the collection and validation of thousands of data points and our in-depth product testing.

Part of our testing process involves in-depth research into commissions and fees. We dive into each broker’s trading costs, such as VIP rebates, inactivity fees, custody fees, bid/ask spreads (we always strive to determine the average spreads for each broker to better serve our readers), and a variety of other fee-based data points.

When testing mobile apps or mobile products, we test on both Apple and Android devices. For Apple, we test with the iPhone XS running iOS 16, and for Android we use the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra devices running Android OS 13.

All of the content on BrokerNotes.co is researched, fact-checked, and edited by members of our editorial team. Our ratings and rankings are driven by our independent data collection. We may use generative AI tools to assist in some of the rote aspects of our content production processes, but the substance of our content, as well as our opinions and evaluations are based on our extensive research and product testing. Read our Generative AI policy to learn more.

Our rigorous data validation process provides our readers with quality data they can trust. Click here to learn more about how we test.

Forex Risk Disclaimer

There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Learn more about foreign exchange risk.

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BrokerNotes is powered by a dynamic team of writers, researchers, content strategists, data analysts, editors, traders, and investors. We are obsessed with creating the best finance content on the internet, and we are dedicated to helping our readers make great choices for their money.

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