There is a wide variety of trading platforms and most of them allow traders to personalise their features, charts, and the information they have access to. But making it your own platform may be a daunting prospect for beginners. How do you decide what you need? How do you make sure is the right trading platform for you?
Making sure your trading platform has all the features and services you need to be a successful trader is not only important but will make a huge difference in your trading experience.
Basic aspects to consider when choosing a trading platform
- User friendly
- Responsiveness
- Reliability
- Automatic trading tools
- Analysis and research tools
- Security
What is a trading platform?
When deciding to get started in online trading you will be looking for a broker, and your online broker will provide you with an online platform. There are many different types, some of the most common are MetaTrader 4 and 5, but some brokers offer their own systems and programming tools, some making it all quite automatic, others offering full personalization tools.
Choosing the right trading platform for your trading style, the assets you want to invest in, and your level of expertise will ensure that you can maximise your chances of success.
What do you want on a trading platform?
A good example is this online trading platform, as it presents all the tools and features you want to be able to invest in different markets.
We mentioned a platform must be user-friendly. This is vital to speed up the process of investing and making it more fluid and fast, which in some cases may be vital for a successful trade. Navigating the platform must be easy and straightforward, avoiding being stuck looking for what you need. It should all be readily available for you, though, of course, the information and charts you need will depend on the type of investment you are working on and your expertise in the trading world.
We have also mentioned responsiveness as an important aspect a platform must offer. An online trading platform must allow traders to process their orders live, without a second delay, since this may cause a deal to go wrong. In trading, this is commonly known as slippage and is something we want to avoid at all costs. Any decent broker will know to offer a responsive online trading platform.
On a similar note, we want a reliable platform. If you’re looking to make a deal at the right time and your platform freezes, forcing you to lose a great deal, well, you won’t be a happy trader. While delays and technological errors may occur, it should not be the norm with an online trading platform. This is particularly important for active traders.
Another aspect to consider is the automatic tools the platform may offer. This is particularly interesting for more passive traders since some of the offered algorithms may help them on long-term investments.
What is more, analysis and research tools should be easily accessible from your platform since they will be necessary to learn about the market progression, and make valuable predictions, which will eventually lead to wiser trades.
And, finally, we have to mention security as one of the most important aspects to keep in mind when choosing the right platform for you. Brokers should guarantee your information is safe when trading from their platform. Make sure the system you are using to trade is secured and your data protected. While this sounds quite obvious, it should not be taken lightly.