IB may indeed offer tight spreads, but if you are trading small, commissions + interest charges (if you keep overnight) are expensive! (own experience) Calculate the costs of your trading style/size before commiting to IB. You may be much better off with Oanda. If you are not skalping but holding for a few hours to a few days, the advandages of ECN dissappear. Your stops will be further away than the shortterm price action on entry. I don't think any broker affords to intentionally move the price against you tens of pips (due to the huge arbitrage opportunity that this would create) just to take you out. Furthermore, the longer you hold, the smaller you will trade (unless you don't understand risk). So, commissions & especially interest charges will matter.
agreed. If you are trading tiny, oanda is just fine. I don't see how anyone makes any money trading less than full lots though (except for days like today). Or unless ya really hold positions awhile, but then spreads/ commish don't mean much anyway.
I agree for the most part. IB is suited to traders who place short term trades of around 100k or more and don't hold overnight positions. Other types of traders are probably better off with a reputable single MM broker like Oanda or trading currency futures. I disagree when you say that single MM brokers (bucket shops) won't artificially move price feeds tens of pips to stop you out. I have read many posts over the years where people have complained of this with various bucket shops. Fortunately, I've never heard of this kind of severe stop hunting happening with Oanda.