ECN Synthetics?

Which ECN's offer synthetic pairs?

Reason I ask - MBTrading offers GBPJPY cross @ ~4 pip spread + commish.

Simultaneous spread at MB on GBPUSD is 0 and USDJPY at 1 pip.

 

IB's IdealPRO is 4 wide most of the time, but you lose 50:1 as they quote the natural but it's priced synthetically.

 

We've recently added a couple of more liquidity providers, so I think you'll find that GBP.JPY is now usually 1-3 on IdealPRO. The margin will depend on what your base currency is.

 

Who are your liquidity providers? And how many at this point?

 

You are just a wealth-spring of information, my man.

I hope you stick around

 

Eight I believe, with two more coming on board shortly. Of these ten, 8 are in the 2007 ranking of top FX banks, list here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_market)

 

Will try.

 

Can IB increase the fx trader window to 20 cells? 16 is not enough.

 

Let me rephrase the question:

Do ECN's offer synthetic crosses on the majors?

For instance - lets say the GBPJPY outright cross is illiquid but the GBPUSD and USDJPY is highly liquid.

Which ECN's allow a synthetic cross from the GBPUSD and USDJPY to accommodate?

 

Essentially all of the real ones do, just do the synthetic
yourself, simultaneously taking the prices in the appropriate
amounts. This will leave you in exactly the same position as
if you had traded the natural. On independent ECN's (EBS,
CurrenEx, Hotspot, Lava, etc) your buying poser is affected
the same either way. In captive in-house ECN's (IDealPro,
MB/EFX, Dukascopy, FXLQ, etc.) margin treatment of open
positions may be dependent on the route you took to those
positions.

You can, on most ECNS, denominate your trade in terms
instead of base, e.g. short 1mio USD/GBP and long 1mio
USD/JPY, which makes figuring out how much to trade a
little easier.