Quote from TradEStar:
Excellent response..thanks for that perspective!

1) Yes.Quote from nealvan:
Ok someone help me out here. Mind is spinning 100 miles per hour but I need answers. I might have even missed something in my own thread is what I'm saying. I need to get up and running soon...
Few questions I need answered:
1) Is it true that most people in the forex business that you can trade through are considered bucket shops?
2) You get better fills though the real brokers that don't charge you any slippage pips but they don't have good platforms to trade from?
3)Are there any other direct brokers besides IB for comparison?
4) If I use IB will it be hard to place an order? If someone could please explain how I would buy let's say a pound/yen on IB vs using the bucket shops that charge pips... Is it similar to placing futures trades where you have to know the expiration date? Also how much would I be saving per trade.. I'm imagining that it must be about $50 usd a trade for this cross (pound/yen). I notice on the various free demos I've tried whenever I place a trade I'm automatically in the hole almost everytime by 50 dollars or more even on successful trades.
Thanks for your reply..Quote from Trader KGB:
2) You can use a variety of 3rd party platforms for several ECNs, usually there's an API solution.
4) No. No expiration date, try IB's demo for simulated order entry. One lot of GBP/JPY should be ~$40 in commissions with the current GBP/USD rate of 1.98xx.
Yes and no. They began on the institutional side many years ago, and as such, there are more institutional ECNs (with exponentially greater liquidity) than there are retail ECNs. On the bright side, the retail ECN environment is growing steadily, the barriers to entry of certain institutional ECNs are lowering, and the average spreads are roughly comparable amongst both marketplaces.Quote from KamiCrazy:
Hi,
Just a quick question, are ECN's relatively new? Is that why there aren't that many ECN brokers around?