If I look at the spreads in some currency pairs, I never want to remove liquidity -- I simply want to post an offer and wait to get hit. My understanding is that most retail FX brokers take the other side, and you can never really truly add liquidity and get hit unless, for example, the bid moves up to the asking price you put out there. Is there a broker that'll let me camp out and let an offer hang out there with the chance of actually getting hit? Or, is there a broker that'll let me pass through and offer liquidity on the real ECNs and let me pay commission instead of trading against me?
It sounds like, from MBTrading's description, that their platform lets you do this. Can someone who has a clue please confirm?
take a look at something like Dukascopy, etc you will need the abbility to fund a larger account good luck
MB Trading: Yes, but their commission is ridiculously. Min. account size is 100$ or something. IB: Yes. FIX commision is $100/month for internet connection and 1.500$/month for dedicated line. Min. account size is 10.000$ Dukascopy: Yes, on their internal network (SWFX). Min. account size is 100.000$ (for a FIX enabled account) HotspotFXi: Yes, but you need bucks to get in. Currenex: Liquidity is shown to other participants on the same hub. Min. account sizes starts at around 50.000$ to 250.000$ depending on which hub you want to connect to. Currenex is just a platform, and different brokers may have very different policies. All these ECNs offers FIX connections. Note: All this is AFAIK and you should investigate it yourself. I have only dealt directly with two of the platforms myself.
MBTrading is saying the commission is 50 cents per trade. Round trip becomes one dollar. So to break even, you are looking at 1pip to overcome on a mini-lot at $10,000 per lot. Am I missing something here? A $1 round trip isn't terrible, is it? Sorry, the FX world is still somewhat new to me but I already have a problem with Forex.com, OANDA, and FXCM not being good enough.
You're right, it's not bad. If you want to trade with a $200 account, then that's another matter. But for the size you're talking, $1 round trip isn't bad at all.
Note that commission is calculated from base currency. For example, a 10 lot* EUR/USD roundtrip is: 2 x 100,000 x 1.40 x 0.00005 $ = 14 $ or 1.4 pip if you prefer. To compare with for example Dukascopy, the same trade would cost: 2 x 100.000 x 1.40 x 0.000018 $ = 5.04$ or 0.5 pip. IB is comparable to this as far as I remember. If you plan to do any type of "high frequency" trading I would say MB is a no go. You can try to negotiate better commission if you do high volume, but that goes for the other brokers too. Of course commission is not the only factor here, but it sure does matter a lot. *) At MB Trading 1 lot = 10.000.
It should be noted that if you want to trade contracts in sizes of 10.000 then MB Trading is pretty much you only option.
Newbish question: Suppose I trade some pair that doesn't have a USD in it, like say EUR/CHF. How does my account purchasing power work? Do they internally convert how many dollars I have to the currency of the pair, or am I "borrowing" from their stockpile of currency? How does that change how commissions work? Or, from an MB perspective, would I just be paying the 50 cents in dollars to sell/buy euros in exchange for chf? But if isn't a flat fee in dollars and I pay in the base currency, how does that work?