I haven't read good reviews about any Forex brokers

1a2b3cppp · Mar 16, 2009

Hi,

So for the brokers that charge commission, what is the usual commission and what are the spreads on the EURUSD?

Are the commissions dependent upon position size or are they flat like how Scottrade charges you the same commission no matter if you buy 1 share of 1000 shares?

Are there any brokers that charge commission that allow you to do lots small enough for $0.01 per pip?

IluvVol · Mar 16, 2009

some commission based brokers charge USD 5 per 100,000 lot. The typical spread I see in EURUSD, no matter whether in volatile times or quiet times is around 1.5-2 pips wide (ECN feed).

About micro lots I cannot comment cause I dont trade them and I dont recommend anyone who is so undercapitalized that he/she cannot trade 50k lots at the very least to do so either.

Hope this helps.

Quote from 1a2b3cppp:

Hi,

So for the brokers that charge commission, what is the usual commission and what are the spreads on the EURUSD?

Are the commissions dependent upon position size or are they flat like how Scottrade charges you the same commission no matter if you buy 1 share of 1000 shares?

Are there any brokers that charge commission that allow you to do lots small enough for $0.01 per pip?

1a2b3cppp · Mar 16, 2009

How much is 1 pip on a 100,000 lot? Is that the minimum at most ECN brokers? What margin requiremnts are there? I'm looking to trade really small so I can scale into things.

Second question, is that $5 per side or per round trip?

IluvVol · Mar 16, 2009

per side. And 1 pip on 100k would translate into 10 USD on xxx/USD pairs. You can trade as small as 20k positions on Interactive Brokers.

Please keep in mind that spread/commission is actually not the only cost of doing business. The huge advantage of a ECN like structure is that you wont observe any "funny" spikes during news events, spikes that by far exceed the real moves in the currency, simply because the nonECN broker chose to yank up or down the prices to run stops or shake other small fish out. Believe me you will be so frustrated after short time, unless you trade on hourly charts and 50pip moves dont mean much to you on volatile pairs.

Quote from 1a2b3cppp:

How much is 1 pip on a 100,000 lot? Is that the minimum at most ECN brokers? What margin requiremnts are there? I'm looking to trade really small so I can scale into things.

Second question, is that $5 per side or per round trip?

1a2b3cppp · Mar 16, 2009

Quote from IluvVol:

per side. And 1 pip on 100k would translate into 10 USD on xxx/USD pairs. You can trade as small as 20k positions on Interactive Brokers.

$5 per side? Ouch.

Edit - wait. It sounds like you're saying it's $10/pip, which means +1 pip in your favor and you're back to break even. That's not bad. Nevermind.

Ok so if you do multiples of that, like 20k position on IB, do you pay a multiple of the $5 commission? In other words, if I buy a 20k position, am I still paying $5 commission or am I paying $1 commission? And that's $2/pip then right?

IluvVol · Mar 16, 2009

check out the interactive brokers website, for instance. $5 was used as a general guideline and it applied to 100k lots. If you just trade 50k then you pay somewhat less. I dont even care because its a negligible cost of doing business. As said other factors are SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT. I pointed them out earlier.

Quote from 1a2b3cppp:

$5 per side? Ouch.

Edit - wait. It sounds like you're saying it's $10/pip, which means +1 pip in your favor and you're back to break even. That's not bad. Nevermind.

Ok so if you do multiples of that, like 20k position on IB, do you pay a multiple of the $5 commission? In other words, if I buy a 20k position, am I still paying $5 commission or am I paying $1 commission? And that's $2/pip then right?

cabletrader · Mar 16, 2009

Quote from IluvVol:

You call others liars without proof and in turn manipulate others' posts to make it sound they wrote what you in turn display to the board.

Hmmm, I see you didn't reply to the points I made which isn't any surprise really, but anyway.....

I don't believe I've ever misquoted you or 'manipulated' your posts in my replies, I simply snip drivel when quoting (especially when it's off-topic in someone else's thread), and section off posts I'm replying to in order to make my replies easier to follow for the more challenged among us, but even then some people still seem to find the replies hard to follow.

Quote from IluvVol:
I and others filed official complaints about you but you still troll around.

Official complaints, I see, as opposed to unofficial complaints? I'm not trolling, I'm simply replying to your posts from your various aliases.

Quote from IluvVol:
I have been trading in size for over 10 years and you come along and tell us some bs about how stable Oanda has been the past 6 months and how you believe in micro lot trading? This speaks for yourself you little wanna-be know-it-all.

Well you tell us you've been trading for 10 years but there's nothing to suggest that's true or that you have been trading profitably, in fact all evidence to the contrary if your naiive posts are anything to go by. But what's the connection between you supposedly having traded for 10 years and Oanda's platform being stable for >6 months?

And what's wrong with trading micro lots if that's what account size dictates.

You seem to have some weird fixation with trade size, it's only relevant to account size and risk, try to understand that simple and basic concept. I'm surprised you haven't come across it before, one would think it might have popped up during your 10 years of trading

Quote from IluvVol:
Everyone on this board knows that Oanda does not deliver the same liquidity/depth, spreads, and stable price feed than an ECN based broker can. How can you even dare to challenge that???

Liquidity on Oanda has already been explained to you, 10m limit per ticket but apparently no limit on the number of tickets.

Spreads are competitive, for example Eur/Usd .9, no commission.

Like I've explained to you several times now, Oanda's price feed and trading platform have been stable for >6 months without any significant outages. Sure they had problems in the past but they seem to have been sorted out now.

Quote from IluvVol:
I dont get it.

That much is patently obvious, and somehow I don't think you ever will!

Anyway, you have a great day doing whatever it is that you do

cabletrader · Mar 16, 2009

Quote from IluvVol:

The typical spread I see in EURUSD, no matter whether in volatile times or quiet times is around 1.5-2 pips wide (ECN feed).

.9 on Oanda.

Quote from IluvVol:
About micro lots I cannot comment cause I dont trade them and I dont recommend anyone who is so undercapitalized that he/she cannot trade 50k lots at the very least to do so either.

Why?

cabletrader · Mar 16, 2009

Quote from IluvVol:

The huge advantage of a ECN like structure is that you wont observe any "funny" spikes during news events, spikes that by far exceed the real moves in the currency, simply because the nonECN broker chose to yank up or down the prices to run stops or shake other small fish out.

There's another side to that coin, spikes can offer some excellent arb opportunities if you know what you're doing, plus they can trigger take profit orders just as easily as stop loss orders

cabletrader · Mar 16, 2009

Quote from IluvVol:

Believe me you will be so frustrated after short time, unless you trade on hourly charts and 50pip moves dont mean much to you on volatile pairs.

I scalp trade off an m15 chart, have done for years and I seem to do just fine as my posted trading blotters clearly demonstrate, there's dozens of them posted around here some place. That kinda dispels your "hourly charts and 50pip moves" theory!

Here's Thursday's....

31 trades, 27 wins +141 pips, 2 losses -9 pips, 2 break even, total +132 pips for around 4 hours trading. Average win 5.2 pips, average loss 4.5 pips, win:lose 27:2