For a small retail trader who does not alot of volume AMP offers very low rates. If you do at least some volume then I would suggest Tradovate with their commission free membership or again AMP with their 2K membership. If you do some serious volume (>10k contracts per month) then you can get excellent offers from Advantage Futures. It is not easy for a retail beginner trader to become profitable, one of the many reasons is the very small profit margin. On average you will only make a fraction of a tick per contract. Lets say you scalp for example the Bund, you might scalp with a clip size of 50, doing 30 trades during the day. So that means you traded 3000 contracts. If at the end of the day you have been able to catch 8 ticks, I would consider it a ok day, not great but ok. 8 ticks with that clip size means a gross profit of 4000 EUR. If you have to pay something like 3 EUR or more per roundturn like most retailers have to, you will end up net negative despite of the nice gross profit (4000 EUR - 4500 EUR = -500 EUR). If you get very low rates (less than 1 EUR per roundturn), you can still make a nice net profit despite the low profit margin (4000 EUR - 1500 EUR = 2500 EUR). If you divide that net profit of 2500 EUR with the traded volume you get your average net profit per contract which in this case is less than 1 tick (2500/3000), which is typical for a scalping trading style and shows you why a good cost structure is so important for a scalper.
bonds: are there actually cheap non-institutional electronic trading platforms available for bonds? stocks: mature market which means there is efficient cheap access possible. also lots of different types of stocks, etfs, .. . Downside, lots of algos on the shorter time frames You can't really scalp in the sense of getting in or out on the bid or offer and spreads might be a little wider than in the official market, but trust me, open an account at a broker like Oanda for $100 or less and trade these or similar markets with position size of $1. Spend the money you will most likely lose as a non-experienced retail trader on the official markets on something fun. Disregard above message if you are a true extra-ordinary professional and or have too much money. (ps. otherwise it's like entering a pro golf-tournament with crooked clubs and no skill, even if you are a quant)
Thanks everyone. I'm not really a beginner, I'm just trying to find the best combination of broker/market/pricing structure for scalping from a scalper practitioner, since it's very much sensitive to fees.
I did peer into an account of a trader on my fxbook. This guy uses a scalping robot that opens EURUSD, AUDUSD, then SP500 and one other pair. Surprisingly, the profit was pouring in every day. The robot opens about 20 traders every day running on ForexChief platform. So, i have seen firsthand someone who successful scalping currency pairs.
usually a minimum of 5 pips profit per trade. In some cases, there is 10pips in a single trade. Not much, but when you accumulate it everyday, it amounts to something to something significant. It is more satisfying when a robot does the entry and exit.
Thank you for answering. I always assumed that in FX, robots that make money will be shut down (or restricted) as they start adding size. ForexChief is it's own liquidity provider?
Yes, any robot profitable trading against Forex non-ECN will be rendered unprofitable by the broker. Anyone who is trading against these companies especially scalping and making serious money is basically extracting their revenue. One time I was at the Chelsea piers in Manhattan and saw huge brand new yacht with a helicopter on top. These things cost like +$15 million. Just out of curiosity I googled who own the helicopter+yacht by the registration number. And it was one of these Forex brokers who provide "exchange" to trade. More like a casino that trades against clients...