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Alot of those big corporates have serious amounts to move, which in turn can move the spot market, but that is only one portion of what they are doing. Alot of the spot business they transact is the cash portion of an big option strategy.

Im not talking about a retail operation when I said it wasn't a license to print money. Retail operations are indeed a money machine. I mean the interbank/wholesale market. I can't comment on the spread in a yard of EUR/USD since I never had to quote a rate in an amount that large, but we would...

There is something called risk people. Interbank dealers get paid to take risk. If you think it is a money making machine, you are sorely wrong. Sure there are some areas of the business that are just capturing spread, but for the most part there is always a level of risk involved. And its not...

By taking positions. Do you really think they are going to square every little position given to them considering the crap amounts retail traders do? If it were me in that seat I wouldn't worry until my position built up to 5 or 10 mio before thinking of trading out of it. Remember their...

1-2 pips is normal interbank spread

What kind of executions does IB give when the market blows through a level for any number of reasons? Even if it gaps 30-40 pips or so in reality I would expect a 10 pip fill at worst. What is the norm for IB under these circumstances?

Thanks Steve. I was under the impression from other posters that it the target price only had to be quoted. Your method is by far the most professional method of execution. I have only found it on one other system to date.

Just curious why you would want a buy stop for instance to be triggered when ask price=stop price. Personally I prefer my stops to be done when, on a buy stop for instance, bid price=stop price. In my 18 years of trading in FX, I have witnessed far too many instances where the market raced to...

I think IB's commission is more than competitive and in all reality if I were the one asking for a volume discount, I would expect to be turning over more like 400-500 mio per month. When I was an interbank trader I used to tell people that complained about my 2 pip spread in a 50 mio quote that...

Both IB Ideal pro and Hotspot (and I am sure some other ECN models) show 1 pip and even choice from time to time. Even with the commission added in it is tighter than 1.5 pips.

I regularly see 1 pip in 15 mio EUR on Hotspot retail platform and 1 pip in 25 or more on their Institutional platform.

Who are you paying for this data?

Hotspot charges $3 per 100k of whatever the base currency is, so its cheaper to deal eur and gbp than usd/jpy for instance. InterbankFX charges 0.5 pip of base currency per 100k COESFX charges a full pip All of these charges are per side, but actually not terrible since the spreads...

Because they are probably getting an Introducing Broker fee kickback from FXCM for every account they sign up. Thats why you have to open an account with FXCM. If it was just about making money, wouldn't they let you use whatever platform you felt comfortable with?

I don't think the Hotspot demo reflects their live rates. When I opened an account there they offered me a view of the live platform and the rates were very different than the demo. Why do you say the funds are much safer with IB?

Neither IB or Hotspot makes money on their spread since they don't make the market. They make money on the commission you pay. The more you deal, the more they make. It has been some time since I worked on a spot desk in a major bank but I believe the prevailing spread in EUR is 2 pips with 1...

I know RBS is pretty much one of the most lenient as far as credit terms go, but I don't think even they would extend a prime brokerage line (margin account maybe) very readily to an individual unless that individual had significant funds (over 1 mio GBP in my experience) and/or was FSA...

For all intents and purposes you are correct since I cannot imagine that anyone posting on this forum would remotely qualify personally for a prime brokerage account with a major bank to grant access.

I believe it is purely an institutional shop and you have to arrange prime brokerage relationship for entry. They don't have nearly as many prime broker possiblities or liquidity providers as some of the other platforms in this space (HotspotFXi, EBS Prime)

I don't understand why everyone is so hung up on paying spreads when dealing in FX. I never hear anyone complain about spreads or in the equity markets. Why is this so?