I've been trading forex about a year and have slowly improved consistency/discipline, etc as I have narrowed in on my set-up of choice and am now working to master it.
However, I'd like to know if the following scenarios are simply "part of trading" or indicate a problem with my broker.
I live in the U.S. and use a major ECN broker for my trades, but a separate vendor for my charting software. (The 2 accounts are not linked).
I've had several occasions in which I was stopped out for what was initially unclear reasons.
After calls to my broker, I figured out that the charts on both my brokerage and charting sites use the MID price when displaying candles.
The charting software also uses aggregate prices to form the candles, which may vary to some degree from the book of Bid/Ask held by the broker.
If I switch the chart to Bid or Ask, I was then able to see the variance of price specific to my broker and identify that my stop had in fact been hit.
Ok, I get it. That seems to be just a part of trading.
But last week I had a very strange situation when trading AUDCAD on the H4, I had a sell limit order that was awaiting the breakdown of price. I had put that on around 9:50a local time.
At 2p, my order executed AND was stopped at...both at the same time.
It turns out there was an abrupt widening of the spread around that time (for reasons I can't really identify) AND both my entry and SL orders had significant slippage.
This was identified by checking the BID and ASK-based charts; this was a very different appearance than the MID-based chart on my charting platform.
(As in, my $2 of risk on my micro trade resulted in a $3 loss).
I called the broker and talked to a confused agent who then put me on hold for 30 minutes and never came back.
***Is this normal?***
***Is this just part of trading?*** (It feels very much like what I imagine 'bucket shops' were in days of old).
I just found this experience demoralizing as I am starting to find consistency.
In the near short-term, I'm going to start checking the BID and ASK charts prior to putting on a trade.
This feels like algorithmic stop-hunting...not specific to me...but because others probably saw a setup in the same area resulting in a bunch of clustered orders. (I don't believe any broker cares about MY micro trades, but rather the clustered trades).
Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
However, I'd like to know if the following scenarios are simply "part of trading" or indicate a problem with my broker.
I live in the U.S. and use a major ECN broker for my trades, but a separate vendor for my charting software. (The 2 accounts are not linked).
I've had several occasions in which I was stopped out for what was initially unclear reasons.
After calls to my broker, I figured out that the charts on both my brokerage and charting sites use the MID price when displaying candles.
The charting software also uses aggregate prices to form the candles, which may vary to some degree from the book of Bid/Ask held by the broker.
If I switch the chart to Bid or Ask, I was then able to see the variance of price specific to my broker and identify that my stop had in fact been hit.
Ok, I get it. That seems to be just a part of trading.
But last week I had a very strange situation when trading AUDCAD on the H4, I had a sell limit order that was awaiting the breakdown of price. I had put that on around 9:50a local time.
At 2p, my order executed AND was stopped at...both at the same time.
It turns out there was an abrupt widening of the spread around that time (for reasons I can't really identify) AND both my entry and SL orders had significant slippage.
This was identified by checking the BID and ASK-based charts; this was a very different appearance than the MID-based chart on my charting platform.
(As in, my $2 of risk on my micro trade resulted in a $3 loss).
I called the broker and talked to a confused agent who then put me on hold for 30 minutes and never came back.
***Is this normal?***
***Is this just part of trading?*** (It feels very much like what I imagine 'bucket shops' were in days of old).
I just found this experience demoralizing as I am starting to find consistency.
In the near short-term, I'm going to start checking the BID and ASK charts prior to putting on a trade.
This feels like algorithmic stop-hunting...not specific to me...but because others probably saw a setup in the same area resulting in a bunch of clustered orders. (I don't believe any broker cares about MY micro trades, but rather the clustered trades).
Any other thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
