Quote from NickBarings:
Ddunbar,
You really sound like a lawyer for IB 
You say similar spikes in forex on news ?!
Please give us a specific example of such , not some volatility table, I have never seen spikes of more than 2 % intraday
Like I said they just need to increase their margin requirement
to protect themselves for such "unethical" trades.
So we can do "unethical" trades as long as the size is lower
than 5 million.
A restriction on size in the BIGGEST market in the world,makes
sense , yes
Not one of the other ECN's ; Currenex,Hotspotfx,Lavafx.....
has ANY size restrictions besides size in function of the
margin requirements and the bigger the size you trade
the higher the margin requirements, why doesn't IB do
the same ?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You probably haven't figured out the "hidden" agenda.
Why in the first place did Steve had to answer a PUBLIC question in a private way ?! any reason for that ?
LOL.
I know, you believe IB is a bucketshop/market maker in disguise.
But of all the ECN's you listed, none of them has a currency conversion service (ideal). <-- hint, hint. And Forex isn't all that big. Most of it is swaps on forwards. 1/3 of it is Spot. And of that 1/3, the bulk of it is interbank which none of us are dealing in.
BTW, Currenex and Lavafx are platforms (Like Reuters dealbook, EBS prime, HotspotFXi, FXall, espeedfx, baxter-fx,etc), not broker/dealers. Whoever your prime broker is, they are the ones who would give you credit and allow you access to these platforms. With no centralized clearing... this is the way it must be.
Hotspot (not FXi ) is the only ECN you listed and has margin of 50:1 and 33:1 or there abouts depending on size. And they might "limit" your order size depending on your trading history. I'm sure initially they will/do. Accounts for the 50:1 and 33:1 risk managed leverage.
CoesFx, another ECN, has 100:1 last time I checked. But They are different in terms of the number of liquidity providers. They basically have access to everything and everyone. They don't have a max order size. Plus they have choice to 1 p spreads.
Since IB allows you to trade many instrument classes, they keep it simple. Forex isn't their main game. Plus you can execute strategies that you simply couldn't do at the other ECNs. (If you know what I'm refering to, you know. If you don't, don't worry about it.)
You could always put in multiple 5m orders (eur). It's just an order size limit. Not a position limit. What's funny to me is that your paranoia seems to miss that IB is openly stating what the max order size is depending on pair. Ever think that this might also have to do with their matching algorithm also?
Oh yeah, as for specific example of a spike; I don't have that info offhand nor is it all that important to look up. You say 2% is the most you've seen. Great. Let's go with that. But again you seem to be ignoring the fact that a 50p or less move with certain strategies can lead to negative excess liquidity, instantly. There are also certain types of trades that you can make with IB that effectively double or qualdruple your leverage or more.
So why did Steve answer you privately? Well he told you why. But you believe there is something sinister going on. Hey, if you can prove it... awesome. Until then...
"Walk good mon."
