Guys-

A few notes based on emails that I’ve received and seen over the last couple of days.

1) Please don’t open an account with us right now with the intent of using Metatrader. As the OnLine Application states, that is for Navigator only. We are currently in Beta in MetaTrader only, which requires a specific process that five people use to get set up (and then another 5, and then another 5).

2) At this time, we have hundreds of applications for Live Beta testing, so we have enough people to work with. Thank you for your interest.

3) You can still get a Demo to play with, and we have several hundred running, although at any time, we might put a hold on the Demo sign-ups. Contact MBT University to get a demo username/password. Be prepared for the fact that we do code updates to Demo at any time, so it WILL go down occasionally, and this might mess up existing orders.

4) Several people have asked about the live versus demo spreads, and I already posted this one response (link to 2889). But additionally, let me state this. I saw someone say last night that “your Meta Demo is showing 6 pip spread on the EUR/GBP, but the live quotes on the website are almost always 1-2.” After you read the response that I already wrote, let’s please make sure that everyone understands this. We have thousands and thousands of customers trading on the live Nav platform, and ALL of their limit orders reflect into the quote, and of course, active traders are constantly throwing up limit bids and asks around the current price of the market. That’s the benefit of using an ECN…that you get all of that extra liquidity from the other traders. Those orders are real orders and can’t be routed into the Demo system. So yes, the Demo quotes, which are essentially just the banks and bigger liquidity pools, are what they are, but the live quotes on the site are very real and are what you would see with a live Meta or Nav account.

5) Please don’t ask when Metatrader is coming off of Beta. Beta is a live testing process that allows us to look for bugs that might come up from a certain style of trading, to spot issues with EAs and MQL, to make sure that our trade desk and other departments are prepared to handle issues that come up, etc. We aren’t going to be on Beta next week and Live the week after. It could be six weeks, it could be three months, if that’s what it takes to make sure that we are 110% confident in the system itself, but also in our ability to support the expected numbers. We wouldn’t be going into Beta if we weren’t comfortable with where the system is at from an execution perspective, but there are many other considerations beyond that.

6) Midnight maintenance does not exist in Meta Demo, but it currently does exist in Meta Live Beta. Before Meta comes off of Beta, we expect that midnight maintenance will no longer exist across the board for all Nav and Meta environments.

7) When Meta comes off Beta, historic data will be available in the software, the on-line application will allow for a Metatrader option (yes, you need a separate account), and the proxy issue for corporate firewalls will be resolved, among other items that people have asked about.

8) If anyone has a group of traders that would like us to discuss Meta with them in a webinar format to help answer questions and spread them to the community, please let me know.

Justin LeBlang
MB Trading