FXCM will always give themselves every advantage. They don't care about you or your money - except that they wanna take it all. I'd know, I used to work for them.
I switched to fxsol, seem to get better fills....a little hectic this morning but nothing like what you guys are talking about
Very true. In spot FX your broker completely controls your fate. If he does not want to let you into a position he does not have to. Why would you trade in a position of such weakness.
I used FXCM a while back, because they had an excellent software package and customer support; however, I quickly found that there trade execution was appalling. I have a friend who swears by them, although today, he was signing a different tune I'm glad I moved on
Since you used to work there, do you have any idea what kind of profits FXCM is making? Must be astronomical. Imagine being the counterparty to 80% of all trades placed by clueless FX newbies! They are basically printing money as fast as they can bring fools in.
Down the line, the last few years will come to be seen as the Golden Age of Bucketeering, with the forex retailers the stars. Those retailers make the lawless stock bucket shops of the 1920s look like penny-ante amateur operations.
as i mentioned in my post ... spot fx and futures have their own benefits and depending on your trading strategy one might be better than the other. There are as many ppl who consider trading gambling as there are traders who consider trading announcements gambling. Wrt to placing trades right after annoucements, most ecn's (ib included) will usually have a slighlty wider spread but still more volume than fx futures. I only appear to be championing spot fx here because it's a better instrument for my trading strategy
Just a couple of data points: 1. High leverage with low deposit ($300 to open w/ 200:1 leverage) = no margin of error. This type of ridiculousness makes equity prop trading (which I do) look like the easiest thing in the world. 2. For anyone who's traded in a prop environment, you know how sophomoric FXCM's (and all the retail market makers) software is. 3. Do you think it's an accident that these firms pitch TA with such zeal yet offer little to no charting software integration with thier trading platforms? 4. I love the curve fitting of thier currency analysts - giving noobs the notion that if they just read more (every newspaper, every article) then maybe, just maybe they could make money in the market. BS. You gotta pick your spots and pyramid in if you're right and get the hell out if you're wrong. This is very difficult since execution is spotty at best (as with any OTC market). 5. No scalping? Why do they give a shit unless it necessitates them ceding control of thier line to the market - and they would never take on such risk. Why should you?
Even FXCM's advertisements encourage newbies to commit one of the cardinal sins of trading - picking tops and bottoms. They have one ad that says "wish you had bought the Euro at .82 or sold the Euro at 1.36?" It seems like FXCM is financially subsidizing the entire internet - their ads are everywhere on every site. The money to pay for those ads does't come from dot com VCs, it comes from their "clients" losses. And how enormous those losses are.
Guys, good points, and I hope people will read them and make up their minds. We do not really know if FXCM trades against their clients. Some people who claim that they do, and the reason why they know it is because is because they worked for FXCM, could just be competitors. Always keep an open mind. But the point is that by trading forex you open yourself to additional risk without getting any additional benefit. The moment I realized that, I stopped and switched to futures. And I just do not understand why people who are told about it, still decide to stick with forex. Once CME/Reuters thing will come live things could be different, but that is yet to be seen. redduke