Is IB own forex trading fair?

GloriaBrown · Aug 1, 2015

londonkid said:
because the liquidity is crap. Let's take the example of the British Pound. Trading a 10 lot in the 6B futures is $62.50 per tick often you cannot get that relatively small amount off at a single price level. That's the equivalent of 6 retail lots in spot FX. I believe you can clip off 1000 retail lots in spot FX with virtually no slippage, certainly a couple hundred no problem. Granted the euro is a little thicker in the futures and the $12.50 tick size helps but still anyone trading decent size will run into problems quickly with futures.

So if I want to trade FX, trade with IB FX is a pretty good choice and better than CBOT future?

i960 · Aug 1, 2015

Yes, although the one thing I do like about the futures is actually having access to volume.

I do trade 6E, 6J, 6B, and sometimes 6A and DX. I think EURUSD futures offer good liquidity.

GloriaBrown · Aug 2, 2015

Yeah at least we can see the volume with future. I think no volume IB future is only good for interdays, weeks, months trade then. For day trade with index future, my experience is that volumn matters a lot to determine turning point or a trend starts.

i960 said:
Yes, although the one thing I do like about the futures is actually having access to volume.

I do trade 6E, 6J, 6B, and sometimes 6A and DX. I think EURUSD futures offer good liquidity.

Pricechange · Aug 2, 2015

GloriaBrown said:
Yeah at least we can see the volume with future. I think no volume IB future is only good for interdays, weeks, months trade then. For day trade with index future, my experience is that volumn matters a lot to determine turning point or a trend starts.

Yes, with TOS I hold my trades 3-5 days with 6E and 6B. There is good volume there. If I trade intraday then I trade spot FX with TOS but IB is just as good or probably better as a broker for both. My problem is that when I trade spot FX I get stopped out many times a day. As a result, I try to look for longer trends and use FX futures options which help greatly to avoid getting stopped and riding the trend with better discipline.

GloriaBrown · Aug 2, 2015

Cool, what kind of analysis do you use? I still cannot find a good way to determine a trend start.

Pricechange said:
Yes, with TOS I hold my trades 3-5 days with 6E and 6B. There is good volume there. If I trade intraday then I trade spot FX with TOS but IB is just as good or probably better as a broker for both. My problem is that when I trade spot FX I get stopped out many times a day. As a result, I try to look for longer trends and use FX futures options which help greatly to avoid getting stopped and riding the trend with better discipline.