Can any forum members using Hotspot give some idea of the swap rates and spreads (if any) it offers to its retail customers? In addition, a comparison of these costs with typical interbank swap rates would be particularly welcome. For example, as of March 17, for EUR/USD, a daily swap point of 0.7/-0.75 (short/long) with a 0.05 spread is considered competitive in retail FX, isn't? Can Hotspot retail offer better terms? Thanks!
I trade with Hotspot and have been running some positions in Eur. I just checked my log from last week and their EUR/USD swap was 0.67/0.64. I believe that is pretty much an interbank rate.
I don't have any complaints. The spreads are as good as any I have seen and liquidity is more than I would ever need. Platform stability has never been an issue in the 4 years I have been dealing with them. Only complaint is not being able to leave contingent orders, but alot of single bank platforms I have traded on don't accept them either.
Many Thanks, taboni, for your helpful replies. I actually spent a recent weekend reading through all your posts, from the first one in 2003, and learnt a lot from them. I'm sure there're many other forum members who, like me, appreciate your valuable contribution to this forum. Please keep up the good work! I use IB and Oanda at present, and am seriously considering adding Hotspot retail. Since Hotspot's interest rates on margin deposits are on the low side (http://www.hotspotfx.com/openacct/faq/), I'm trying to do a little number-crunching and guesstimates to work out the minimum amount of trading required for me to recoup the "lost" interest (through spread and rollover savings). I appreciate that an ECN like Hotspot has many important advantages - from reading your posts and other articles - but I treat FX trading as a business and am rather cost-conscious. For this reason, I wonder if I might trouble you to provide some rough idea on spreads on Hotspot retail for the following pairs: EUR/USD USD/JPY GBP/USD USD/CAD USD/CHF USD/SGD AUD/USD NZD/USD AUD/NZD EUR/CHF EUR/GBP AUD/JPY EUR/JPY GBP/JPY EUR/CZK EUR/HUF Thanks again!
taboni, I am interested too about what are real spreads for retail accounts(especially for crosses). Very often there is a big difference between live and demo . Thanks again for Your efforts.
Thank you for your kind words, I have been trading in FX for nearly 20 years and I realize most people on this board are a little undeducated in the ways of the professional market and I'm just trying to dispel some myths. It actually amazes me the prices, etc that retail traders are getting these days because when I was dealing, small accounts were happy to get 5 pips, let alone 1 or 2! Anyway regarding the spreads at HS, they are pretty much in line with what IB is showing from what I hear. EUR/USD 1-2 USD/JPY 1-2 GBP/USD 3 most of the time (not sure during Asian time zone) USD/CAD 3 USD/CHF 3 (although I have seen 2 during London time) USD/SGD don't offer it AUD/USD 2-3 NZD/USD dont have it yet but coming soon they tell me AUD/NZD will be added with NZD/USD EUR/CHF 2 EUR/GBP 1.5-2 AUD/JPY 3 EUR/JPY 3 GBP/JPY 5 CHF/JPY 3 EUR/CZK dont offer it EUR/HUF dont offer it They do have USD/PLN and EUR/PLN, 20 pips each and EUR/SEK 30 pips if you are so inclined. Hope this helps. I understand they are now showing live prices on the demo, which is an upgrade to their old crappy demo prices.
Thanks again, taboni. The spreads info is very useful for comparison purposes. I fully agree that retail traders have a better deal these days, compared to the not too distant past, in terms of transaction expenses. Let's hope that people apply themselves to take advantage of these cost savings to make a little profit. I'll also check out the latest Hotspot demo thoroughly as soon as I've some spare time.
Hotspot demo prices are close to what you get on the live platform. You can also email them and request a live account be setup for you just to view the live spreads. I have been using their retail platform for about a month now and have no complains so far.