"...without the broker cut.": broadly speaking, since you are entering into an fx trade, you are lending at X%-cut on the long side and borrowing at Y%+markup on the short side. For fx spot the values of 'cut' and 'markup' are positive numbers. For futures they are zero. Sounds like a benefit to me. There's not much you can do about X and Y. It's not pay now or later either in both cases the interest impacts your position every day. i.e. in futures trading the price eventually comes to roughly the spot at expiry but it doesn't do so in a jump, it just gets closer every day.
Sure you can, you can just go one way AUD against the USD and NZD the other way, and you're hedged on the USD and opposite AUD/NZD
I don't believe that. If you are long AUD against USD you are surely going to receive interest? If not that would be cheating.
why? Since when are interest charges not accounted for in currency futures? They roll in the exact same way than cash fx.
maybe partly true but total cost of execution for fx futures for anything sub 5million USD equivalent notional is way pricier than trading cash fx with IB.
The problem is not how the interest charges are accounted for in futures, but how those charges are accounted for in cash forex, with IB.
They take a slight markup on rates sure why not. Neither are good ways to take long term exposure to currency direction.
this topic has been beaten to death. If you figure it down to the penny any reasonable trader agrees futures are cheaper than spot. Some of us like trading spot for other reasons, even though it costs a few pennies more. but getting back to accrued interest, it always seems when you are long AUD.USD it doesn't amount to much, but when you are short AUD.USD it really adds up. but then again, that short aud.usd has been a real winner, so who is complaining?