By: Christopher Lewis

When choosing a Forex broker it is quite common to look into all of the features that are available, as it should directly affect your purchase decision. While this makes sense as a consumer, some of the features can be unnecessary, and quite frankly “fluff”.

One of the biggest overrated features that is commonly found is something called AutoChartist. This piece of software will randomly pick out technical patterns on the chart, bringing them to your attention. In theory, it is a great idea. But the reality is that by using this piece of software, you are doing nothing to advance your knowledge as a trader. There is no point in trying to trade the Forex if you are not willing to learn it.

Another big problem with this piece of software is that it will often give technical patterns that are suspicious by nature. For example, a pennant pattern on the five-minute chart is hardly anything to be concerned with. While it will show the pennant pattern on the weekly chart as well, the truth is that it shows far too many low grade patterns as the software seems to be lacking filters to keep out some of the less noteworthy technical setups.

Other Things to Consider

Forums are a complete waste of time when it comes to your Forex broker. Most of the forum chat that you will see on these boards tends to be of the "troll" variety. In other words, it is just a bunch of people flaming each other on the Internet. At best, you will have a bunch of unknowing people trying to convince you that their trade setup is the right one, even though they have no idea what they're doing. At worst, it becomes much like grade school with all of the insults and name-calling.

Analysis can be overrated at times. It really comes down to the particular analyst that the firm hires. Most of the well-known analysts are working for the larger brokerage houses. Quite often these are well respected analyst, but the smaller broker may hire somebody who doesn't necessarily know what they're doing. One of the biggest tells for a suspicious analyst is if they focus mainly on the short time frames. If the analyst tends to show a lot of five, 15, and one hour charts, it is very likely that they are they are simply to get you to trade more, thus parting with your money quicker.

One of the most common wastes of time that you will find with Forex brokers is the Dow Jones newsfeed in your Metatrader4 platform. While the content of the news is certainly acceptable and professional, by the time you get that news on the platform, it is already affected the markets and now becomes useless. It is almost impossible to compete with brokerage firms that are using Bloomberg terminals and T-1 connections for their news services.

While not all of these services are harmful, they are necessarily a reason to open an account with a specific Forex broker. You will find that most Forex brokers are essentially the same, and offer very identical packages. To be honest, the industry just isn't that innovative. By focusing on what truly matters to you specifically, you will find that you aren’t sucked into a Forex broker based upon “empty calories”.