What broker do you use and what commission rate do you have for the currencies? I've been looking around...
Well here we are again with this question. Increasenow just posted that question for us. My dear colleague I have to tell you that, don't be such a fool to open a new acc with a bucket shop before you understand this market completely. CME's platform is the most reliable one, they are the real market, they are a future exchange, all kinds of players are trading there, using its platform. They have a lot of rules and are highly regulated and supervised closely by both the government and even the own exchange, so the entire market is looking at it. Players are inserting their bids/asks in an opened and very disclosed auction style, thats the main differential among CME and bucket shops. Actually you can see pleople trading at their prices and following them and see their moves, and of course they'll see yours as you can see them. Well, basically thats it "increasenow", there're more differencies, but I think you've got main idea. Another thing is, people actually look for bucket shops just because they don't have money enough to trade at CME. CME offers larger contracts (some times even the mini ones are still big for some investors). Bucket Shops offer lesser margin trades, meanning more leaverage ones but. At the same this can be good and not so good. My final words are, specifically for you, you can make business with them, however, never trust in bucket shops.
this is an totally true and great post...I agree...totally true...I trade the CME globex currencies only...all your points are right on!
I'm with you there on the AUD, CAD...also like the SF as it is around the same daytrade margin as those...
I agree with the main premise of this thread that currency futures do have some advantages, particularly for short term trading. However you should be cautious when dealing with the minor currency pairs. Earlier this year, I was watching AUD/USD and the CME AUD future during the Asian market hours. A sudden sell-off in AUD occurred and AUD/USD dropped over 100 pips in about 5 minutes. However, at the same time the AUD future dropped 300 points due to the lack of liquidity. The drop had 60 point gaps in it. Sure, it was outside of standard EST trading hours, but anyone trading the cash wouldn't have been caught with 60+ pips to their stop limit. I wouldn't imagine the same would happen with the majors.