www.fxcm.com i am practicing with its demo...my portfolio is down more than 50%....high leverage in fx trading...beaware:eek:
Rgowka1, I think the EUR is the best suited contract for me. As far as your second question (not shown here) is concerned, I use TS6 and it gives me a great amount of the EUR data I need.
Bidmasterx, My concern with Forex is the relative lack of regulation. From what I can see, and I could be wrong, I can get the same benefit from trading currency futures on CME rather than Forex itself. Except for the increased leverage of course, but that's not a good thing while I'm learning the currency ropes.
Someone asked why anyone would trade futures and not sopt forex. With futures you can buy on bid/sell on offer softening the vig a little bit. With spot forex you are forced to buy offer and sell bid so right of the bat you are down $30-50$ depending on contract size. Am I right?
Yes, no matching system allowed for retail forex traders in the US. http://www.cftc.gov/files/opa/opaforexupdateadvisory3-19-021.pdf Last page.
Forex spreads are a classic example of the small investor and a large investor's benefits. It all comes down to how much money you have approximately $250,000(deposit amount) up you can bid and offer. The smaller fx trading doesn't warrant a change from that for the larger banks that is the problem - all do with what is a marketable parcel. That being understood the arguments with futures versus spot forex benefits really come down to the contract and it's liquidity and whether you are day trading or going overnight. Unless you can get EFP on your futures overnight I would say the forex spot is the distinct advantage for obvious reasons
Yannis: thanks for your replies. EUR is worth trading... I like EUR as 1.I can trade it London time (I am on EST and have a day job) 2.the market depth is good... 3.Volatality is great.. (almost 80 ticks/pips per day =20 ES points) 4.cheaper relative transaction costs. but the only problem is with the bid-ask spread. with spreads of 3-1 ticks, I might have to look for a longer time frame strategy. I am still looking for a real-time feed with API access for currency quotes (something like IQFEED.) for now I am using IB's EUR Globex last tick as my datafeed
errr ..no actually - unless you have got lots of cash then you won't get anywhere near the "most liquid market in the world" spot market - as it is all interbank and trades in size.... the best you'll be able to do is go with a FX spot broker who simply makes a market for you and profits out of your losses. You are much better off with the futures if you are trading a major currency (CAD, EUR, JPY, GBP, CHF, AUD)
Check out my earlier post about the PIP spread of these spot brokers. HUGE. Would you play a game where to get in you will have to pay $40 and to get out another 40$? $40 is the pip value of a 4 pip spread of EUR spot, I don't know the others. And don't think that you can bid their bid and offer their offer coz the only time you will get it is then the bid BECOMEs the offer and vice versa
Once I came across a website where you can put in the spot price and get a "fair value" of the futures price, or vice versa.... can't remember that site now. Anybody has something like this??