So I would like to exchange experience which broker is most feasable to trade news.

Pip-gandalf gave a very informative explanation of the difficulties you have to deal with when trading news:
Traping EA for NEWS!!

Oanda and IB got a 4stars reccommendation for example of
http://www.forexbastards.com/broker_reviews.shtml

How about IB (Interactive Brokers)? They claim to pass market spread to their customers, not earning on spread but on their commission (2 pips for small and 0.4 pips for big accounts with $5 minimum per roundturn).

So they usually offer a very tight net-spread (for example 1 net-pip in EURUSD resulting in 1.4 till 3.5 gross-spread depending on order and account size).

But what happens at news times? I would like to observe their spread today during FOMC rate decision. But not beeing a customer of IB I can see the 'Real-Time Forex Quotes' on their frontpage only: http://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk/en/main.php

Does anybody know if these IB frontpage quotes are the same as the Idealpro-Quotes you get, when trading with IB?

Kind regards
Martin

-----

I recorded the quotes of Alpari, IB and Oanda during todays FOMC decision. The video is available on my homepage: http://home.arcor.de/cam06/vids/

Oanda widend its GBP-spread to 10 and sticked to this spread for more than 30 minutes whereas IB widened its spread only for some seconds to 10 and immediately came back to about 2, as you can see in attached files.

In the meantime I got an email of IB stating that their frontpage quotes are nearly identical to their trading quotes.

So with IB probably I would have made about 34 pips profit whereas my Oanda StopTrade resulted in 26 pips.

Another advantage of IB is their market depth. Their disatvantage is that you need $ 5.000 for a small and $25.000 for a big account, whereas Oanda allows starting with little money.

Would be interested to read about your broker experiences during news times too.

Kind Regard
Martin

Attached Images

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	201622quotes.jpg (95.5 KB, 300 views)

Great clip.
What about execution?
Reqouting or not.
Lot size.
Rgds,
SFX

Does any of these brokers use MT4?

thanks

__________________
Forex traders MOTO:

"We obey no one, ........we are the superior-beings!" - Davros

Can you trade forex via the CME?

Hello.

I login into the forum to start a thread about this and i just read the post. So, is not sense to start another.

After the FOMC news of today, in all forums and groups people are talking about the spreads problems, execution problems.
But this problems are not new. Last friday same things happened.

Today in the morning one large retail forex broker send an email to their customer with the advice of not gurantee executions durings the news.

Another brokers have expressed the same. Some of them send and advice to their customer, meanwhile other keep hidding what they would do during the news.

Problems are serious, some people lost money because the broker do not fill the stop loss. Others, do not win money because the broker do not fill the entry orders.

Concerning about that, concerning about what the broker are doing with my money I started a research looking for a good broker.

Another big problem is the MT support because if you´re using this platform to trade, the best you can find is a broker which support them.

Personally I consider the dealing desk another problem. And I think the DD is the big guilty when your orders are not filled or the spreads widen more than the simple ECN volatilty.

Maybe here, we can find the best broker if all of our start a search and put here what they find.

My focus to the ideal broker is:

A futures broker (in the US) because:
.Futures are full regulated (Forex don´t).
.When I give my money to them, the broker must keep into a segregated account.
.The regulations are hard and have years.
.Futures brokers are audited by the cftc, nyse, cme, etc.
.Their could be or not members of the NFA (a)

The Refco case: All futures traders of refco can withdraw their money, meanwhile forex traders losed almost all.



I have contacted some brokerage houses. Some of them answer the question and others have a nice trap ready (b)

Interactive Brokers: you need 7500 to get your IRA. Do not support Metatrader and their own platform isn´t good. No DD. Low comissions. 1/2 pips spread.

Infinity Brokerage (Introducing Broker): you need 3500 to get your IRA. Do not support Metatrader and their own platform is good. No DD. Low comissions. 1/2 pips spread. BUT if you want to trade forex you need to open an account with FXSolutions.

MAN FX: you need 100000 to get your IRA (1 and 5 ceros). Do not support Metatrader and their own platform is good. Has DD. Low comissions. 1/2 pips spread.

MB Trading: waiting for the answer. Their plan to support MT in a future. EFX Group suppose to be the forex arm but, I preffer some answer from this guys.
(look the answer in the bottom)

Orion Global: you need 3000 to get your account. Support Metatrader. Seems to have DD for forex. No comissions for forex. 4/5 pips spread. BUT I donñt know in what country are located, seems to be switzerlad..
Thay have the best feed for futures.

Alpari-IDC (Russia): many traders here are using it. Better then than me to qualify. (c)

Neuimex (Germany-Switzerland): you need 2000 to get your account. Support Metatrader. Seems to have DD for forex. No comissions for forex. 4/5 pips spread. (c)


(a) A futures broker can be only NFA member (most of IB brokers are) but the federal law and regulation is valid for all.

(The NFA membrecy is an act of wishes).

(b) Some brokerage houses (Gain Capital, Peregrine Financial Group) sends you to another company which is "part" of the holding. Be "part" is not equal to "play with the same rules".

(c) In the demo, the quotes of silver, gold and futures has a hughe difference with the CME.

I keep searching.

About my answer to MBTrading:

Dear ******:

Thank you for your interest in MB Trading. Our platform, the MBT Navigator, is used to trade both Forex and equities (futures). As equities accounts are held separately from Forex accounts, you would need to open two accounts.

Raymi Chretien
MB Trading


I want to be clear with this: maybe there are some good brokers in another countries than in the US. But I don´t know anything about their regulations. I don´t know how FSA (UK) controls the forex brokers, maybe they do a better job than NFA or CTFC. I don´t know anything about regulations in other countries (Russia, Germany, Switzerland, etc) than in US because is where I have the accounts. I´m not living in the US.

__________________

Quick Elite Links:TSD Elite Manual Trading | TSD Portfolio | Quick Links: TSD Calendar | Suggestions to improve the forum

beginning roughly first quarter of '07 you can.

My point was that if you are going to trade news, don't do it via the Spot market. The futures stay 1-2 pips the entire move, the margins are better ($500 for intraday contracts that are worth $12.50 a pip) and your funds are safe. Spot has its advantages if you know how to play the games with the dealers, but if you don't, then go to the futures market and play on a level field in terms of data/price quality.

Someone mentioned MB/EFX - they are good for Spot, and their platform is very user friendly. I am considering moving some funds over to EFX.

COESFX is another ECN choice, but I don't like them nor their platform, for various reasons that are available on Google.

Thanks for your post Shahzadfx,
Best News Broker

till now Im trading small money with Oanda mostly and never had execution or requoting problems.

As I can judge for myself only, my experience is:

1. Metatrader is a great piece of software, especially if you are able to program your own EAs and have got enough time to test them with strategytester. So you really can learn what's working and whats not working. Maybe some day some day I would use EAs for automatic trading, but until now I dont. And a Metatrader Broker as reliable as Oanda, I didn't find such a broker till now. So I use Metatrader for demo and testing puroses only.

2. Paper- or Demo-Trading is very important. I think nobody should start without this experience. And the next step is trading with real money, is often said. I think thats dangerous, as trading with real money creates feelings totally different from Demo-Experience. So I pledge to trade small money as next step and that's done best with Oanda. I don't know any other broker where you can trade 100 units instead of 0.1 lot = 10,000 units. When you are able to trade sucessfully 100 units you can go on trading 0.1 lots.

And to answer your last question re lotsize: That's what Im doing now: I just trade 100 units testing my news strategy.

-------------------
Thanks for your post Linuxser too,
Best News Broker

you gave a great overview and a very informative list of brokers.

Re Neuimex Im not really sure if they comply whith strict German trade regulations. Another point: Testing them I found that they limit trade size to 2.5 lots in their demo at least, whats unacceptable to me when trading big size in step 3 (see above).

Would be interested which broker is the best in your personal view.

Testing a lot off brokers in my view isnt really possible since testing means learning for weeks, a big investment of time you can't waste several times.

So I hope this thread brings up a small collection of 3-4 brokers worthwhile to try.

regards Martin

---

Thanks for your post scott TTM,
Best News Broker

Could you explain what advantages the broker MB Trading (http://www.mbtrading.com) has got in detail?

Seems a great idea to trade futures instead of spot cash.

Probably you will need a real broker like IB, more funding money and more learning time, but if the results are better this may pay.

And you are right, mostly the spread stays 1-2 pips, but unfortunately thats not sure. Often the future spread widens to 10 or 20 pips for some seconds, so that a stoptrade strategy with a narrow stoploss may be dangerous.

To compare futures and Spot quotes during news times I recorded a new video showing the time from 14:25-14:40 cet (=08:25-08:40 est) in comprimated form of one frame every 5 seconds.

Playing this video in windows mediaplayer you can go forth and back with slider comparing chart and quote development during todays news of US Trade Balance and initial claims.

The video <060810_Balance_1425-40.avi>is available for download on my homepage: http://home.arcor.de/cam06/vids/
To download rightclick the file and choose 'save as'.

As you can see at 14:30:06 the futures spread was 20 pips.

Kind regards
Martin

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