I am not sure you are right about that (other hubs are larger) I know for a fact that both Hotspot and Lava are not doing well (trust me this is an understatement) , Currenex is best by far! what do you mean dont fit their risk? I never heard of this before , even if you go in an out every min or even 30 sec you shouldn't have any issues
i've talked to many brokers and when i say hub i mean a liquidity pool that is individual to many different currenex pools or hotspotfxi or lavafx. most primes have access to both hotspotfxi and currenex. on a currenex hub for example with admd prime you will have 12 banks supplying liquidity most of the time. BGC usually has 24 banks active on their hub with currenex as their GUI. As far as the most forgiving front ends i agree that currenex is the best. Lava and Hotspot are very picky about who gets their feed or api. if you plan to scalp a 100 times a second you are not going to be preferred by either of these guys. if you're trading news and very profitable they will call you a predator and kick you off many times. the idea is to get all the feeds in one clearing house so not just one pool is getting banged. and that is essentially what barry does at adm. he cycles in and out the liquidity pool so they are not constantly banged. fimat is an example of a currenex hub that lost many liquidity providers in the last couple years. fimat allowed major scalping and arbing which led to big liquidity providers pulling away from them. now it is difficult to get a fimat api. you have to disclose your systems to them and if you bang them you'll be gone quickly.
hi all, i'm new to this forum but i have been trading over 9 years four of which have been in fx...just thought i could add my two-cents to this conversation... currenex, though an excellent platform, in and of itself doesn't automatically mean you get excellent access to liquidity and therefore execution (a point extremely important to fx trading because of its non-exchange based nature). your experience with currenex, the software, will vary depending on who the market maker is allowing you to place trades via the software (unless i'm grossly mistaken in my understanding of their services/product). basically, currenex is basically a portal to the prices of various banks. the exact banks and how many you would have access to (pricing-wise) would depend entirely on who you choose (market maker) to open an account with (in some cases it depends on who you are as well...i.e. how much money, experience, etc.). so for example, you may choose market maker #1 who has an arrangement with just a couple of tier-2 banks feeding prices/liquidity via the currenex platform you're using whereas market maker #2 may have 6 tier-1 (the best/largest) banks feeding prices/liquidity via the currenex platform you're using through them. obviously, the market maker offering currenex with more tier-1 bank pricing/liquidity will be able to accomodate larger orders in a single-click and potentially better trade execution with minimal slippage and competitive spreads. so i'm not sure what you mean by "currenex" because it's just a GUI (using programmers' jargon)...you still need to know how many banks and what type (tier-1, tier-2, etc.) are attached to the platform via the market maker you're going to be trading with via the currenex platform. again, i could be completely off but based on my industry experience and time with trading fx this seems to be on par with what my banking acquaintances tell me. i'm open to any other insight on this.
I am with MBtrading. I am considering Currenex. What are the typical spreads and fees for a round trip.
mb spreads are similar to currenex at most hubs. hubs are the pools of liquidity the previous trader was explaining. if your hub is really big like FIMAT you'll see low spreads all day long. eurusd always 1 pip or less. commissions depend on size and volume of the account. you can negotiate 25/million most times. that is one way. so 50/million round turn. swaps are going to be much more reasonable with currenex at any hub compared to mb. mb has ridiculous swaps that cost way too much. that's my 2 pips
hi OddTrader, i have accounts with FXCM and Gain...though i have a preference for FXCM. based on the homework i've done plus my own personal experiences i find that FXCM has a better overall "package". relative to my experiences with other market makers i find that the pricing/execution with FXCM is better than most. plus, i don't need to worry about them going out of business anytime soon...they have quite a bit of money behind them and a pretty big client base (based on anecdotal evidence of financials on CFTC site). mind you, for the way i trade i find them to be quite good. but depending on how you trade you may have other needs. in general, if you're going to be trading a relatively small account (less than $10,000) then you'll probably be okay with any of the top 3 shops but if you'll be trading a fairly sizable account and pushing big trades then you should consider them since the size of a company has a direct bearing on execution quality of execution/pricing. if trading is something that you'll pursue seriously (if you're not already) then you're probably better off establishing a relationship with a premium (big) firm in the industry right from the get go.
Risktaker989, You are pretty new to this forum and you are posting in different threads how great FXCM is. I smell a hidden agenda.. Here is what a respected member of elitetrader has to say about FXCM TradeViper Registered: May 2006 Posts: 180 01-05-07 03:14 PM Hello all, talking about fxcmpro, when we were setting up our managed account side we spoke with fxcm about Pro, the sales lady walked me through the CX platform, when I asked her to explain why the spread was 3 pips and PFG's was 0-1 pip she said that PFG was creating an artificial market and 3 pips was the "real" market, I almost burst out laughing at that statement. I also asked about API trading and she told me that FXCM would have to approve any programs to make sure they were not "predatory", I guess that means profitable. After this experiance, I would not reccommend them to anybody. Since PFG was already mentioned, I willl tell you that they have treated us very well and we are pleased with their service, if you want to trade CX with a 50k size minimum, I would reccomend them. The Never Trading With FXCM VIPER danger66 Registered: Oct 1999 Posts: 117 01-05-07 03:36 PM Good one, Viper. Predatory = Profitable! What a joke! Not one experienced trader here would advise to trade with FXCM with any serious money Regarding the financials ; we all know what happened with Refco