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Quantity is the amount of currency that you want to buy/sell.
E.g.: 125000 of EURUSD (cash) would correspond to the notional value of 1 single 6E (futures) contract.
IB has minimum sizes for IdealPro orders, e.g. 20K for EURUSD.
Orders below that are possible but inefficient in terms of spreads, commissions, and fills.
P.S.: If you feel uneasy about the inputs, switch your order mode to SIM first and try it then
Sounds as if there's something wrong with the IB tick/currency value settings - either for that single
symbol or for the entire class. (As I recall it there were some general Forex settings that had to be made
during the somewhat "lengthy" IB Trade Service setup in SC ...)
Make sure that your settings look like this for e.g. the EURUSD:
Seems the problem is somewhat more basic (plus that it also interferes with GBP as your account
currency which is absolutely meaningless for the EURJPY)
After that your best bet would be to take such trades in your TWS paper account first.
On the portfolio tab you can reproduce the changes that are described by the examples above.
So you can get a feeling for the quantities and the volatility/results without risk before using live bullets.
And ... after all you get an impression what a reconversion into your account currency would cost if
you trigger it. (If you do such trades on a regular basis you're normally better off keeping certain amounts
of every currency that/in which you are trading.)
Its too hard. Honestly. TWS is just too much effort to learn and IB does not cater for spread bet accounts.
Im going to stick with a forex broker. I plan on holding positions so I am going to simply monitor price action using Sierra and execute trades off the broker platform.
But keep in mind that a "good" broker (if anything like this exists ) will not reconvert the result of your
FX trades automatically into the account currency. Brokers with automatical/mandatory reconversion just act
like typical bucket shops which increase their income at your expense.
Good forex brokers do exist.
FXCM and Oanda are examples of good brokers. They both comply with FCA regulations here in the UK: https://register.fca.org.uk/s/
They have stringent daily measures in order to remain compliant with the FCA. I was told (I have not verified) that they have to submit full financial details daily on their cash position, and the position of customers. If they miss one they get a warning, if they miss a second one they are fined. They have to remain cash positive in excess of the sum of all customers positions. Something to that effect.
They are also convenient to trade:
1. The platform makes it easy for me. If I want to trade at £10 per pip on EURJPY then it can can be as low as 0.2 spread! That means my trade would have cost me £2! Thats cheaper than futures.
2. I dont care where my order is routed to. As long as my data is accurate and trade execution is reliable.
3. My funds here in the UK are protected.
4. No platform fees. No data fees. Easy to scale in and out of trades.
Forex vs futures. Both have advantages and disadvantages.