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Remember that IB do charge a commission both on the trade and then in some circumstance (when the trade isn't in your base currency) again to convert the funds back to your base currency at the end of the trade and since that conversion will be less than $25,000 they will run it through the Ideal system (as opposed to Ideal Pro) where the spread is bigger.
Also sometimes IB will break your order up if you don't get filled at one price. If it happens that part of the order goes under the $25,000 then again you get filled through Ideal, not Ideal Pro.
You could possibly use the NT feature of simulated stops to prevent the market maker from seeing your stops, but of course that is risky as the stops won't sit on the exchange.
If you can afford the contract size, then just use currency futures, that way you also get volume information. There are some mini contracts also but the liquidity last time I looked wasn't great and now I see some micro contracts, never tried them so not sure on the liquidity.
I don't have a lot of time here as I'm forcing myself to bed. I am faced with trading in the cash market as well because I can't afford two cars on the Merc, not with 3K. I have been researching the forex market for a long time now. I formerly worked for ICAP, owner of EBS, the largest interbank ECN.
Without elaborating too much, most of the good liquidity providers require a very large deposit to open an account. IB is one of the best but you need 10k to open an account. Others would be London Capital Group, Marex, and a few others.
Recently a number of brokers have been introducing institutional level pricing/liquidity to small accounts via white label currenex platforms. On May 7 FXDD introduced a white label Currenex platform, STP, where you are actually running the currenex pricing engine on your pc, and trading direct with banks. So they claim, but I will dig a bit deeper and find out the truth. They were previously offering this for 25K accounts. As of May, anybody can use it with 1k to open.
PFG offers the Currenex platform and has 6 or 7 banks hooked up to it. They require 50K to open however. If you go with Ninja FX or MT4 then you are just getting manipulated like any othe bucketshop. They are a decent sized prime broker however so that means the banks in their ECN might send more favourable prices then they might otherwise send to a Currenex hub with a different clientele. I'm going find out this week if they will offer me the Currenex hub but I doubt it very much.
Dorman FX is offereing a Currenex platform for 2500$. I'm not sure if it is tied in with their fxsolutions partnership/offering, in which case it will not be STP with the banks and ECN participants, but more of the same scams bucketshops are notorious for running. It's like playing the slot machine at vegas with the little monkey behind the wheels, you are never going to win if you can't get a fair shake.
I have little choice but to experiment with one of these solutions until such time as I can run two cars on the Merc. I'm pretty sure it will be FXDD Power Trader or Dorman's Currenex. I will let you know what I find out and where I decide to trade.
Do not take this choice lightly. Do not even think about trading with MB or some other online fx broker.
I agree with you, but I don't think MB Trading is in this category (not like the zillions of other online FXBrokers with micro-micro-lots, and 1/10000 leverage ).
But I maybe wrong, can you give us some details, and why MB is in the same category ?
Hi Sam, I tried MB and closed my account within two weeks. You can't trade in even a moderately fast market. Freezes, delays, no fills, etc. The CME has been around a long time and has made incredible investments in trading and matching technology, not to mention one hundred years of regulatory advancement that has created an open and transparent market environment to all.
The only ECN pricing engines, that professionals use, such as Currenex, FXAll, EBS, come closer, but you have to read the fine print regarding what their legal obligations are to your broker and what your broker's legal obligations are to you. This is unregulated territory. If you are trading at a Currenex hub, on a Currenex platform, the liquidty providers may well have an agreement with the introducing broker that allows them a quick second look option where they can remove their bid/offers, after you've hit them.
When you deal with a broker read the fine print. Heck the broker does not even have to legally take your order. It's not a CFTC regulated auction market. And as I noted Currenex is probably the only ECN that retailers may be able to afford today, although I'm not hundred percent on this, but still you have the problems with the legalities of an unregulated and wholly non-transparent trading environment. If you put together the legal trading rules with a company with inferior technology, such as the vast number of bucketshops offering MT4 or Ninja FX accounts, you are just setting yourself up for guaranteed problems. And in this business, success is about eliminating errors.
So, I'm actually leaning towards giving the M6E micro lots a shot. I think the liquidity should be fine in normal markets as any HFT company can arb the Micros with the bigs and keep the prices close. I'm just worried about a fast moving spike. So there is an unknown there that I'm going to discover. But I'd rather take this risk than go the bucketshop broker route. I'm all for transparency and fairness.
HI All,
the only pros of trading spot forex vs. Futures is that u can have many more pairs to trade (but u need this?), and that u can trading less lots with more leverage.
The choise between futures and Spot regards the trading style and the equity one is planning to put in the account.
If u open 1 lot or more per position there's no doubts that the choise is Futures, less commission cost, more reliable Brokers and more regulated.
Forex spot and the most of forex brokers are a highly well publicized labyrinth to trap all the small retail "traders" and take money from folk mass, that is led to believe they can do a lot of money with $ 1000 or less.
Anyway here is a good article that explain the difference from ECN, STP and DD-Market Maker.
Thanks for the link, and sorry if my question is not very smart (I only use Forex for hedging), but I always though "why using Futures and not spot Forex".
Let's take an example, for the EURUSD pair:
- my broker is IB, so I pay, for $2.5 per trade, and the trade must be > $25.000$
- 1 6E contract = 5 $25.000 spot trades, right ?
- it's easier/better/smarter to scale in/scale out (and manage) 5 unit of something than 1, right ?
- the spot is more liquid...
IB has a great reputation and is probably the best a retail trader can do and in fact I wouldn't even group them in with all the rest of the retail brokers because they are definitely in their own league. They offer huge liquidity but I sitll wouldn't attempt to scalp in a fast market anywhere but the exchange or on a professional ECN where participants and their credit is pre-screened and the rules of trade are spelled out and you can understand the conditions.
Here we are talking about a prime Currenex hub, FXAll, or EBS. Most Currenex hubs open the door to individual accounts starting at 50K. EBS has minimum 10MM orders so you can imagine what it costs to trade on that ECN, it is mostly banks and prime brokers trading with each other there. IB is excellent for trading big size, low commish, and good execution. For intraday scalping where pips matter in all conditions, you need a fast connection to the futures exchange... IMO..
Interestingly as I pointed out two companies may now be offering retail traders direct access to the Currenex platform and STP orders to the liquidity providers. Be very careful about the terms used in the online fx broker space. Lying is rampid and most terms are not even defined by regulators. Just because a broker claims to be STP and on a Currenex hub does not mean you are trading direct with the banks and the hub is meaningless if you are not using the Currenex pricing engine and platform. Also, even if you have the platform and STP to the banks, the banks may not send their best pricing or liquidity to that ECN if they don't like the customers trading there, they dislike scalpers very much.
Hence, if you want to trade small and you want a fair shake, follow my journal on trading the CME's new microlots. They came out little over a year ago and they are still getting off the ground. If people knew the truth about this trillion dollar retail online fx broker industry it would be absolutely wonderful liquidity. Hopefully American regulation will end that huge scam of an industry and move more and more out into the light of day on the regulated exchanges....
U are not wrong, that's is true, infact I told that depends on trading style and account equity, if u trade 1 unit or more per position why trade spot? U will spend on IB 0.2 x $12.5 = 2.5 x X 2 = $5.0 rt for every unit, on futures u have about $4.5 rt regardless how many unit u trade.
BTW if u trade such small lots on spot I suggest you to use another broker with less commission for mini lots. Take a look on currenex broker, or may dukaskopy.