Huh?? Why would you pay 10 times the spread in a spot transaction? There are some other advantages: the CME fx contracts only trade 23 hours a day, whereas spot trades 24 - this incurs gap risk for o/n futures positions. The market is usually quiet during this period, but there have been significant moves in the past. Also there are only 6 liquid fx futures, if you want to trade i.e. eur/jpy you are out of luck. But yes i agree, the CME is not a bad choice if you only want to trade the majors pairs.
Pippi436: shouldn't have written it 'x 10' - i was thinking of mini lots instead of lots yes the 1 hour closure means being out of the market or risk holding 'overnight' without being able to close a position there's a couple of other differences one is that fx brokers usually have overloss prevention and while Globex is electronic and thereby computer programs, for some reason futures brokers don't provide the same overloss prevention another is one that terrifies me slightly that the data feed at Globex or the broker servers etc goes down and one either has to go to the pit where the margin is $2,500 per day trade contract - out of luck if the feed goes down after hours - or one can cover oneself with an additional trading account with an fx broker that would also apply if one's isp feed, computer goes down fxcm has had 2 outages i know of, one was the North East power failure in 2004 ? that also disabled phones, but as fxcm has branches in other countries one could access one's account that way. the other problem they had was clients not being able to login to the trading station, a 'switching on the server' problem i think that they said they solved. fxcm also said they'd make good on any trade problems that resulted from login failure and it's something they at least can do, not sure about other fx brokers, or if Globex or futures brokers compensate clients if and when a similar problem occurs
I think Amp has this rate, but Mirus has the higher rate posted above, non negoitable. Seems like Amp is cheaper while Mirus has better service. Infinity seems to be cheaper yet. Difficult to choose...
What's the worst thing that could possibly happen? My stop would get it. Well that happens every day so it's no big deal.
Would you suggest fx futures traders to always flatten before 5pm est to avoid the gap risk? What are the 6 liquid fx futures? Euro, Pound, Aussie, Loonie, Yen, and Franc? Seems like the 6E is the most liquid and technically traded intraday?
Whether you flatten or not depends on your strategy. If you have a strategy to profit from an overnight hold then by all means hold it overnight. As for the liquid futures, 6E is the most liquid. I would suggest sticking to 6E before attempting the others, you might not even need them.
I meant just flattening just before the 5pm est currency futures close to avoid gap risk/re-entering stops, after that overnight during europe hours seems to have the biggest moves and volatility, seems like a nice time to trade 6E and 6B. Why do you recommend 6E first? I do like 6E as well, being the most liquid. Though its a big contract for a beginner/small account, I am trading 6B for now. What advantages would you say 6E has over 6B?