Welcome Lite, PFG for CurreneX, EFX and OANDA. the one drawback to the CurreneX platform for retail traders is the 100 k requirement with PFG. There are others that will let you on to it for less though. Also PFG is going to reintroduce FX trading, and from what I was told, and don't hold my feet to the fire, they will have no swap interest, the charting program is going to be about $70 a month, and Minis will be available for those just starting out. The only thing the platform will not have is DOM like the CurreneX and EFX. The Ever Keeping My Ear To The Ground VIPER
With IB currently, but I'm not happy with their cross rate margining, swap rates, and lack of many pairs (NOK, NZD, etc). Position trading cross rates at IB is incredibly disadvantageous. The system recognizes each side as a vs-USD position, thus limiting margin to 25:1 and enforcing the no-interest-$10k rule on each open currency. Initial margin is the same as maintenance margin, in other words, you should never use initial margin limits since you'll have no breathing room whatsoever. They are the only broker I know that does this. Interest/swap rates are just ok. I was surprised to find out recently that Oanda offers much better rates (0.8% on JPY borrows at Oanda vs 1.6% at IB, in other words, DOUBLE). I'm not about to switch to Oanda b/c I'm not interested in the "no commission" spread brokers (95% of retail FX brokers). Currently shopping for another broker with access to the institutional ECNs (Currenex, EBS, etc) that can solve IB's problems and hopefully offer swap rates similar to Oanda. Any account minimum is fine. Suggestions welcome.
I like IB. Can't beat a 1/2-pip spread on EURUSD, and they now quote lots of currencies in half-pips. And I can't see the point of getting worked up over interest rate spreads when the point of currency trading surely is to make a 40%+ capital gains. If you want to make money off interest rates, buy bonds. I'm currently making bundles on the USDJPY unwind (though today wasn't a good day) - I expect it to drop 200-300 pips in the next week. Going long in USDJPY after a 12-week carry trade has pushed it up to a multiyear high, just to get the 4.75% interest rate edge (that's 1 pip a day) is insane. As to crosses, I'm with Bill Lipschutz: I only play majors. Can't see the point of playing say CADNOK - who knows anything about it?
GBP, EUR and CAD are all majors. Along with AUD, JPY, CHF and USD. And GBPCAD and EURCAD aren't crosses if GBP, EUR or CAD is your base currency. On IB I can change my base currency on about 48 hours' notice. Spread on some of them is a bit too high for my taste, but that's all. I did do a bit of HKD for a while - attraction was that it was the lowest spread on IB - but I gave up because I didn't have a clue what was pushing HKD.
gspaulsson, I don't know what's crazier: your call of $40 oil this summer on the Loonie thread, or your haphazard explanation of having not traded FX crosses written above. I think you need a refresher on what an FX cross actually is: http://investopedia.com/terms/c/crosscurrency.asp Hint: GBPCAD and EURCAD are FX crosses regardless of what your base currency is in IB.
I didn't say $40 oil this summer, I said this fall, IF the US goes into recession. $70 oil is so far off the long-term trend line it can't be anything but a bubble, and recessions tend to pop bubbles. When I invoked Bill Lipschutz, his philosophy is that he only trades G8 currencies. And that's also what I trade, plus AUD and CHF. Point is, I only trade majors and don't mess around with NOK or SEK or Dinars or anything else, where (a) unless you're a specialist in those countries, you don't know what's going on, (b) there's no liquidity, and (c) the spreads are horrendous. Whatever the dictionary definition of a cross is, what I mean by it is a trade that is constructed artificially out of two legs. You could, if you wanted to, play EURUSD as a cross, by say shorting EURGBP and longing GBPUSD. And in fact when I spread my bets around I end up doing a lot of that kind of thing, the advantage being that you can enter and exit the two positions separately. But if your actual intention is to short EURUSD, then of course it's a totally stupid way of playing it. My actual intention back then was to short GBP against CAD, because USD was dropping against both currencies. I could equally well have split my bet in two and shorted both GBPUSD and USDCAD. So yeah, in that sense it was a cross. But it was also a play between two majors, where I felt I understood what was going on, and in fact successfully rode it down from 2.15, missing the bottom at 2.08 but catching it on the bounce at 2.11. What's CADNOK going to do next? No earthly idea.
BTW, last year this time oil was dicing with $80 and then it dropped to $51 - without a recession - so why is a drop from $70 to $40, especially with a recession, "crazy"?