Yeah, I agree...like magic. Even when they got their quotes on e/j fixed, they were still shaded by 24 pips. What a clusterfuck.
I have some friends who say IG Markets is awesome. I think they only support mini lots though, to answer your question about size. Unlike Oanda, they actually have a phone number and also brokers you can email. ha ha To my understanding they recently opened in the US but have been pretty big in Europe for a while. Cable may know a little about them if he decides to show up on the thread today.
I have been demoing IG mkts and it seems pretty good, I wanted to add them to my list of brokers I had for their binary options and regular options and ladders on currencies. For that they arent bad, there spreads are fixed I think. As now I use GFT and tradestation as backup and happy with them, but I might give a little money to IG. They are headquarted in London, not that it scares me its that I am in the US and not sure if I am protected, I guess we are not really protected anyways. But IG markets is pretty big in london and I believe they are a public company on the FTSE. Atleast thats what they told me when I asked about there net capital in respect to the net capital list from the nfa/cftc. And they have a thing on there software if you want if your new to them and , while the do not have micro accounts you can start of with half a mini lot and then move up in quartes of a mini lot for the first few weeks. Then you have to go with regular mini lots
Ok broke discipline today. Watching the huge spike up on the euro usd I got excited thinking the equity markets were still down and as was Europe overnight. So I must have basically threw out my plan and shorted it figuring on a regression to the mean here. But as we saw that didnt happen. Now my plan basically calls for trades off the 15/30 min charts using s/r with candle stick patterns as confirmations. Usually hammers and stars. But forgot all that and took it mid candle as it was jammin, ran in front of the train and got run over. To boot, I added to my position figuring I didnt get the best price but if it goes higher I will. And my premise was wrong so I got out for a 50 pip loss and of course a while after it came down below where I shorted and then some. But I dont consider being right in the long run on this trade , becuase one I broke my plan rules, when I took the trade there was not pattern to indicate me getting this trade in my direction, and broke stop loss rules so a triple double in my book. What I did miss was the candle stick pattern I should have waited for an hour later was my candlle pattern that told me this was finally exhausted and now take the trade, but I didnt. These are the things I am trying to work on, I have pretty good days following my rules but then bam something stupid always happens Less and less so I am getting control but its tough, any suggestions?
Wow, looks like I picked a good day to take off! I've never traded with IG, the only experience I have of them is when they threatened me with legal action unless I took their live price feed off my wap website (damn I only wanted to track prices when I'm away!) Guys I'm not sure the deal is going to be any better at another shop, this is a really weird and skittish market, I imagine bucketshops are having a nightmare trying to manage risk especially the ones offering micro. For example, I've been trading with CMC since around '96 and in the past 7-8 years I've never seen anything like what they're doing now. Slippage with no requotes, w-i-d-e spreads of >40 on some pairs, quote freezing, the whole bag of tricks. Without doubt marketmaker bucketshops are partially to blame because if conditions are too risky for them they should openly declare that trading is suspended on the platform, that would be the fair and honest thing to do but then logistically it wouldn't be an option, so they do the next best thing and freeze quotes, fill orders with slippage, even bust trades, what else can they do in the circumstances? I think we only have a few choices, either stand aside and wait for the market to calm down, trade with an ECN (although it's going to be the same story I believe), or trade futures (which probably has it's own gremlins). I wish I still had a Reuters feed because that would blow your mind, it would make this look like a vicars tea-party
Yes I do, your right cable! I need to stop f'n around and just follow the plan and then if I lose its all good cause I followed the rules.
I don't think anyone gets over it completely, I know I still do some really stupid shit and usually end up paying for it. I always say to myself 'never again'.....until the next time