Andy Grove (Intel) - "Only the paranoia survive" This is for sure true in the forex market Enough said.
Nick, still giving them heaps I see. I am with Oanda but I am looking to select a second broker, I wonder if Oanda is changing. Their prices sometimes are not too sharp. 30 pip spreads on some pairs at news times and sometimes added to prices worse than other brokers. Anyway I am alos paranoid and I want to be able to make the comparison. I trade may have outgrown them anyway because I trade quite large upward of 5lots at a time. Who are you hearing good things about.
FYI- You can trade 10m per click with Oanda. A few you could look at would be: CME Globex Interactive Brokers HotspotFX BGCFX-Currennex (Clears through Cantor Fitzgerld for US clients) Dukascopy ADM-Currennex Then once you have your funds up over a few million go Institutional...
hi, i believe that's true but if you check out their site they also state that they charge a commission that basically equates to an extra 1 pip on both sides of the trade. also, i've seen their spreads fluctuate wider due to even mild volatility...but not sure if this necessarily matters for the way you approach trading. if the fluctuation in spread is important to you (not unusual for a "no dealing desk" platform) then what you'll discover is that bigger market makers tend to experience less/smaller fluctuations relative to the smaller players. if ever in doubt feel free to eyeball and compare the pricing of market makers you're considering. use their demos if they use actual live account pricing or setup a very small account if necessary. unfortunately, the one thing a demo won't show you is how good their trade execution will be based on the pricing you see...the only way to know this is to actually place a few real (but small) real trades to see what kind of trade execution quality you get. i hope this helps.
I am currently with MBtrading. I am wondering what are the typical spreads with a currnex broker and commisions you pay. Daz
Most only trade cable, euro-dollar, and other majors, why would anyone trade with such HUGE spreads. Get real.
Thank you for those kind words. I believe the challenge was to show such a spike in FOREX, not liquid pairs. There are too many numerous example to show re/de valuations of exotics which resulted in huge moves in a day, far greater than 5%. Soros and Tiger lost huge amount in a day on these exotic crosses. However, I agree this thread is aimed at the retail trader so..... In 1992 pound mark was a liquid pair. Even today, dollar yen is a fairly liquid pair ( ??? don't you agree) with a tight spread traded by retail traders. Most ( read all) retail platforms list gbp/yen as a pair and many try to trade it thanks to its volatility. On 7th Feb 94 this pair gapped down more than 5% on the day. An improperly leveraged retail trader would have lost there shirt if they had been around then. As this argument developed around IB please note that they offer some exotic crosses therefore it is not against the realms of possibility that a retail trader could lose everything trading such a pair. And aren't retail traders famed for overleveraging on pairs which have high volatility in the hope of making a quick fortune? Finally, here in the UK, the FSA ( super regulator) requires that all brokerage firms should " know there client" as has been mentioned. If a retail trader lost all of there money, they could complain to the FSA that the broker misled them about risk etc etc. Thus, brokers do have a slight problem in this regard. So whilst agreeing with you in general that it is unlikely to happen, history shows that it has and it will again. And it will happen again on a liquid highly traded pair, that I guarantee. Kind Regards
United46, I had the majors in mind . Please post some "evidence" of your 5% gap in the pound/mark on 7 february of 94