Quote from ElectricSavant:
fxvipservice,
So this is my point.
Until the Wild West of Forex gets a centralized feed (Reuters tried but it did not catch on) it is hard to ever know when a dealer is playing games with your account...it is hard to prove.
I think that all of the dealers are thieves...including Oanda...But that is just me...
It seems the business model does not support dealers to just make money off of the spread...or else their greed sets in after they mean well...
Forex is Global and until we get a one-world economy (Biblical) the various countries will not fall in line and use a centralized feed...it is impossible to regulate Retail Spot Forex.
If I wanted to open a Forex Firm, it is far too easy...I just need to come up with the money for MT4 and establish an entity...in ummm...the Bahamas...No offense fxvipservice..
ES
Quote from asiaprop:
there are no centralized feeds per se but there are aggregator platforms (lava, hotspot fx, ebs, reuters,...) that do exactly that and their price feeds probably correlate 98%+ with one global fx feed, if there existed one. I trade fx with interactive brokers for many years now and I very often enter market orders and can count the situations on one hand when I was dissatisfied with the fill.
People who flat out deny the benefits of trading cash over futures are either ignorant or have very limited trading experience, imho.
I agree with the OP in one sense, it comes down to the choice of broker. So far I have not seen any broker that offers MT4/5 platforms that deserves my trades, simple as that. But then I also do not trust Oanda either. I would never trade cash on a feed that does a) does not provide STP, AND b) ever had any sort of affiliation with shady broking practices (FXCM comes to mind, they claim they now also have a STP model but I would not touch them even with gloves).
Quote from Deserwest:
Last time i was active in FX (three years ago) I traded both IB and Oanda forex at the same time, as kind of a personal experiment. I like their (oanda's) feed particularly for scalping as the volume seemed deep enough to read the short term support and resistance quite well. I could not get as clear a read with IB because I think forex was a add on business for them at that time and their in house volume was not as deep as was Oanda's. On swing trades, i did feel quite vulnerable to stop running with Oanda, (still not near as bad as was FXCM's) but again, one persons experience statistically means nothing.
Maybe this is too simplistic, but it seems the logical solution to having stops hit is just to not use them. To do that, one must either scalp and manually stop or go really long term. I kind of like the idea of trading smaller amounts very long term in highly uncorrelated markets because trading costs are minimal, there are no stops to be hit. Forex is supposed to be one of the most trending markets there is and if that is true, then the whole thing is just a matter of trying to see the bigger picture and trying not to panic as it unfolds.
Some of the posters have suggested that data is subject to manipulation, and if that is true, there is no point whatsoever in even using any numerical data analysis, technical analysis, etc, as the garbage in garbage out rule invalidates every indicator or even simply eyeballing the live feed.
Quote from fxvipservice:
Hello and thank you for posting. The online trading game has certainly changed/progressed from 3 years ago. They system you suggest may work for you but if having stop loss or take profits is part of your sytstem/trading then I believe you should be able to use them without having to fear the brokerage(who should be your trading ally) would use those against me purposely is completely unacceptable.
Quote from marketsurfer:
How can any dealer be the traders ally when they profit from the trader's losses?
Quote from fxvipservice:
A dealer would definitely not be the traders ally. Not all brokers are running a dealing desk. There are brokers that are straight through processing all orders and are operating on a conflict free model.
Quote from fxvipservice:
So what is the value of using an introducing broker? ????
The power of a group, when you open an account it represents a small percentage of the brokerage deposits. Whereas when you open through an IB you leverage our volume relationships that we have established and even if you only fund a $500 account you are part of an IB group that may have millions on deposit and you will get that level of service.
There are many other benefits as well such as complimentary products such as education, training, mentorship, expert advisor programming, vps, managed accounts, backtesting, etc.
You also get the benefits of special promotions like 1 broker is offering 20% deposit bonus if you open and fund by month's end....
Good luck in your trading!