So basically i am researching FX brokers now that i am trading stocks and options for 2 years and have some expenrience..but wanna try something even 'riskier' though perhaps not so volatile. Anyway...so I have 3 potential brokers to chose from in my mind, whose names I won't mention since...it will be a spam, but one of the brokers has pretty good conditions and it seems...too good to be true. Simply put they offer: - No pips on every currency pair. - No slippage. They say they charge a small fixed fee commission of $3 only if you win from your trade...kinda sounds like betfair...like a betting website? And finally...they aren't regulated in the US as being swiss based...as it seems. Other than that - i consider forex.com and fxcm - are these guys any good too? thanks alot in advance!
I don't know about your first broker but having serious doubts cause there exist no miracles, but seeing your other names and comparing them to oanda things get rather simple: oanda has 0.8 pips spread in eur/usd during normal times; how much have the others for spread ? I'll leave the thinking up to you ...
Forex.comâs parent company, GAIN Capital Holdings was recently fined by NFA, see details: http://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsRel.asp?ArticleID=3676 FXCM's spread is rather wide due to their markups, http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_buPOR1D4eXw/TM6JxJgVdrI/AAAAAAAAFHI/myYOKCjM-Tg/s1600/fxcmspread.png Both FXCM and Gain Capital recently IPO and are now public companies subject to increased scrutiny and regulatory oversight. I can see why you chose them. http://www.favstocks.com/ipos-raise-questions-about-the-future-of-retail-forex/2130236/
This is a real exageration: it's never 20, worst case is 10, even on weekends and like I have said like 10 times on ET allready, you got to use some common sense. You get something like forexfactory and you will know the exact times this is going to happen: 30 seconds before the big news ones. It comes down again pretty quickly. Trading news and the action the next seconds after that is pure gambling for anyone but the best of the best traders out there and even they get flat often. So allthough theoretically this all migth be a problem in practice it isn't really one. Just use some common sense and you'll be more than fine.
Let me get more clear on what I am saying: for me it things were so evident, that I thought it would be the same for everyone else. Trading/scalping with FXCM would be totally out of the question for me. A spread of 1.9 compared to 0.8 (in normal times ! yes) would be a total disaster for me. I remember being at IB, where they sometimes have 0.5 spread (nothing guaranteed, cause in practice it migth be 2 too) + commisions; in practice this commission meant my totall spread was something like 0.9 to a bit over 2.2; on average that would have been more something like 1.6 spread. After several months of not doing to bad (at least if felt that way) I was still at break-even. So I started doing an analysis: how is this possible ? Either there is something wrong with my 'feel' or there is something else going on ... Well my analysis showed that without the commissions I would have doubled (!) my account in those few months ! I don't want to badmouth IB cause in fact they are quite good, in fact they would be my second choice, as I consider them way better than the choices the original poster came up with. But having gone to oanda I would never go back to any other broker again (hope oanda pays me somehow for this advertising ). Yes, they are not perfect, but then again no broker will be; your aim should be to try to get the best of the not so perfect cause that can make a world of difference ...
I would recommend ProRealTime basically because it's very reliable (again that's a 98% of the time thing ) and comes for a good price for some people it also has the advantage of quite some whistles and bells (which I honestly don't use). If you live on some outskirt place where there isn't decent internet, I however would not advise it: in practice I heard from someone living in Manilla that his datafeed wasn't that great but his internet goes down like three times a week and when it works it's still a bit iffy. The question then is: who is at fault PRT or his internetprovider ... From people living in Europe I have only heard very good comments. Don't know many Americans using it but never heard complaints there.
IB's good but they're expensive. Spreads stay tight during news. Oanda has very tight spreads but they widen. I really like oanda better though. Trading from the chart is handy and quick. Wouldn't recommend scalping with IB on small fractional lots.