My MB Trading spreads never were more than 2 on the Euro and 4 on Cable during the news releases today - same as yesterday - this is on a live account as well.

MB has advantages, but if you're looking for SERIOUS liquidity (IE over 250 lots) then you can't work with them. I believe (don't quote me on this) that their max is $25MM units per trade, although I'm not sure why you would be limited on an ECN, but i heard this from another forum - NOTE I haven't verified that yet with MB directly so take it for what it's worth.

Otherwise, MB is great - good case of today, during the releases you often would see the ask be lower than the bid - because there were so many sellers on the Euro and cable that the bids couldn't keep up quickly enough, so this was a great advantage and I did a bit of arb trading this way. Of course spreads will widen during news times, but it's only for a second, and you can get nearly instant fills with either MB or the CME. You can also see Level2 for any pair that MB has, so it's nice to see the order flow going in and out. I only recommend those who know how to do this to use the L2 quotes to trade off of.

Honestly it's just a case of what you're after - fixed spread brokers have advantages too - if you're a longer-term intraday or swing trader, you can use them because you can get with an IB that will rebate you or register yourself with the NFA and become an IB like i have to get rebates on your own trading. And you can sometimes pick off their feeds by using an ECN to get quotes from - FXCM is a prime target in this game, because they are so slow and you can pick them off left and right on the Euro by watching the Interbank feeds.

I like to add two things.

Real and hard things.

You are in 1912 in the Titanic. Hoy much you can afford? the first class? the second class? The difference was terrific for these unfortunately passengers.
You can watch this on any documental or the movie.

The same is with forex brokers.

How much you have is how you obtain from the broker.

At least, the Titanic crash with a big iceberg and goes to the deep of the ocean.

But, between the survivors the majority are which travel on first class. They were on top of the cruise and the first to take boats. The people on second class died.

The real truth.

__________________

Elite Links:TSD Elite Manual Trading | TSD Portfolio | Links: TSD Calendar | Suggestions to improve the forum | My Blog on TSD

??

It only takes $400 to open an account with MB Trading, or you can use OANDA and open with $1.

I suppose i see your point in the comparison, but it's really irrelevant since what you earn is completely up to you and not dependent on the work of the brokers out there. When you all realize that simple fact, you will be light years ahead of everyone else in this game.

anyone has comments about forex.com? they claim that the spreads are fixed even during news release time. thx

Thanks scott for your detailed explanation re MB Trading (http://www.mbtrading.com)

Probably MB Trading is one of the better brokers but -if Im right- its not a Metatrader broker.

So we have to split our survey.

Best technique trading currencies:
Spot market - Futures

Best broker in general (not offering Metatrader accounts)
MB Trading (http://www.mbtrading.com)
Oanda (https://fxtrade.oanda.com/)
InteractiveBrokers (http://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/main.php

And Best Metatrader Broker:
?????? (is there any Metatrader broker which can compete with Oanda etc?)

As there is an endless number of Metatrader brokers I suggest to post positive experiences chiefly, since the long list of bad brokers isn't very helpfull to find the 1-2 best brokers offering Metatrader accounts.

Me personally I have got demo experiences with Metatrader brokers only:

I found that Alpari (http://www.alpari-idc.com/) and
Neuimex (http://neuimex.de/) offer a tick flow rather steady whereas InterbankFX (http://www.interbankfx.com/) tick flow is so slow that you can't get a real market feeling.

Regards Martin


PS:
The arbitrage possibilites mentioned by you (scott) are very interesting. I opened a new thread to this issue:
Best Arbitrage
Perhaps you can describe there what instruments and margin requirements are important in this field. - who offers $ 500 margin (Interactive Brokers asks about $ 1.500 margin per Lot)?

----

Hi fellow traders,
I chat with both FXCM and IBFx to inquirer whether stop loss is guaranteed during very volatile market conditions, and they said that it is not. One reason stop loss can be ignored is in very volatile movements, there may be big gaps in price and so the stop loss may not be triggered.

This is a big disaster to a person's account!

Any comments?

Nothing's guaranteed in trading, but the way that they play this game of not honoring stops and slipping you out of hundreds of dollars is crap. If you use a non-dealing desk broker such as MB Trading or Interactive Brokers then yes your stop can get slipped, but it won't be by nearly as much as with those two bucketshops.

Good thread and good discussion,

If any of you want information on Metatrader platform who do not freeze the platform nor increase the spread during volatility, plz pm me and I will gladly help. And yes, they can rival Oanda IMO, I am using Oanda too. Their service is excellent. They do not work via a dealing desk and pass the quotes directly through interbank. Very competitive spreads and no slippage.

Cheers

__________________
www.elogfx.com
Forex Trading Journal for forex traders
Free 7 day Trial

Hi,

the idea (see posting #8 above) of trading Forex via Futures instead of Spot sounds convincing.

But in practice it's not so easy. During news times futures spread widens too. To about 20 pips maybe for some seconds only, but often that's enough to kill your strategy.

So my straddle stop trade today at BOE Meeting Minutes (04:30 est = 10:30 cet) resulted in 34 points loss cause both stops were triggered within 5 seconds before I could react manually see attached screenshot.

Fortunately that wasn't real money but my papertrading account.

Could you, Scott, perhaps explain how trading Futures sucessfully during news times?

Regards Martin

---

Attached Images

060816_1030_GBP_Loss.jpg (128.0 KB, 274 views)

Scott,
Have you done trades with MB immediately after the news release, or are you placing orders right before the news (straddling)? I have heard from a few traders using MB that they could not get filled at news time or they were slipped by 40 pips.