Hi. I am also looking for info on Alpari, especially from anyone that has a real account with them. I'm particularily interested in how it effects their account balance when open trades are closed and re-opened to credit/debit swap interest. According to demo backtests with Alpari, there is spread involved in every swap close/re-open and there often is slippage as well. So not only are you paying for spread/slippage when you first open the trade, you are also paying spread (about $3 per 1 lot I reckon) with the possibility of slippage also being involved, every 24 hours!!!
Obviously, this sounds ridiculous and probably is so I look forward to someone enlightening me

It's True. I just watched my GBP/JPY trade get swapped out, so now I eat the spread again (plus interest, of course)! I'm just glad I am demoing Alpari- isn't there one decent mt4 broker I can trade with? Or do I just use mt4 charting and trade with an ECN like EFX and just have my 2 platforms? That seems to be the best solution here. so discouraging.

FINALLY, someone else noticed it - I thought I was going crazy!!!
I could't believe it either when I noticed it. According to the backtests, the 'swap' spread is about 0.3 of a pip - so about 3 bucks for a full sized lot. And you witnessed the slippage as well... And they do this every 24 hours..........
To be honest I can't believe they could play with real accounts like this and am waiting for someone with a live account with them to say as much. Worse, as I suggested already, every EA would appear to need modification because when the order is closed/re-opened the ticket seems to be different, and would probably not work on live accounts either. Personally, I still don't have a MT supporting broker (I'm with Interactive Brokers) so I am not qualified to recommend a broker but none of the others pull this crap. WHC definitely have the best selection of tradable securities and possibly are the cheapest and apparently have no problem with scalping strategies. A possible downside is that they are new so unproven as yet. Another thing I just discovered about them is that their system will not accept market orders which include SL/TP info - your EA must place a 'plain' market order first, then 'Modify' it to set SL/TP, which is just silly........

Yeah I'm all done with Alpari. And you're right about the EA's- it must me near impossible to code them around this close/re-open business (SL/TP/Trailing). I opened my EFX platform up and re-entered my trade. I suppose the search for a "decent" mt4 broker continues. I'd appreciate it you find anyone better don't hesitate to post or PM. I don't even care about spread really (or slippage at news- I'm a long term trader). I just want a decent, safe, honest broker, but it seems I'm asking too much. Regardless, I hope people reading this will be careful and consider themselves warned about Alpari.

via email: " We have decreased our minimum deposit requirement to 200 USD
or equivalent in GBP, CHF or EUR.
It is possible to have one or more live accounts in any of these four currencies.
Please refer to http://www.alpari.co.uk/en/company-news/info/175.html for details."

via email: "We are now offering the possibility to trade micro lots. Minimum contract size
for all trading accounts (demo and live) is 0.01 of a lot (1,000 units of base currency).
This option has been enabled and there is no need to change anything in your MetaTrader.
Alpari (UK) Limited info@alpari.co.uk www.alpari.co.uk "

I spoke to them two week ago and they didn't have this offer , alpari is a good company and worth to try.

__________________
“Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing”
“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” Warren Buffett

I really like Alpari. They have micro 1k lots, and have all the crosses I trade (NZD/JPY, CAD/JPY). I havn't been able to find another broker that offers these with micro lots using MT4.
For example :
IBFX & 1WORDLFX have micros, but - No CAD/JPY
The others (FX-DD, MIG, RFXT, North Finance, Windsor, etc... - no micros

Anyways, Alpari is not licensed to open Forex accounts to USA residents, unless they are a registed trader with SEC. Therfore, I have to keep looking for broker.

I was wondering about LiteForex.

They have 100 units !! That's 1/100 of a
10k lot trade size. They are a Russian Company, registered in British Virgin Islands with IBA (International Business Companies Act ) for tax reasons. But, I thought financial companies there should be licensed by FSC (Financial Services Commision) ??

Their physical address (a PO Box - the same that a bunch of other companies use ) isn't listed on any maps on internet. Why they are registed with US trademarks and patents - I don't get that one ??

I'm interested in them, but I'm staying away. Too risky. Seems a little too sketchy to me - I don't know ? BVI companies get a tax break and have limited liabilty for legal actions. That is the draw for companies to incorpoate there I guess.

Anyways, back to Alpari. I like them the best. I just wish they would offer accounts to USA retail customers.

Velocity's server was slow as molasses today. I counted the response time in seconds for IBFX and Velocity. I did a "test" trade with a market order on each of the platforms.

I opened both IBFX and Velocity side by side. Initiated a long 0.01 lot on EUR/USD on both platforms. I also did same test on my PDA w/ the MT4 mobile platform for each server ( Velocity & IBFX)

Results :

Velocity : 18 seconds
IBFX : 2 seconds
Velocity (mobile) : 24 seconds
IBFX (mobile) : 3 seconds

I repeated this test every 15 minutes from 9 am PST to 10 am PST. All tests had similar results.

Another interesting thing I might add : No problems closing the same position on IBFX. It took same amount of time as opening. Velocity, however, would not let me close the postions all morning. It kept giving me an error message saying "off quote" ?? I tried every 15 minutes and still same "off quote ... off quote ... off quote, .... etc."

Their platform is closed now for weekend and the trades are now in the loss column instead of the win column which they would have been earlier when I tried to close them !!

For the last three days, I have had sporadic trade execution speed on Velocity demo server. I wonder if their real account server has same issues ? I think I will post about this on a new thread.

I'm now leaning towards IBFX to open real account with even though they don't have loonie yen.

Here's the irony : I have had a real account with O a n d a (without the spaces) for 2 years. I think that they have a very good platform and awesome customer service.

For instance, back in my crazy "news trader" days where I used straddle the news events, I had a BIG losing trade on cable. I had O a n d a reveiw it, and they not only reversed it, but gave me the "winning trade" instead of the loser the platform triggered. WOW !! What great customer service !! They refunded the $$ back in my account and gave me a healthy profit for the winner on top of that !!

The only problem with "O" is that they don't have a mobile platform I can access with a PDA when I'm 'out and about'. That's why I need a new broker for my latest "long term" system I use.

Alpari U.K. has applied to the NFA for licensing and expects approval around the end of August, 2007.
This will allow us common American folk to trade live accounts, which is not currently possible.