This is not sarcastic, are you saying there are regulated FX brokers? There’s not even anything close to NBBO for FX data. Which data source would you use for trading FX?
IB is a regulated broker that offers leveraged fx here in Canada and elsewhere outside the US. Even in the US for qualified investors with a certain amount of assets. Baxter and Pepperstone are both regulated in Australia. Lmax is regulated by FSA in the UK. I have put in market orders with IB for sometimes multiple million per trade without the slightest unexpected slippage. It takes what is shown in the order book. I don't see any size magically disappearing as in US equity and options markets when I submit orders. I can discuss that in as much detail as you wish if you agree to have an honest, fact-based, and rational discussion because I have traded this asset class for close to 2.5 decades, both professionally as well as personally. But I won't engage in shouting matches and won't try to convince you that you can execute cash fx in a cleaner fashion than any US equity, futures, or options order with the right brokers. If you have your mind made up then I can let that stand and we agree to disagree.
Discussion would be interesting. I don’t have my mind made up, but my understanding of FX microstructure is as below: Reputable FX Brokers do not take the other side of customer trades(aka straight through). However, they do send all order flow to liquidity providers. While it’s similar to PFOF, as you mentioned, the difference is that US equities liquidity providers (MMs) do have best execution obligations. FX liquidity providers have no obligations that I know of. This thread is about low-latency trading. Was/Is your trading latency sensitive? When you say “I don’t see size disappear from the books,” do you mean you are taking out “mis-priced” liquidity from the book or just making a bet? My understanding was that if you try running any kind of strategy based on low latency(if you can even achieve that with them), they will shut you down. I don’t know for a fact though, but makes sense based on business model.
It's the other way around. Brokers don't send any orders to liquidity providers. Brokers make available liquidity pools that are directly managed by the liquidity providers themselves. IB has a pool of over 10 different liquidity providers, all highly regulated banks in every jurisdiction they operate in. Multiple banks had to settle for billions of dollars of dollars for rigging the fixings a while ago. This tells you that this is anything but an unregulated market. Is it perfect? No, but it's way more honest and there is less chance to move markets than in any other asset class because it is the most liquid asset class in the world with a daily turnover that resorts equity markets to a bystander. Daily fx turnover 6.6 trillion USD vs nyse 66 billion, 1% of daily fx turnover. You call payment for order flow, delayed executions, fractional cent execution for privileged players, order pulling and all the other games in equities fair? None of that happens in deep fx liquidity pools. Quoting conventions worldwide in fx markets are standardized. 5 digits for major pairs except yen crosses which are quoted and executed with 3 digit precision. I have not once seen orders pulled in a legitimate liquidity pool and most liquidity pools do not have last look provisions (stay far away if last look is granted to liquidity providers).
Here you go smarty-pants: How to setup a HFT environment -> Call the exchange/venue and ask for co-lo. Buy a server, put it into the rack, connect via VPN. Done. Honestly, if you don't even got this far, don't do it.
Right. I currently have a setup with ICM, too slow though. If you do not having any clue about this and cant provide any value whatsoever, dont reply pls. I know the principle of how to set it up. I'm asking how one would actually go about. What server, what exchange, specification. Feel like you're just on here trying to blow off some steam. Please keep out of this thread if you're not bringing any value.
Call EBS they can answer some of your questions. Usually you need 10M for prime broking to go along with it.