What's better with those high prices services? My problem is, that I get too many news, not too little. And I use Briefing.com which is OK for me.
am not exactly retail...any more...is the answer basically i am at a juncture where i can continue to do bulk trading via ACM (they offer an Allocate type-functionality) but there are some size 'limits' on a one-click basis, and/or start trading bigger size (currently trading in the 20-25mio range one-click) via an institution who can give me Currenex / FXall or similar Interbank type access...plus leverage... am also working on setting up a proper 'fund' type structure, since it may make a number of things easier, but thats too long for email... anyway, thats why i am interested in hearing more about Currenex / FXAll / EBS access right now...
Sorry, misunderstood you did not mention Tradestation 2000i just Tradestation. So I assumed the newest version! I had an account there for futures and used their software. I had some models designed in EL. By the way, if you want to see some kickass software. The best for the money, try out Ensign. You may be able to blow your EBS feed through it somehow. It is better than Tradestation--IMO. I did not realise that you were at an institution. I assumed you were trading for a fund or a private organization or you were just a large private trader. You need a Prime Brokerage to deal with EBS. Your Prime vouches for your trades. You guys probably have all kinds of credit lines with various different institutions that trade on EBS. You guys are correct. One needs to have large credit arrangements to deal with EBS. If you are not Citibank or some similar institution. You need a Prime Broker. Most Prime brokers have platforms that feed off EBS etc as well. For instance, UBS does this on their prime forex dealing platform (same with Barclays).
If you're trading in sizes of $25m cash*, then EBS is too small for you. EBS shows first bid/offer in size of $5m or less, then you have a second bid/offer in size of less than $10m generally, and not always (I am in Asia and don't do trades during USA office hours so you may enjoy better liquidity than me). As far as we're concerned, when we want a quote in $10m or more, we go OTC otherwise spread tends to be too wide and the whole world sees it in EBS or Reuters Dealing. Or we use FX brokers like Garban or Cantor. These are trades done over the phone, not clicking. It's quieter and you get better pricing. * are you trading leveraged or not ? EBS allows you to trade cash only, as in there is physical delivery of the whole size to the counterparty in T+2. For instance, if I buy $20m and sell JPY via EBS, I will physically deliver the equivalent of $20m in JPY to my counterpart. If you're trading CASH in sizes of $20m or $25m all day long then you must be really a big player.
Yes we have credit lines with banks, they are generally very big because the risk (delivery in the cash market is T+2) is very small, and banks or institutional don't break trades lol. Thank you for the clarification, so what you're saying is that EBS offers FX trading to retail too ? I do not know Ensign at all, although I have heard of them. Thanks for the tip, I will ask them to drop by for a demo, if it's better than TS2000i... why not changing indeed.
One of the challenges right now is that liquidity is all over the place. You have all these different pipelines of liquidity and everything is changing by the day. The banks (like citibank) do outrageous size. Many of the large macro funds deal with them. You can get a market on a billion. don't know how tight the market is on that size though.
Well yes if you are a large trader or fund. There are several Prime brokerages hooked into EBS. Just like they are hooked through Reuters direct dealer. Things are changing quickly but some of the private Prime offerings like the UBS platform and the Barclays forex platform ---have sick liquidity and they feed off all of the above. Ensign is cheap as chips. You would have to call them to see if you could do a DDE or something. But I have fallen in love with them. I am using them with an IB account. You can get live EBS prices on CQG as well.
am using fairly high leverage, 1% (100 times) most of the time. trading essentially on eco announcements, in & out in 1-15 minutes usually (plus some trailing stop type orders on much smaller size). with refco fx pro / currenex, on demo it seems i cld tap into much higher liquidity on ESP basis, than via my current 'retail' broker ACM. wldn't need to punch in 50mio size orders tho', just hit the buy or sell button quickly a couple of times with 10mio size orders and if the liquidity is there, i'll get filled for the total... however i'll only know for certain whether there is sufficient liquidity (on their platform) for me to do this around eco news annoucement time when i open the live acct... however any views much appreciated! besides i haven't decided to go with refco yet, rbos is also offering 3% leverage as standard, trading directly via my BB terminal...am asking both to consider giving me 1-2% lev. ...but i'm open to any other ideas / suggestions...
Well I will be interested to see what you come up with. This stuff is changing so fast----I cannot keep up. I have been trading with IB's forex platform and I like it. The liquidity is deceptive. You take it out and it comes back. However, I have been position trading only with IB. All the scalping I do is on the CME in the futures. You can move size there and it is building. What type of size can you hit with Royal bank of Scotland in the bloomberg? For example, what are they showing in the Eur/Usd? I know that Gain Pro will give a market on up to 100 million. I believe you have to call it in. I am not aware of ACM. What kind of size are they showing? Can you scalp there? You say you are holding for 15 minutes. Are they giving you a hard time at all??
acm is not giving me a hard time at all, what i do doesn't (seem to) pose them a problem, not sure against who they clear these days (ubs etc) but basically they collect their 2-3 pips spread and everybody's happy. their max on a single standard acct one-click is 10mio on gbp, i think 20 on eur. but if you are bulk trading you can punch in 20mio one-click on any pair pretty much...and more actually as i have v.recently found out, except in this case i can get myself into partial fills at times, which pose me a few problems (but wldn't be a problem to me on the refco/currenex platform for reasons too long for email) gain says 100mio but you have to call a dealer, they told me 5mio (on gbp) only on a 1-click basis. not sure about size with rbos, had initial meeting with them this monday, problem is i don't have a 'fund' type structure yet, therefore they don't seem to be too comfortable...we'll see...