Quote from Eric215:
Yes, I realize you can spread the futures or make synthetic crosses, another words. But this requires much more margin and has higher transaction costs. Obviously you would have to pay twice the margin with this set-up, when compared to spot crosses. Plus with the spot rates form a dealer, each trade is prepackaged and gives a pip cost, as opposed to figuring all this out for each trade involving a cross. Sure I could create my own formulas through a spread sheet for each synthetic cross, but this is way more cumbersome then just using a spot dealer. Not to mention charting the crosses is also easier through the spot market. So, there are several reasons why I would still prefer spot over futures any day of the week, with or with out a centralized exchange.
Quote from TraderZones:
there are a LOT of reasons to prefer futures over forex, as has been gone over quite a few times in other threads.
Among others:
futures are SEGREGATED funds. Look at what happened to Refco futures accounts vs, forex accounts.
forex dealers are famous for screwing up /fronting/whatever the trades of their customers.
Quote from Eric215:
We will have to agree to disagree. I would never even consider switching to currency futures for several reasons that I already stated including margin, my specific strategy, frequent cross trading, etc. Granted having a segregated account is an added layer of protection in case of a firm bankruptcy, but if this is a concern there are UK account holding options. In my opinion currency futures are a terrible alternative for a diverse FX trader, like myself. All this nonsense about the dealers being scammers who are out to screw their customers is another pile of bologna in my opinion, which is propagated by losing traders in an attempt to blame someone else for their losses or poor stop placements. I'm sure that there are some shady dealers, but I have used a few of the larger ones over the years and I have never had one, yes not even one, issue with them. But to each their own, I suppose.
Quote from Eric215:
We will have to agree to disagree. I would never even consider switching to currency futures for several reasons that I already stated including margin, my specific strategy, frequent cross trading, etc. Granted having a segregated account is an added layer of protection in case of a firm bankruptcy, but if this is a concern there are UK account holding options. In my opinion currency futures are a terrible alternative for a diverse FX trader, like myself. All this nonsense about the dealers being scammers who are out to screw their customers is another pile of bologna in my opinion, which is propagated by losing traders in an attempt to blame someone else for their losses or poor stop placements. I'm sure that there are some shady dealers, but I have used a few of the larger ones over the years and I have never had one, yes not even one, issue with them. But to each their own, I suppose.