James, sorry but you're very UNinformed. The dealer interface on MT4 can be turned off by the broker. MB Trading has the dealer interface on their MT4 platform turned off, allowing us traders to trade ECN with MT4. Ive been using it for over a year, no interference whatsoever!!!...NEVER May I add that none of my trades takes more than 2 sec to get filled and confirmed...
Good. Quite a bit cheaper than IdealPro at their nominal spreads. Better margins on crosses and you can trade directly from the chart.
It took about 2 minutes of perusing their site to see more red flags than I care to count. Over 3 years and 2000 posts on ET, and you can't spot the obvious warning signs, while you're chasing 200:1 nonsense? I just would have expected better..
This part bothers me: At SmartTradeFX, we provide the best prices in the industry by giving you access to the tightest spreads from our multi-bank liquidity pool. We are able to do this because we are a straight through processing (STP), no dealing desk (NDD) broker. This means all orders are executed by the liquidity provider member banks with no intervention of a dealer. This results in lower overhead for us and lower spreads and a broker that has no conflict of interest for you. But they go on to say that you can trade in microlots...How can that be? There are no microlots (1000 unit) trades with STP. I believe they act as an intermediary and collect up the trades and trade in lots...(100,000 units) ES P.S. Another part that bothers me...Where is their address listed on the website? I can't find it and if it is there, it is real hard to find.
Quite honestly, you know more about what to look for than I do. I have ZERO clue about this FX brokerage stuff (it hasn't been my primary market). Am I an idiot? Maybe. I don't trust any of these guys to be honest unless it's a major name. That's why i came on here. Oanda flash widens and that worries me, so far IB has been the best but they're a little on the expensive side for what I do. I hate going here but, I spent 11 years with the market. 6 years were watching charts for 10+ hours a day. Weekends almost the same. I've devoted my life to becoming profitable and I've been through more stress and anxiety than one can imagine. I'm not happy about it but it's paid off. I've paid my dues, so when someone tells me I'm gambling I'm extremely insulted. Honestly, that has come with trading and I never used to be like this. I think I need some days off of ET. I apologize. I took the easy way out by bringing it on here. I guess I should have done some better DD on my end. Thanks for the help though guys. It may not seem like it but it's much appreciated.
like Atticus said: there is only one serious alternative out there: Oanda. It is my first choice without any doubt. Second allready some way behind that comes IB. The rest would be much much further behind. IMO only oanda and IB are serious contenders.
Exactly what I need . Thanks again atticus and everyone else on here. I owe a few people like James and Trader KGB an apology as well. I went through my posts and I went overboard.
Worth a read if you are going to consider Oanda for your fx trading: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=211283