Would your rather pay the pip spread or a fee

http://www.hotspotfx.com/main.jsp
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/main.php
http://www.mbtrading.com/default.asp

HotSpot FX
Net Excess Capital: $7,602,534
CTFC Registered
NFA Member
Min Deposit $7500
Min Contract 100K
50:1 Under $100,000
30:1 Over $100,000
$3 Com. Per 100K
1-3 Pip Variable Spread

Interactive Brokers
Net Excess Capital: $154,151,918
CTFC Registered
NFA Member
Member NASD
Member SIPC
Min Deposit $2000
Min. Contract 25K - Any Size Thereafter
Max. Contract 5000K
50:1 Leverage
$2.50 Com. Per 50K
$20.00 Com. Per 1mil
0-3 Pip Variable Spread

MB Trading
Net Excess Capital: $922,624
CTFC Registered
NFA Member
Member NASD
Member SIPC
Min. Deposit $400
Min. Contract 10K - Any Size Thereafter
100:1 Leverage
$5 Com. Per 100K

You also might want to look at:
http://www.propfx.com/ Min Deposit $10,000
http://www.batteryfx.com/index.html

*Net Excess Capital last time I checked.

Thanks Dunbar

 

www.knight.com/EquityMarkets/hotspot.asp

 

Just to make it more comparabel:

IB charges $2.50 minimum per Trade (or 0.0002).

So for an optimized cost structure you have to trade
$125.000 lotsize or even larger.

Then you get
$2.50 Com. Per 125K
(Halfturn)

MBTrading is charging
$5 Com. Per 100K

-->
So MBTradings Commisions are at reasonable sizes > 125k
2.5 times IB's Commisions !


Only advantage of MBTrading:

You can use flexible Position size trading Mini-Lots at

0.50$ for 10k

(where IBs is still minimum $2.50 for 25K !).

Regards
Joerg

 

Are you paying a spread and commission ?

 

This whole discussion strikes me as a bit odd.

The fact of the matter is that there are spreads in all markets all the time. As a retail customer you are always buying at the offer and selling at the bid. That's true in stocks, futures, forex, and everything else regardless of how you are trading them.

In exchanged based markets there are commissions and things because of the brokers needed to execute the trades and the exchange fees.

For dealer based markets like forex, it's all about spreads, and mostly not about commissions. At the same time, though, you don't have the exchange as a support structure.

The question you have to answer is what are you getting for the commission you're paying? In some markets you can't avoid them. In others, like forex, you have an option.

 

You are always paying spreads and commisions!

Most Retail broker charge commisions by adding 1-2 pips to the spread, ECN type broker charge commision and let the spread
tight.

Joerg

 

So when Oanda executes on 1.5 spread in EUR/USD they in fact are "ghosting" the prices...is that what you are saying?

If this were true then quotes from E-signal (with 200 plus vendors) would be different from Oanda's at that instance...which is not the case...

So how does Oanda do it?

Michael B.

 

No idea how they do it exactly.

I guess OandA's 'Hedging'-Algorithm/Routines are much smarter then the one of they competitors.

The large customer base at Oanda gives them the opportunity to match orders from one customer to another.
In this case the got the whole spread without hedging any position.

When you take a look at execution speed of the API of an ECN (like IB) and the Oanda API you seee a huge different.

Oandas API is not allowing you to send 10 orders in a second.
Every Order takes at least 5 seconds to be accepted.

So in any case Oanda gets plenty of time to 'find' a way to hedge your position.

But Oanda is of course unique somehow and worth to take into
account when looking for a broker.

I personally trade both Oanda and IB
(with automatic trading via API) .
IB for the fast game (scalping-style), Oanda for the higher timeframes by using flexible position sizing there.


Joerg

 

"As a retail customer you are always buying at the offer and selling at the bid. That's true in stocks, futures, forex, and everything else regardless of how you are trading them. "

patently false. it is true in the cash forex market

it is NOT true in the futures and stock market

i buy the bid and sell the offer all the time

the book does not discriminate, except on account of who gets in first. if you put a bid in at price X, and there are 5 people already there, then when people execute market sell orders (selling on the bid) you will get filled at the BID when 6 total lots go through.

if you don't understand this, then you need to go back to trading 101. this is how trading works.

 

Check again...Oanda needs two seconds now...not five (and you trade at Oanda with their API and you did not know this? hmmmmm.)