virtualmoney: first question - believe so, tho don't know what orders can be entered via NinjaTrader second question - no, no and don't know here's one chart example of an NFP release from Aug/09: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=172655 as you'll see by the price bars during the first 10 secs of the 8:30 minute, the price has swings of as much as 14 pips in less than half a second and speaking of the NFP, Oanda is notorious for disconnecting the data feed either before, during or just after the release, see the Oanda forum for the many posts of complaint about this, it's something the CRTC and NFA should be investigating and putting a stop to
Wallace, your long post is a total misinterpretation, if you go market there is a spread to pay in fx-futures, the total spread will be much more than oanda cost in like 98% of the times. Furthermore it doesn't seem too smart to get fixated with NFP: that's a once in month event with a very doubtfull outcome.
CME e-micro futures are not competitive compared to Gain mini FX Look at M6E versus Mini EUR/USD M6E Tick = $1.25 M6E Spread = 3 ticks ($3.75) Commission = $1 per side Liquidity: 10 level DOM Leverage Intraday: 100:1 Overnight: 30:1 Deficiency Liability: Personal and Unlimited Counter Party: Exchange Traded Averaged out transaction cost = $5.75 - $9.50 per contract. Mini EUR/USD with Fractional Pips: Minimum Tick = $0.125 Minimum Spread: 1.6 Pips Average Spread: 2.2 Pips Volatile Spread: 20 Pips Liquidity: 25 lots per advertised price Leverage: 50:1 US 200:1 UK Deficiency Liability: None Counter Party: Gain Averaged out transaction cost $2 to $5 In general you need an 8 tick move trading the futures just to break even versus 3 pips for Fx. Fills are based on liquidity of DOM versus Gain auto fill as counter party. No contract expiration or roll overs to deal with which would add to your trading costs. With FX you either earn or are charged overnight interest without additional margin requirement. Downside of FX is you live and die by the integrity of your broker. They provide your trading platform, data feed, execution, credit and are counter party. In effect you are playing their video game. If you trade the larger sized contracts the futures are more competitive and IMHO a safer exchange / regulated derivative.
I've often wondered how FX Dealers get around gaming rules and laws. From a software perspective it would be relatively easy to program in a house edge. 100 ms is about the limit a human can react and respond to information but is an eternity for their computers. Just the shear tick volume of price changes, jumps and gaps generated by their platform is worth a study. Without a centralized exchange, FIFO order book and published order matching rules the price changes are arbitrary and unilaterally controlled and decided by Gain. http://www.nfa.futures.org/news/newsRel.asp?ArticleID=3676 NFA orders $459,000 monetary sanction against New Jersey forex firm Gain Capital Group LLC October 28, Chicago - National Futures Association (NFA) has ordered Gain Capital Group LLC (Gain), a forex dealer member located in Bedminster, New Jersey, to pay a $459,000 fine as a result of an NFA Complaint issued and a settlement offer submitted by Gain and its chief executive officer, Glenn H. Stevens. NFA's Business Conduct Committee alleged that Gain engaged in abusive margin, liquidation and price slippage practices that benefited Gain to the detriment of its customers. The Committee also alleged that Gain failed to maintain records for certain unfilled orders, failed to adequately review the activities and promotional material of the firm's unregistered solicitors, and failed to supervise the firm's operations. In addition to the fine amount, Gain must also provide appropriate refunds to its customers as a result of these detrimental margin, liquidation and asymmetrical slippage practices. Gain and Stevens neither admitted nor denied the charges. The complete text of the Complaint and Decision are available on NFA's website (www.nfa.futures.org). I suppose one should take into account fraud factors when comparing competitiveness of trading CME FX Futures to Forex.
cvds16: you appear confused and mixed up, and comparing apples with bananas what I've stated about spreads relates to the fx broker's fee for processing a trade from some brokers the spread is constantly variable, and as well, may at any time and without warning, widen, considerably futures contracts have a FIXED cost fee - commission for processing a trade cvds16: "if you go market there is a spread to pay in fx-futures, the total spread will be much more than oanda cost in like 98% of the times." I have no idea why you think that not withstanding what's stated above, the price you'd Buy/Sell at market at Oanda would be the same price you'd Buy/Sell the futures contract, excepting, there's a difference in what Oanda considers the 'current price'; compare Oanda's quotes with the chart prices of say Alpari, FXCM, FxPro, Gain etc, and, the futures market; but even simultaneous market orders don't gurantee a same price fill since the various fx brokers price quotes are not in synch with each other, nor the Globex, neither are their spread/fees the same, and even Oanada's MT4 price quote is different to the Oanda FXTrade quote futures contracts have a Bid/Ask difference of usually 1-2 pips - often more for the M6E and E7 due to their low volume, however a market order is just that, and, if in the milliseconds of deciding to and then clicking on the Buy Market/Sell Market button the futures price jumps +/- 4 pips and the fx broker's price doesn't, then I guess you would think that "the total spread will be much more than oanda cost" of course, if that 4 pips jump resulted in a lower Buy price or higher Sell price than Oanda's price . . . the term spread then refers to both a Bid/Ask price difference, And, the fee an fx broker charges to process the trade, which is derived from the spread, and imo should anyways be referred to as an fx broker's commission to avoid the confusion some have regarding the 'Bid/Ask spread' and commission/fee fx brokers charge for processing a trade the Bid/Ask difference has nothing to do with the cost of trading a futures contract/ lot; the price paid is the price paid in both cases, the fee however that is charged in order to execute the trade is Fixed when trading futures, Variable when trading fx and calculated on the Bid/Ask spread that broker has determined at the time of that trade and which may be a smaller or larger cost minutes or seconds later of course one's entitled to use Limit Orders guaranteeing the price paid, at the same fixed cost with a futures broker, versus a guaranteed price paid with an fx broker but not at a fixed cost, and at who knows what spread/fee/commission price/cost CME Globex currency futures markets and retail fx broker markets are not the same so far as being "fixated with NFP", I was answering virtualmoney's questions, so I suggest you take your fixation with my response to virtualmoney and give him your opinion about NFP trading however, 'news trading' is not limited to the NFP; 'news reports' are being released 'all the time' which you'd of course know about because you checked the calendar here for instance: http://www.forexfactory.com/ as well as having seen the effect of say an Italian flash report causing Oanda's spread to widen to 10 pips for several minutes before/during/after the release, accompanied by large erratic price moves oh and lets see if Oanda disconnects the feed this Friday as it commonly does so you can't trade - neither enter a new trade nor close an existing position if in doubt about what 'news trading' is, perhaps this example may help, and I see there were 6 releases last week that the analyst/trader thought tradeable: http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/forex...g-signals-overview-february-21-25-2011-a.html and don't forget the news 'indictators' for both MT and NT that display realtime news reports, economic releases etc on the chart page
I think you are way overthinking this...the CME Globex micro's are regulated and safe-who cares about slippage and commission and ain't gonna blow your account with $1.25 per tick-just my thoughts-try it out-again my thoughts
I think you should go buy some gold and silver bars from Kitco and stay off the boards. I don't think trading is your thing. Oanda 1.2 pip spreads vs an illiquid market and steep commissions. Is Oanda the apple or the banana?
increasenow: it's not 'overthinking', the problem is a lot of fx traders no little or nothing about futures, hence their questions the E7 and M6E are ok for longer session trades, but not for 'scalping', they just don't move for minutes at a time as I learnt last night Buy&Hold trading, basically D W M charts is best done with an fx broker since there's no increase in margin I never had a problem 'scalping' with Oanda, instant fills/closes, click and filled, and they do have 30 10 and 5 second charts, but the margin is only 50:1 if you're able to open an account with a 500:1 fx broker, great so if you want to 'scalp' and want the leverage then it has to be the 6E, and the $500 daytrading margin and note that the futures markets close for one hour between 2 and 3pm PST
Wallace, I scalp 6E intraday. However I use smaller leverage, the $500/contract just makes me too nervous. Regarding smaller contracts, the spread is not the only thing you should be worrying about. M6E is good for swing, just keep in mind that you can not use stops with this one. The Bid/Ask quote just moves up and down with the FX Spot, but often there are no trades to trigger your stop. Especially overnight. You would probably find the market trading 20 pips beyond your stopwithout getting triggered. Low volume is why you can see the thin M6E chart you posted before. E7 is a little better in this aspect, there is more volume, and better spread than M6E, but you'll have the same issue with stops not triggering due to lack of transactions. They just sweep the B/A on the DOM. just my 2c