Am I crazy or is FXCM crooked?

C

cking74

I have been trading a little here and there with fxcm for about six months on a 100k account. Not an expert but my net is positive and I am getting a profit on about 90% of my trades.

SO today just before the GDP release I place two entry orders for GBP/USD. SELL 200K at 1.8542 with a stop at 1.8579 and BUY 200K at 1.8579 with a stop at 1.8542.

GDP data comes out and is very bearish for the dollar and yet I look with surprise as my sell order is hit and GBP goes down 1.8535. Uh, strange I thought. Then very quickly the GBP swings back around and my sell order is stopped out with a 37 pip loss and my buy order is tripped. Now, I rode my buy order up for a net 20 pip profit for the day so I cant complain too much.

And yet I was very bugged by this, how did the GBP drop about 16 pips very quickly on this news.

So I did some research and three other brokerages show that my sell order would not have tripped. Including Quote tracker with showed a low of 1.8551 at 12:30 GMT.

I called FXCM and all they said was they have a lot more banks and so their data feed so different from other brokerages.

I can only come to two conclusions:

1. One of the banks FXCM uses is very fast and savy enough to push the price down for just enough time to book a small short profit and then buy at a lower price for an even bigger long profit at the expense of FXCM clients. In which case why does FXCM use them.

or

2. FXCM falsely pushed the pair lower to trip stops on standing long positions and tripping new short positions that will quickly become losers.

Am I missing something???? Or do I need to bug out of FXCM and head to MB maybe?

BTW, if FXCM is doing this how have they not been shut down???

Thanks for any input.
 
This thread might get long, so I'll keep it short.

Yes, leave FXCM.

You have a lot of choices. In fact, if you have a $100K account, I'd split it up into several. To name a few, MB Trading, Interactive brokers, Oanda. In fact, I'd step up to hotspot FX. You might even be able to get on CurrenEx.

(Unless by 100k you mean FXCM's 100k account type. If so, then I'd pick MB, IB, or oanda. IB has the most order types. MB appears to have the tightest spread @ 1 pip. Oanda is just all around good fun.)

Why leave?

1. Fixed spreads? True interbank has no fixed spreads. Spreads are determined by liquidity. Though you can't directly play the interbank, using an ECN style broker closely approximates interbank dealing spreads which range from .05pips to 3 pips with an average 1.5 pips. And tECN style brokers do not trade against you.

2. News related spread widening can't last for more than 4-5 secs after the release and shouldn't go beyond 10-15 pips. For most news with the exception of FOMC and NFP, it shouldn't widen more than 8-10 pips during the first 4 seconds. After that, the spread should narrow back to normal.

3. Google "FXCM sucks!"

The list goes on.
 
ror, u aint tradin' against any banks...the bucketsh...errr fxcm desk takes every opposite side of your transactions. leave 'em at once if u desire to compete fairly.
 
Go to IB.....don't use places that trade against you....had I seen this trade earlier, I would have given you to REAL high and lows from EBS.....I have access to it......and also from Reuters.......

just don't trade with those people.
 
There have been a lot of threads stared here which explain the business model of bucket sh.... err, I mean brokers like FXCM.

There is general agreement on these boards that if you must trade spot FX, IB is one of the few shops which will give you fair service.

With a 100K account, have you looked into currency futures?
 
Quote from cking74:
And yet I was very bugged by this, how did the GBP drop about 16 pips very quickly on this news.
More...
16 pip moves is very common anytime, not just news events

Quote from cking74:
I place two entry orders for GBP/USD. SELL 200K at 1.8542 with a stop at 1.8579.........So I did some research and three other brokerages show that my sell order would not have tripped. Including Quote tracker with showed a low of 1.8551 at 12:30 GMT.
More...
I think the 5 pip spread is screwing up your math. Looks like quote tracker and FCXM was only off by 4 pips, and I assume the other brokerages you checked were even closer. The quotes you checked were probally BUY quotes, not SELL quotes.

Your SELL @ 1.8542 would get activated when the BUY reached 1.8547, thats only 4 pips off Quote tracker.
 
One of the banks FXCM uses?

These guys take the opposite side. Its how they make money. They ARE the bank. Its not like they use a pool of liquidity providers for the best price.
 
Quote from Jayford:

One of the banks FXCM uses?

These guys take the opposite side. Its how they make money. They ARE the bank. Its not like they use a pool of liquidity providers for the best price.
More...

Nono. They go to the bank when they are overload on one side that they dont want. Is like a bookie have 1 Mil buying steelers and only 500K buying the seahawks, and they think steelers's going to win. They will turn around and scratch some of the steelers bet to the other bookies.
 
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