I would like to trade Forex, and I see IB has its own Forex system, do you guys think its Forex price is fair? I know some brokerage Forex price can be totally unfair.
IB FX is an ecn of prices from major banks. They charge commission instead of relying on you to lose money to profit like a normal FX bucket shop.
That is what they present, but anyone tests the price and see if that really matches the fair price among banks or market in general?
Forex usually is undertaken when a bank offers OTC trading of currencies. They (bank) are often the counter party to your trade. They size you up as to capitalization , experience and credit rating and your fills and general fairness will be better if you are well capitalized, trading full lot (not mini or micro) and have many years experience with other banks. IB is not a bank, so they may just pass your trade on to a larger clearing party which usually is a better experience as far as fair trading. But if you are interested in currency trading and looking at IB, why not just trade currency futures with IB? I do not use IB right now but I have used TOS for forex and they do offer the best ecn prices at any given time with good commissions and fair trading in my own experiences. I was capitalized at $25,000, had 6 years prior exp with citibank and traded full contracts only. The first 3 years using citi, they abused me pretty bad but i never held positions very long and only traded 1-2 times pr week those first years but I still lost about $1,000 per month the first year.
You mean cbot forex future? I am thinking about trading aud/nzd which is not active in cbot. My own currency always matches US dollars, transfer to aus or nzd to trade is also an investment itself s
We post live streaming quotes for some of the more popular FX pairs offered on our public website. You may also want to check out the quarterly performance data as reported to the NFA: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/?f=/en/trading/pdfhighlights/PDF-Forex.php&ns=T
that's all I trade anymore is just fx with ib. Yeah, they are great. Just be aware, that nzd get's untradable once it closes, especially against aud.
because the liquidity is crap. Let's take the example of the British Pound. Trading a 10 lot in the 6B futures is $62.50 per tick often you cannot get that relatively small amount off at a single price level. That's the equivalent of 6 retail lots in spot FX. I believe you can clip off 1000 retail lots in spot FX with virtually no slippage, certainly a couple hundred no problem. Granted the euro is a little thicker in the futures and the $12.50 tick size helps but still anyone trading decent size will run into problems quickly with futures.
yes liquidity is bad trading fx futures. I trade longer term trends so that makes it a little better. I would trade much more actively and within forex spot if I could find a fair broker/bank. I have never really felt any spot bank I have used was trustworthy but am still looking and listening for a good one