Do your research before you sign up
You may think choosing a binary options broker to trade with is easy – how hard can it be to just search online and choose the first one you come across?
But this is not the best way to do it. Selecting the right online broker for you can mean the difference between your trades making money or losing money.
Financial Assets
All brokers offer a different set of tradable assets. Whether they be commodities (gold, cotton, wheat), currency pairs (EUR/USD, USD/GBP, USD/JPY), indices (FTSE-100, DOW Jones) or stocks (Apple Inc, Google Inc, BP). Making sure that the broker you choose has the assets you want to trade in is an important factor. All brokers will have an ‘Asset Index’ on their site where you can find this information and if you can’t find them there be sure to check our binary options broker reviews as we have listed them so you can quickly and easily compare between them.
Trading Instruments
Many brokers will have the same set of trading instruments but then there are a few that like to showcase a few different ones. You get the standard Call/Put binary options as well as One Touch and Boundary across many but then there’s Pair Options, which are becoming more widely adopted across the industry with Kiko Options being less available.
Finding the right ways for you to make your bets is essential to making sure that you reduce your risk and increase your potential for making profits.
Expiry Times
Most binary options brokers offer the regular 15min, 30min, 1hr, 24hr and weekly option expiry times. Some have chosen to get on board with 60 seconds trading. Depending on your experience it is probably best to stick to around 30 min to 1hr trading and leave the 60 seconds trading to the more advanced trader. Knowledge of the assets and financial markets you are trading in is always beneficial.
Profits and Returns
Binary options trading can be a very profitable form of investment and it can be even more profitable if you find a broker that offers higher returns and payouts. Returns usually range from 60% to around 80%. Choosing a broker with a higher return may not always be the right option. There are many factors that make a good binary options broker, so make sure you choose the right one for your needs.
Financial Tools
Choosing a broker who can provide you with a wide variety of in-depth financial tools to help you analyse the financial markets and economic climate is a wise choice. Following your gut can almost always lead to mistakes and losses. Technical analysis of the markets to find patterns and scenarios is a much better way to minimise your risk. Top brokers provide tools that include: live stocks, commodities, indices and currency data as well as economic calendars which can help you with your trading strategies and scheduling your trades to maximise your returns.
Support
No matter what you do online if its buying products, using services or trading binary options you will want to know that there are competent, knowledgeable staff accessible when you need them. The top brokers know that customer support should be second to none and will offer a variety of ways to contact them including Live Chat, Phone, Skype, Call Back and Email. Having a choice of your contact options means that you can feel comfortable talking to someone however you want. The level of support does differ between brokers so be sure to make this one on your checklist when deciding on your preferred binary options broker.
Secure Deposits and Withdrawals
Security, privacy and ease of use should be a priority when it comes to choosing a broker. You want to be able to deposit quickly so that you can get trading straight away and not worry about whether your details are safe. You can secure your financial details further by signing up to an E-Wallet like Skrill(MoneyBookers) or PayPal and use that for most broker accounts. (Be sure to check that your preferred brokers accept them first).
Being able to withdraw money from your account is always a priority, so be sure to check any specific details that the brokers define like processing and payment time frames as these can differ per payment method and broker.
We have provided in depth reviews about what some of the top brokers provide in terms of the above plus other specific details in our Broker Reviews so you can make an informed decision before choosing a broker to start trading your binary options. And if you have any questions about binary options or brokers then make sure to check out our FAQs to see if you can find what you want.