First I would like to ask: Is it a dumb idea to trade through IDEAL? How big are the spreads?? cable, eur/usd, usd/jap. The reason being I do not have a ton of money in my account and I have recently designed a system for longer term trading. This requires WIDE STOP LOSSES. Long story short I need to trade <25k Preferably 5-10k Should I stick with my beloved IB? OR would it be cheaper to sign up with Oanda? If it is infact okay to trade through IDEAL, HOW is it done?? thanks.
try the globex fop's on eur/usd instead. the bid ask spread is not nice but it will provide you protection against an adverse move. probably you can suit your small scale trading into one lot FOP and have a magnified return whenever you trade gets direction right, as gamma will manufacture deltas for your FOP.
1)I believe IDEAL was created more for simple currency exchanges than trading. Although I suppose you could trade using it, I wouldn't. 2)GBP/USD IDEAL PRO : 2 pip spread GBP/USD IDEAL : 12 pip spread GBP globex futures : 1 tick spread as of this post. 3)I would either trade futures or if your trading small sizes take a look at Oanda. They seem to have fewer complaints than most. The spread and commisions will eat you alive on IDEAL. In fact an IB rep stated once right here on ET that as far as FX ,even IDEAL PRO, goes they are not really trying to cater to the smaller trader, Oanda is. 4)The same as IDEAL PRO. Bring up the symbol on TWS. Right click an empty row, select ticker, enter base symbol for example GBP, a menu will appear where you select FOREX, then select IDEAL and USD. This is assuming you have already taken care of the trading permissions requirements on IB's web site.
EuroFX contracts are 125000 units each, pound is 62500. I think most others are 125000, see CME pages for details. There are mini-contracts for some pairs, but they are illiquid.