Best solution for novice players

T

thomsonfx

Dear all fellows,

As a novice user, I dont want to use an expensive solution, however, I am also concerning fund safety and will not consider small brokers since even Refco can bankrupt. Attached is my highlighted spreadsheet with the exchange information.. ranked in excess net capital.. somehow relate to the fund safety am I correct ?

I have shortlisted the following solutions for consideration:

Interactive Brokers: initial funding is 5K USD, cant trade below this level :eek:

Tradestation: platform fee ~USD100 if not enough trades, what if I only trade in medium to long term ? :eek:

Oanda: monthly fee is expensive .. USD600 :(

eSignal with any broker: fixed monthly fee around USD80 :(

Neoticker: charge data source fee for around USD50 :(

Strategy Runner with its Partners (Man Financial for Futures/Gain Capital for FX): require large hosting fee right... :(

FXCM: hang at data release time, no way :(

CMC: only backtesting is available, no API exposed and most importantly requote heavily :(

It seems that Interbank FX with MT4 which requires only USD500 funding without platform fee is my only choice ? However, I notice that there are not few bad comments here for IBFX and I also downloaded their demo.. where I find out that the charting feature seems not impressive enough...

Any idea for where to start ? Please advise. Thank you very much !!! :) :)
 

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Quote from thomsonfx:

Dear all fellows,

As a novice user, I dont want to use an expensive solution, however, I am also concerning fund safety and will not consider small brokers since even Refco can bankrupt. Attached is my highlighted spreadsheet with the exchange information.. ranked in excess net capital.. somehow relate to the fund safety am I correct ?

I have shortlisted the following solutions for consideration:

Interactive Brokers: initial funding is 5K USD, cant trade below this level :eek:

Tradestation: platform fee ~USD100 if not enough trades, what if I only trade in medium to long term ? :eek:

Oanda: monthly fee is expensive .. USD600 :(

eSignal with any broker: fixed monthly fee around USD80 :(

Neoticker: charge data source fee for around USD50 :(

Strategy Runner with its Partners (Man Financial for Futures/Gain Capital for FX): require large hosting fee right... :(

FXCM: hang at data release time, no way :(

CMC: only backtesting is available, no API exposed and most importantly requote heavily :(

It seems that Interbank FX with MT4 which requires only USD500 funding without platform fee is my only choice ? However, I notice that there are not few bad comments here for IBFX and I also downloaded their demo.. where I find out that the charting feature seems not impressive enough...

Any idea for where to start ? Please advise. Thank you very much !!! :) :)
More...

If you are concerned about funds safety then spot FX is not the market for you.
 
Neoticker is a great foundation for charting, programming and backtesting; eSignal is good but expensive data for it.
Interactive Brokers has so many bits of software available, free and otherwise, that it's a great choice.
You can do your FX trading through IB, but I'm still using the CMC bucketshop account I set up before IB had FX -- and I don't see any requotes (like I did with another bucketshop).
Relative newb status here (contract programming pays well enough to force layoff from trading), but I'd recommend 2 books:
- Forex Trading for Maximum Profit (very brief but to the point), &
- Mastering the Trade.
 
I’d also recommend thinking about methods of your trading. Say, you’ll need to use some fundamentals or advanced MM formulas (OF, Kelly, etc) – not every program from the above provides the level of analysis you may need.
 
Thanks all fellows !

OddTrader: Oanda is too expensive for me... 600USD per month.. I am just in learning stage.

MTE: Does it mean that all spot trades' funds are held at broker's side and not guaranteed ? How is Refco's incident ? Can the clients get back their money wholly at last ?

amtrak: Neoticker is quite expensive..it's 1297USD or around 100USD per month, which is similar to Tradestation, eSignal alone costs USD85 per month already, IB has min deposit requirement which is 5000 USD and the account will be freezed if below this level. CMC does not offer futures contract for every months, it just mirror it and offer for the closest month. Also its spreads are very wide. I am now studying MetaQuotes 4 for InterbankFX and might consider WealthLab, which costs 650USD and it has a range of back-tested scripts for references. Thanks for your recommendations of the books.. I just ordered a copy of "Mastering the Trade" through amazon.. it's great I think.

kiwi777: I think my approach is to source a good platform in general first at the moment. I dont have an algorithm yet but there are lots of methods in the market. As soon as there are some methods available to make profits through the platform (pick an algorithm + back-test it) , it is ok.
 
Quote from thomsonfx:

Thanks all fellows !

OddTrader: Oanda is too expensive for me... 600USD per month.. I am just in learning stage.

MTE: Does it mean that all spot trades' funds are held at broker's side and not guaranteed ? How is Refco's incident ? Can the clients get back their money wholly at last ?

amtrak: Neoticker is quite expensive..it's 1297USD or around 100USD per month, which is similar to Tradestation, eSignal alone costs USD85 per month already, IB has min deposit requirement which is 5000 USD and the account will be freezed if below this level. CMC does not offer futures contract for every months, it just mirror it and offer for the closest month. Also its spreads are very wide. I am now studying MetaQuotes 4 for InterbankFX and might consider WealthLab, which costs 650USD and it has a range of back-tested scripts for references. Thanks for your recommendations of the books.. I just ordered a copy of "Mastering the Trade" through amazon.. it's great I think.

kiwi777: I think my approach is to source a good platform in general first at the moment. I dont have an algorithm yet but there are lots of methods in the market. As soon as there are some methods available to make profits through the platform (pick an algorithm + back-test it) , it is ok.
More...


ibfx isn't too bad but if you want to write your own app to interface with them you need to use the mt3 version and the mt4 doenst not have an available api. YOu can of course use their mq4 language but I woudln't trust it. Since you're thinking of trading around news headlines ... I would stay away from all fx brokers. Sooner or later ... they'll shut you down or start playing games
 
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