FX dealers don't trade "against" you - anymore than the floor or the specialists in New York do... they take the other side - Anyone who takes the other side is trading against you.... ECN, Desk, etc... UBS, RBC, etc... They bundle the deals and lay them off - most even use automatic pass through when the deals aggregate to certain sizes - say for every 10 million long EURUSD, they sell a delta equivalent to hedge their exposure. A good "dealers" job is to "know when to hold them and when to fold them" - Sure most retain accounts will lose - that trend has been followed in the PutCall ratios, the COT reports etc... but when you trade with a legit desk, you a regiving them a position - it is up to them to decide if they want to keep it or not - if you are selling, and they think the market is going down - you better believe they will lay that off.... the only difference between a trader and a dealer is the trader gets to pick his positions... A lot of these market tales are urban legends - like the "stop sharks" that go looking for your stop... The early shops had idiots on the desk... and sure when they could they would reprice, push the market a few pips at the highs and lows... but most desks have too much volume to manage that level of granula detail to come get your couple of hundred dollars in the midst of thousands of trades... If you aren't comfortable with letting the desk "see your hand" then set an alert and go to the market when the alert is hit. in the real early days, you used to call and give your side and size - then you would get a quote...still traded - still made money... I'm sorry, I usually lurk - didn't mean to rant... but this seemed innocent enough when I began... short answer - I like Gain and GFT - SAXO will editorialize their position - and not US based... FXSOL took 4 hours to get a trade done so they were dropped (they may be better now) - check the capitalization on the NFA/CFTC sites as well as any reparations.
if u are a long time lurker u better check all those threads specifically dedicated to all those problems u say don't exist: stp huntin'/price manipulation/ backin' off from quotes/acct defraudin'/spread widenin'/etc. lemme guess, all those complains are completely unfounded and practices like these are just not standard in da industry... u cannot be serious to compare a fair ecn model with a creepy bktshop...of course if u believe all that crap fx brokers feed into u...... also it doesn't take a huge imagination to understand what is possible to achieve on stocks compared to fx; look at da spread/ commish/intraday movements and finally charts...just plain arithmetic isn't it.
any US based company who offers FX to US customers is required to be an FCM - posting minimum cap requirements - and letting variious agencies look under the kimono Key words - US based - US customers
doesn't matter... those spreads are not competitive to start with... http://fxsol.com/spreads_and_margins/spreads_and_pairs.asp ...perhaps if you make the effort to explain more about your game plan / your requirements, you'll get more relevant advice that may save you time / spare you a few pitfalls... just a friendly suggestion...
I'm not here to preach or convert - you believe what you want.... It's like saying you have a rotten tomato so all tomatoes are bad and the tomato market is crooked... I trade equities, FX, and futures - I'm not religious about any market.... but to say the currency floor is superior to a cash desk is simply wrong.... and NO, I am not recommending anyone go to a bucket shop - any more than you should trade at a prop shop that is not legit - or a Florida options house and buy Heating Oil calls.... or a used car dealer who is known to put banana peels in the rear ends to make them quiet. But some prop shops are good, and the energy markets are fine - so are options - and I don't buy new cars - so that means I am always buying from a used car dealer or an individual. Dealer mark up, cup holders, etc... - but if you truly understood how those ECN's worked, you would stay away from them as well - COES has had issues, HOTSPOT is an ok fallback to your primary desk if you need to offset - but you have no guarantee of performance through them. But as the old adage goes about restaurants and movies - bad news travels quicker/louder than good news - so for every 10 compaints - there are likely 90 guys just minding there own business trading..... Three levels of life: 1) - you don't know and you know you don't know - you're a sponge - reading, learning, asking, etc 2)you think you know but you still don't know - now you're dangerous - to yourself and everyone around you if you survive level2 without being sent back to level 1 then: level3: You know what you know, but you know you don't know it all - you have the hubris to know there is a big universe out there - but you can say grace over some things with certainty lurking mode on
thks for the valuable insights. do you mind elaborating on this part plse, notably, say i trade HotSpotFXi via my prime broker RBS for instance, i get partial fills from institution XYZ at T, they do a refco at T+1, shld i expect RBS to notify me that these fills are now revoked and i am still in position?
sorry, but this is WRONG! 1/ you are not trading in the spot market. you are trading against a bucket shop, so in reality there is no liquidity. 2/ GLOBEX has the third highest liquidity of ANY fx platform. ONLY EBS and reuters beat it for liquidity (just in case any of you are trading in the real inter bank market - which i doubt). to be honest though - i really dont know why most people on et/fx go on and on about liquidity. lets face it, given the understanding most people seem to have here, it is clear they cant be trading much size - so i wouldnt have thought liquidity would have been an issue at all. maybe they talk liquidity cos they think it sounds big. who knows. i hope this helps. p.s. margin for eurofx futures is about $2800, not $5000 like i think someone mentioned earlier. you only put this up if you hold the position past the hourly globex shut down (close). most good brokers will let you day trade on 1/2 or 1/4 margins - often less depending on your track record and relationship.