The link to the word facetiously? I thought that was a mistake. So, you were just kidding around? You think they're about the same? What about my comment on bid-ask spreads? What do you think? If I'm correct and IB is generally inside the Gain and FXCM spreads, then using Gain data but executing on IB shouldn't matter much. In fact, getting filled on IB w/slightly tighter spreads would appear as price improvement to me relative to the Gain data feed. Or, am I missing sthg?
Having used both brokers in the past, based on my experiences, I would not return. There are better fx brokers. But hey.... As to spreads comparison, I run IB along side Oanda, and while I can say IB's spreads are tighter (.5 wide at times on majors) it is not always the case. Oanda sometimes has better spreads. Still, I prefer IB using NT front end.
Okay, thx for your help. I think I'm going to watch the spreads for awhile longer. But, I'm headed in the direction of trading with IB (using NT as the front-end), while using Gain's live and historical tick data. As long as IB is generally inside the Gain bid-ask spread I think this should be workable. If it's not then I may have no choice but to use Gain alone. Again, b/c that's where the historical tick data is. -Lou
wine wine wine. Show me a better API of any of the comparable shops that you can trade decent fx with. Happy to hear back from you ;-)
One other issue with trading forex on IB that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet, is that the quotes originating from their liquidity providers are indicative only. IB's pseudo ECN model works by providing a bid and an ask from a combination of the liquidity providers (banks) and other customers. When a trade is attempted by a user by hitting any particular bid or ask, if the trade can be matched by another customer it will be processed straight away. However, if the quote is from a bank, the users request for a trade is sent to the provider and their system chooses whether to take the trade or not. In other words, the liquidity providers do not need to honour the quotes they provide, and indeed often during fast moving markets they do not. A trade can be sitting on the bid or ask for several seconds and be ignored, casting some doubt on what the spread really is. That's where futures has an advantage - if there's sufficient liquidity and you hit the bid or ask you will get that price. You also avoid the delay that occurs with IB's forex trades which occur from waiting for the trade to be confirmed with liquidity providers rather than being sent straight to an exchange. On the other hand, using limit orders it is quite common to get price improvement with IB forex. So it certainly has both advantages and disadvantages.
...that is complete bullocks. You can lift the offer or hit the bid up to indicated liquidity in a split of a second. In fact, you often get price improvements, lending even more credibility to this business model. Furthermore, I execute on the fly I have hardly ever used anything else than pure market orders to trade fx at IB. Try that with a bucket shop broker and you will be taken for a wider ride than you could have ever imagined. Market orders to trade futures also frequently make you worse off. I think I speak with confidence because I have been trading with IB for over 10 years now, of which I traded fx for over 3 years straight.
No, it is not bollocks. IB implements what is usually called "last look" which gives the LP the option of not taking your offer. IluvVol may not have seen this very often, because if you are trading very liquid pairs, or small amounts, it will usually look like your price is being taken. In fact, this is probably true for 99+% of the orders. But occasionally the LP will not take a price that was supposedly marketable. For example, I have seen limit orders to buy sitting at the best bid, then getting pulled and submitted to the LP with a matching or better offer, then rejected and put back onto best bid status. And this can happen for minutes at a time, which is very frustrating. Both posters are correct about price improvement, which is a great bonus.
I still beg to disagree. I trade 1-5 million in size very regularly and have so much confidence I put in market orders and get filled instantly at most of the times. I admit I dont trade exotics on IB, the spreads are not attractive enough (nor are they with any other retail broker). Yes, there was one incidence here or there where it took 1 second or 2 to get the fill but I can count those times on one hand so far this year.
Funny, I noticed that too and thought I was getting one up on them. Honestly, IB and QuoteTracker works great for me. Futures and equities mostly though, very new to Forex. I only used it for Forex recently because of (anticipated then actual) Fed action. I'm a noob to trading as of 2008 so take with a grain of salt.