How are MBT/EFX spreads during major news announcements? I've read a few reviews on forexbastards claiming their spreads are 20-35 pips+ during big releases!! Is there any truth to this??
I personally didnt see such wide spreads. But if you watch a tick-chart of their feed (TDFX on esignal) you can see that you can easily expect slippage on some 20 pips or more. Their demo is exactly like their real quotes by the way. I compared them to PFG currenex for a day or two, and its pretty much the same quotes, except they are way more expensive and got this weird inversed bid/ask thing going. pfg is also significantly deeper on euro and yen.
Of course it's not their spreads but the spreads they're getting from the banks. It's the same with IB's IdealPro. That's the way the interbank market is around big news releases.
Well here we go again with the great spread controversy. Please look at the attachment, where would you get filled, this is a news gap, so you would have had to have been in well before the news came out. Now first of all spreads do not widen with high volume but with low volume, that is why the MXN has a 100 pip spread, no liquidity. Now as everyone knows I use CurreneX, and before news the spreads do not widen, but they actually bounce up, down, up, down etc. as the banks pull and place orders, if the order is not filled within seconds or milliseconds, it is pulled so as not to get filled way outside. Now this deal with the spreads widening to 20 or whatever, is an artificial function of an Al Gore rhythm, and not a natural market condition. In other words the Al Gore rhythm is timed to widen the spread artificially, the spread also may depend on the volatility. Now I have been slipped as high as 9 but I know some pros that have been slipped as high as 15, that is life if you trade news. The thought of trading news comes from the good old days of guaranteed stops and entries. Many who are looking to continue this are generally not aware that the liquidity for these guarantees came from in house inventory and not because one platform executed faster than another. Frankly Rookies, those days are long gone, so you need to find a more productive strategy. The Ever Strep Throat Laden VIPER
PIP, Exactly, and that is a gap not an artifical spread. Now the smart Viper, would buy at the bottom as the gap gets retraced. The I Don't Know Why Rookies Can't See These Low Risk Opportunities VIPER
Good responses. I don't care if the natural market slips on news. My concern is having tight positions cleared out around news time when my BOC (Bucketshop Of Choice) floats spreads to some insane amount like 20-40 pips. I don't trade news. But I trade tight stops that might be within 20-30 pips of a news event. Hence the question. As an aside, it bothers me these so-called âfree and fairâ ECN's Al Gore the market at news events But if MBT can keep it relatively tight and close to interbank for a piker like me, Im happy.
Ac, I forgot to check the spreads this morning for efx, the action on CX was the usual. Since we will be having news at the end of the week I will post what it looks like right here, same bat site same bat thread. The Ever Hoping I Will Remember VIPER