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Deucalion, did you try to compare with Oanda as this was the company i had chosen when i started trading in 2008. I found out their datafeed well-nourished at that time. Presently, i do not use it anymore even though my account is still active as i have found the Futures markets's offering more attractive.
PFG already has my futures account, they have very good account integration, the BD8 platform is a brilliant order entry platform with server side orders. To compare a data feed from DTN iQ and fill quality from PFG to an unregulated operator like Oand is like comparing George W Bush to Noam Chomsky. I don't understand the question.
PS - Please do not respond by saying Oanda is better than DTN iQ for feed or PFG for fills. Unless you can prove it. Think about that for a second if its even worth debating. Also, the DTN forex feed is supplied by TenFore and Barclays, both of which get raw data from multiple inter bank sources. DTN lists all these providers in detail on their page. Then the feed runs through their well established ticker plants.
Re Edit - I was wrong, Oanada does have both NFA and CFTC membership. Just looked it up. However my reason to stick with DTN and PFG remains. Oanda is market maker and dealer.
If one scalps then cheaper commissions help. If one swings trades or has higher expectancy (RR) then commissions are less of a concern. What is of prime importance to a professional is more accurate ticks, tails, prices and a larger liquidty pool to trade in. Personally, I place much more importance on the correct ticks and prices. And so far each day, I am not regretting the move to FX (of course FX providers have notoriously varied quality of feed and trade platform so one has to be careful to not end up with a bucket shop).
For example today - this is feed from DTN for 6E and spot. Notice the differences in tails & bodies, small difference to some, very big difference to me. The tick charts suggest a larger amount of errors, its an interesting thing to notice.
I started with Forex on ThinkOrSwim. Then found I preferred futures on Ninjatrader and zenfire two years ago because TOS data was slow and filtered, practically impossible to scalp. Back then papertrading simu on futures was always lagging by 10 seconds. I asked online support if would be fixed and the rep said it couldn't be fixed. They just didn't care. Since then TDAmeritrade especially this year, has improved TOS and I've noticed a cleaner faster feel to the forex and futures on the platform. The papertrading simu is also "fixed" as the data is on time with what I get with NT and zenfire now. You can choose fees by spread or by commission.
I'd also tried Metatrader4 and setting orders was a nightmare (you had to type in prices to the micropip) unless trading 15min or longer timeframe.
With forex one can also trade foreign pairs(like AUD/JPY, NZD/HKD etc), which I don't see in futures. TOS now has some options on futures tradeable.
I hadn't tried PFGBest on Forex. I tried it on a trial with futures, so maybe will try it later.
PFG's feed quality is not that good, but their fills are very good. DTN's feed quality is superior to just about everything I have tested so far (eSignal, ZenFire, Rithmic, Openecry, Mirus, Crossland, Infinity). Not tested ToS or CQG or Future Path yet. But everything has to be tested - small, unusual and unexpected differences crop up ALL the time......
From this morning, look at this - FXCM has 2 levels of feed - one is a free feed and one is professional level paid feed that inputs into DTN iQ (along with TenFore & Barclay). Notice how much more accurate the DTN routed FXCM is versus the standard FXCM feed. these sort of differences exist all over the place. More for spot, than for futures...accuracy is quantifiable with data, feel is more subjective from trader to trader.
Not typical, this is too small to trade, it was only for illustrative reasons. A reasonable stop would be the same principle for every instrument. And that is where your trade idea would be invalid, or, in other words - what would price need to do before you would abandon a trade in order to protect capital.
In my case my stop is different on every trade, because sometimes the trade is well defined scalp and sometimes I wait for hours to build a position adding to a trade slowly. Quantitatively, a stop must not be more than 2% of my account - forex or futures.
If you have time, maybe you could post a scalp trade that turned out well (EUR/USD).I've tried that in Market Replay but
typically NT will have me down 3 ticks right from the start. I assume that the software assumes the market order can't
be placed immediately in real life.
(Currently looking at a 250 tick chart instead of a 150.)
If you insist Live trades from Friday, 60odd ticks....this is the execution chart...the structure and context charts are bigger 60M / 240M and daily. Look what I missed on the long side later on if I was paying more attention to the bigger 240M chart, tells you how little I know
Be very careful with tick charts on spot, data is very bad for most providers. This is a paid DTN iQ forex feed.