You obviously haven't looked at them. When it's a premium you should recieve it's Way under market IRD. But when you are "hedging" and it the premium goes against you they wack you for the entire amount.
Example: On the USD/JPY long they would pay you a premium of $7.48 (most brokers pay around $13-$14). But if you were to "hedge" and go short they charge you $23.73! This is a more expensive enviroment to play both sides in. Bottom line is I think they are ok but don't try and argue that a carry trade or a "hedge" trade is a good deal with them. Anyone that believes that hasn't a clue about IRD/Rollover/Swap policy. EDIT: Those above figures are per standard Lot per day.
Thanks for replying. I really don't mean to ream you guys, but I wont stop being a skeptic. I notice that 3d Forex is located in 1926 E Maple, El Segundo, CA. In fact, sharing the exact same address as MB Trading futures. This doesn't really put me at any ease about my suspicion about the tight relationship. But why do you publicly defend yourself as an "ECN" by saying "all our orders go to our liquidity provider" when that entity is located in the exact same building? This is why I think you misrepresent yourself. A person can be fooled into thinking you are objective to your customer's positions when you claim you are independent from your upstream provider. But this independence seems to be in your corporate registration only. Smells like fish.
I have, and you are right. USD/JPY happens to be a pair that would be a bad one to hedge with. Look at all of them.
The wall street journal has a good article on currency brokers. Sorry, I don't have the link to the non-pdf version.... http://online.wsj.com/documents/print/WSJ_-B001-20070106.pdf
Ok, a few more then... GBP/JPY- Pays: $5.97 (Should pay close to $24 per day) Cost: $15.84 (Lower than most pay (idea here) but still 3x what they pay) USD/CHF- Pays: $4.96 (Should pay $8-10 to be in line with others) Cost: $10.74 (Again Cost is double what the premium is) *I'm not trying to bash EFX/MBT (I think they are ok for daytraders). All I want is the truth out there about their IRD policy and for someone to say they like their rollover policy (payout/cost)... Well, mabye that person has a plan like with the GBP/JPY up there but still they charge 2-3 times what is paid. That is just way out of line. So here is an idea- Carry trade with Oanda (Pays $24 premium) on GBP/JPY per day per lot, and short carry with EFX (Cost $15.84 per day per lot). If you can manage 10m in position size this would earn you $8.16 per lot or $816 per day on 10m. That would be around $297,840 per year with a complete perfect hedge. Good luck. ***Only concern is sometimes brokers screw with the IRD so be carefull.
Benajnim, Your inquiry is very welcomed. The ECN technology (3D Forex) is a separate company and joint venture that was developed in part by the principals of MBT. However it is an autonomously run company and of which MBT is a customer. You will see in the near future that the location etc will be completely different and it will operate with an entirely separate staff. The point in all of this is that it is an ECN/Direct Access brokerage for Forex. All the routing that I have previously explained is still the same. Regards, Steve
I've noticed the lending cost on USD/JPY has jumped in the last day or so over at Oanda. Perhaps in anticipation of a further rise should the BOJ raise interest rates....
I've been doing just this. The bigger concern is market swings. Yeah the position is hedged, but you need to keep a whole lot of cash in whatever account is going down to prevent a stop.