Actually there is better, you will pay $5.50 if you contact ICMarket support and tell them you were introduced by the HFT group. You will have to give them the HFT Group IB number which is 6322 There are also other brokers to choose from and if you join following the below link you will get a discount/rebate with all of them. https://www.hftgroupfx.com/ I have accounts with 3 brokers GlobalPrime , ICMarkets and Pepperstone (for fund diversification reasons) but if I only had 1 account I would use Global prime because they are a true A book broker.
Your best bet is to take a demo of the software and work with it. Basically I have 3 different versions of the program open at the same time, each with 3 different feeds (I pay one price for the software, not 3). It works great. Each running version has its own set of charts all powered by a different feed (IB, FXCM and BitMex). I know I said in an earlier post that I ran LMAX but I got confused and it's actually FXCM. LMAX is also an option though. LMAX is just a backup broker for me and I haven't had to use them. If people want simple charts then I'd got for Ensign. But if they want to get hardcore then Sierra is hard to beat on everything, features, data feeds, price and so on. The Sierra boys have put a massive amount of work into their program, it's very impressive. Here's the details about how IB works with Sierra - https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?page=doc/InteractiveBrokers.php#SetupInstructions
I haven't tried IBKR yet. As for fxview, i recently came across them and haven't faced any issue as such. As for good things-spread, commission and most importantly, has strong regulation. If there's any change, will keep you posted on it.
yes fxview commissions are really low only $1/ lot per side plus I have been demoing for few days now their spreads are also tight, thinking to go live soon.
So that is $20 USD per million which is exactly like IBKR. I wonder if they have any other advantage over ibkr like book orders showing more orders??
I doubt it. Cable is a great measuring stick, ie the spread and liquidity. For the last few months, IB's average Cable spread is around 0.5 tick (often just 0.2), few if any retails brokers will offer that (without tricks of course). IB's commissions aren't the best, they can be beaten, but at what cost to liquidity, security, software reliability (TWS itself is a bit clunky) and so on.
Thanks for the input. 1- So far I haven't seen any post that beats IBs commissions. Not a single person replied with less than $20 round trip so far. 2- Can you please tell me how you read the Cable spread average per week? Can you post a pic or explain. I take the spread as the difference between BUY ASK and SELL ASK and take that as a function of what is available and so don't think it is important at all. So can you please explain why that is important and why it could be different from broker to broker? Does one broker massage the numbers and not show exact BUY ASK for example and pockets the difference?
The spread is important because it's part of the cost of doing business (along with comms). If the market is 1.3101 at 1.3102 that is double as expensive to trade as if the market is 1.3101.3 at 1.3101.8. As for being important, it's critical really because why buy/sell something with a cost of say $10 when another shop next door has the same product on offer at $5. Because FX is over the counter, ie no Exchange like say T-Bonds or Corn, there is no one price for the world so each and every market-marker can quote whatever they like. But there is consensus otherwise market makers would be giving a lot of free money to arbitragers. There of course is a bit of arbitrage but that's not available for the average punter, including you and me. As for knowing what the average spread is, I trade Cable all the time and on TWS software it can show the spread differential. 0.5 of a tick is an estimation but a good one. Right now it's 0.2 of a tick (1 tick = 1.3101 to 1.3102). As for brokers offering different prices/massaging, it can happen but it doesn't happen with IB because they're just a brokerage. Smaller, scammier brokers, especially those regulated on small islands around the world will often play all sorts of tricks on their customers including taking the opposite of their trades (this assumes most clients will lose). IB doesn't need to play tricks, it makes more via being honest. Most people make more via being honest...
Thanks for the details. I agree about your assessment of IBKR not being a cheat. Unless they are caught otherwise but they are quality so let's keep assuming they are not doing any monkey business. 1- I understand the concept of over the counter VS central exchange. However, don't banks just push the same BUY or SELL ask price to all their partners the same way effectively announcing their price to be the same or do they pick and chose and send different pricing for their same lot to different brokers? (I am totally excluding all small island brokers in this question; talking only about big players as I would never go with small player unless I see a real advantage). Given everything is done electronically, shouldn't spreads really be the same? Do you see a difference in average of let's IBKR and another broker spread? Are there any studies published on this? I do know that IBKR is not doing monkey business but based on your theory another broker - which also doesn't monkey around with spreads - but has access to less banks or maybe receives different prices from banks than sent to IBKR should show wider spreads (hence a bad thing for traders). Is this shown by someone online or proper calculations done? I want to know if spread width is a real problem with big brokers and it is a real difference or not. 2- "But there is consensus otherwise market makers would be giving a lot of free money to arbitragers." I am thinking AI is heavily involved and it's a dynamic consensus where bank computers continuously change prices according to market conditions hence really creating the effect of a central exchange. This is going back to my #1 that I think it's possible that spreads are either very very small (neglectable) or almost non-existent between big brokers and top heavily traded pairs (5 top pairs). 3- "There of course is a bit of arbitrage but that's not available for the average punter, including you and me." <<< What sort of market would this exist in? Isn't this market providing the best price for both buyer and seller? Do you mean a private business deal where a $500 million is exchanged at a set price on a paper contract? (even those are done dynamically and have a condition of market price clause I think). Or is there a dark pool for Forex like there is for other equities? 4- "I trade Cable all the time" <<< Can you tell us the the top 3 important things about trading Cable and what are those indicators that make the most difference? Thanks again!
1. Market makers will of course quote their own prices and keep 3 eyes on what their competitors are quoting. This means everyone pretty much quotes the same MID PRICE but you will get slightly different bid-offers. For example, right now IB is bidding at 1.3137.3 and LMAX (bid) 1.3136.9. The mid price is right around 1.3137.6. Try to keep it simple, if IB are quoting something, that is the current market and as a trader it doesn't matter too much how/why they're quoting that price, the important thing is there's a tight price being offered - the trader's job is to try and guess if that number is likely to rise or fall. 2. I'm not an expert on what goes on behind the scenes but there's hundreds of millions of USD in profit to be made for the market makers over a year (maybe even billions). So yes, they'll employ all sorts of powerful computers, algos, machine learning, possibly AI, to make the best prices possible. And with heavy competition the bid-offers can only get tighter which is bad for them but great for us traders (cheaper trading). Again, it's not so important to understand how/why they quote, the important thing is the price is tight and we can trade on it. 3. Arbs are just arbing on speed I think between the different liquidity providers. No different to all the different US stock exchanges, buy on one exchange, sell on another for a tiny profit (perhaps 1/10th of a cent) but doing the trade many times a day. The reason this sort of trading is not open for the average trader is it takes a considerable investment. As for dark pools, again I'm not sure if there are or aren't any in FX. All I'm sure about is that IB quotes a great price. 4. There's nothing special about Cable apart from it's where the action is. 10+ years ago EUR-USD was better because it was moving 100-200+ ticks a day with 4-5 times the liquidity of Cable. But the Euro over the last 5 years has been pretty much dead for intraday trading. Perhap in a few years the Euro will get great again and many Cable traders will move. Cable and the Euro as well as Soyabeans are just numbers that go up and down. Not a lot of difference to me and many other traders. Try to pick one that moves and offers good action. If people want to short term trade Cable I'd say - 1. The 1m chart is all you need. Yes, it's fast but nothing that cannot be handled. 2. Taking profits is hard, most mess it up over a series of trades, even the great traders. Learn to accept this, it's normal. 3. CONCENTRATION is critical. Lose that and the results won't be good, not so much with losses but failing to spot good trades. Even the 1m can seem boring much of the time which can lead to losing concentration. Work hard to keep concentrating...