Forex Trading Without a Broker

Can You Trade Without a Broker?

For beginner investors aiming to make money from currency moves without brokers, it's often made by buying currency at a bank or exchange office and then selling it at a higher price. This investor's action is currency speculation, and there is nothing to do with investing in Forex assets. 

However, if your purpose is to build knowledge and be an advanced investor, minimise risk, and make rapid profits, the answer is that you can not do it without a Forex broker. 

What Does a Forex Broker Do?

Forex brokers are legal entities, and their activities are regulated and licensed. Brokers act as an intermediary between sellers and buyers or between traders and the Forex market. 

Private investors do not have the entitlement to trade currencies by themselves. Trading activity has to be registered and conducted through a Forex broker. Traders participating in the foreign exchange market are legal persons, retail traders, and institutional investors, and in many cases, a Forex broker can act as a counterparty in a trade.

Trading Forex Without a Broker? Is it Possible?

How can a trader do forex trading without a broker? Is it possible for someone to conduct trading without a Forex Broker? The answer below will analyse the broker's major role in the trader's scheme and what other options traders may have.   Ways of Trading Forex Without a Broker : There are two ways for a private trader to start trading. The first one is the NDD (Non-Dealing Desk) which means to trade with a straight-through process. One type of order processing is Instant Execution which guarantees the trader's order will be executed at the stipulated price. Nevertheless, there is a risk of the order not being executed at all. The second type of order is the Market Execution which guarantees the trader's order will be executed but not with the best price. 

The second way is to invest in currencies without opening a brokerage is to buy currency at a bank or exchange office and sell it when the rate has grown. Another option is Trust management which means the trader fully trust a manager to control their money. The manager invests in the currency market, buying or selling currencies through a bank's dedicated mobile applications (Android or iOS).

Disadvantages when trading as a private investor : 

1. Limited investment tools

Investment banks offer few currency pairs, their own investment products and structured notes or ETFs. There is no variety of products, so forex traders do not have the ability to improve and sharpen their trading strategies. A Forex Broker provides trading platforms such as MetaTrader4 and MetaTrader5 with plenty of tools and great functionality.

2. Traders have no access to margin trading

A Forex Broker's privilege is leverage and margin mechanisms that traders cannot find those instruments anywhere else. 

3. Traders can not trade with CFDs

A Forex Broker provides a special instrument which is CFD (contract for difference). It is derived from such primary assets as stocks and commodities. For a private trader, this instrument is unavailable too. 

4. More than 24 hours for trading execution

When it's time for traders to buy something, they have to read through and sign a batch of papers. After this step, the trader has to wait to register. The time is much longer to trade execution, and it sometimes can take up to 24 hours or more. Advantages when trading with a Forex Broker:

1. Traders have immediate access to financial markets. Trading can be executed within 1 second after buying or selling assets. Forex brokers can provide more than 100 instruments such as currency pairs and cross rates, CFDs on shares and stock indexes, commodities, and cryptos which means you can have up to ten trades executed within a second. 
   
   
2. Risk diversification. Forex Brokers provide a variety of types of trading strategies: manual or adviser-based ones, scalping, intraday, swing trading, and long-term strategies, correlation-based strategies, hedging, etc. 
   
   
3. Passive investment services. You can use your broker's passive income services like copy trading. First, you have to learn the basics of risk management, choose a trader, and then their trades will automatically be copied onto your account. 
   
   
4. Technical support with zero costs. Traders can find online quotes such as asset rates, updated every second on charts from the world's leading providers, trading platforms that allows analysing quotes, structuring charts, and using technical analysis indicators. They allow traders to use a demo account with virtual money to practise their strategies and advisers and familiarise themselves with the platform's functions. Also, the broker allows them to borrow an asset from them, sell it at a higher price, then buy it at a lower price, and pay back the credit. 
   
   
5. Forex brokers support traders financially with leverage. Credits with no cost will increase traders volumes by 10 or 100,000 times. When they use the leverage of 1:10, they can open trades for up to $1,000 (USD), having only $100 (USD) in their account. 
   
   
6. Traders get information support. This support includes training materials, technical and fundamental analysis basics, daily analyses and reviews from leading traders, seminars and webinars. Also, there are extra tools such as an economic calendar, lot/correlation/volatility calculators and more. 
   
   

Do I Need a Forex Broker?

Lacking the financial and technical opportunities to enter the market is what private investors are confronting. It is easier to earn through a Forex broker than making money from currency exchange through a bank or at an exchange point. 

Planning to invest and trade without a broker and its technical support at a stock exchange is impossible. Only a Forex broker offers global access to markets and such investment instruments as currency, stocks, oil, or cryptos within a few seconds. 

It is better to choose tried and true ECN brokers as they provide optimal trading conditions and high speed of orders execution. They will work as reliable partners aiming at successful long-term cooperation. 

Briefly, Forex broker is important as it opens access to the instruments of currency, stock, commodity, and crypto market, provides technology, offers social trading, affiliate programs, trading platforms, fundamental analytics, training materials, and basic knowledge. 

What is MetaTrader (MT4 platform)? Can traders use MetaTrader 4 without a broker?

You can not use MetaTrader platforms for trading without a broker. MT4/MT5 are trading platforms that offer tools and features for analysing quotes and making trades. Nevertheless, this act can be done with a broker’s open trading account and connect to the platforms via the menu. If the broker does not enable the trader to connect a trading account to the MT4 platform, there is a choice of using the broker's version of MT4 with unique settings from the broker's site. 

MT4 platform marks a good forex broker One of the key components of a good forex broker is an advanced online trading platform. MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 are technologically advanced yet highly functional and easy to use. These platforms have been specifically designed for forex and CFD trading with various features that accommodate traders’ needs. One of those is the growing demand for copy trading. The platform allows you to copy trade automatically and enable traders to employ trading strategies such as risk management through portfolio diversification and stop-loss techniques. With the Forex broker MetaTrader 4 & MetaTrader 5 online WebTrader, trading becomes highly flexible. WebTrader allows you to trade through the web browser on the device of your choice. It is compatible with all operating systems, including Windows and Mac OS. Available for use on the most popular web browsers, including Google Chrome, continue to conduct market analysis and technical analysis using chart tools and multiple time frames. It means that traders can access their trading account when they travel and do so without altering their trading strategy.

MT4 WebTrader platform features:

• Trade Forex, Share CFDs, Indices & Commodities
• Spreads from 0.0 pips & leverage up to 30:1
• RAW Pricing, real-time quotes and no requotes
• Ease of trading (no download required & starts in seconds)
• A complete suite of trading tools and operations
• Trade from anywhere 
• One-click trading
• Multiple order types and execution modes
• Multilingual online support 24/7 & Personal Account manager
• Depth of Market feature