Going offshore to escape the CFTC

Well, to me, it’s just the broker trying to be a bit more efficient / profitable, and there is
some logic to it. When MT4 sizes of 0.01 are permitted, it’s clear that the large
liquidity providers simply don’t deal in anything less than 1.00 or higher lot sizes.

Therefore, there appears to be a a need for an “aggregator” which assists in
accumulating larger sizes which will be executable at the inter-bank liquidity
level. At some stage, clearly this has to happen.

I discussed a 700 millisecond Order turn around time with one of the brokers on
our list. This was explained to me, and they could bypass this aggregation
function. That immediately resulted in execution times down in the sub-200 millisecond range.

We are locating VPS’s in Amsterdam, and this greatly decreases the latency to
many brokers’ backends as well… About 1 millisecond ping time.

But let’s not expect too much from a retail low cost platform such as MT4. If you
trade in the Big Leagues, and depending upon your Strategy, there are significant
differences among brokers.

Further details, I can’t really discuss due to confidentiality… But I’ve said before that
if execution speed and consistency are important for your trading plan, that you can
request the broker provide you with better connectivity…

After all, very few traders are Primarily dependent on execution latency and consistency.
We ain’t doing “arbitrage” on a low cost MT4 retail platform, right ??? Evaluate your
trading approach, and be honest how much of your plan depends upon "sheer speed"
anyway (within reason) ?? JUST A THOUGHT.

If you don’t ask, you won’t get ??..

hyperscalper

You are talking about 700ms, I am saying 7-10sec or longer freezes. When you pull a 1 min chart,
you can see gaps.
The last US UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBER, Fxchoice froze for over 10 sec or longer.
I wish I recorded a video. I have never seen it that bad.

With TradersWay we get around 10ms ping, end everything works great.

OK, yes, that is completely unacceptable; assuming it is not something wrong on your
ISP end of the internet or equipment ! There are a lot of links in the chain, you
know. But if a broker freezes consistently like that, then that is a major problem.

It’s President’s Day so not much happening in Forex right now, but here is an idea
of the difference between data flow rates (tick rates) of Tradersway.com versus FinProTrading.com.
The latter pushes maybe 4x - 7x more ticks to the client platform. This data is from a VPS in
Amsterdam 1 millisecond from their backend data centers .

Anyway, I have never observed “freezing” from either one. If you’re using MT4, seeing “gaps”
in your backfill data; maybe that’s a client-side issue. This is just a random link on the subject
https://pepperstone.com/en/support/metatrader-4/resetting-your-mt4-chart-data and perhaps
you could check to see whether gaps disappear after some “reset” on the client side cache.
If so, then maybe the network saturates with a “bottleneck” during News Event times, in the
path to your local client system ? NOT MINIMIZING YOUR CLAIM, just suggesting some ideas.
What do the FXChoice support people say about it ?

Another idea would be not to have the full range of instruments selected in the Market Watch
window. Instead, build yourself some profiles, and greatly limit the number of symbols whose
data is being streamed your way at any time. Even to the point of having just one,
e.g. EURUSD as the only one selected. See whether that fixes the issue?

In my case, my interest is only Forex. Therefore, my software automatically disables ALL of
the non-Forex symbols incoming ! Why burden the network with things you don’t care about?

Maybe the data rates from FXChoice are unusually high, and that shows up at News Events ??
[ haha I had to edit the data which was generating “smiley” emoticons… ]

Tradersway.com MT4 ECN counts of ticks over a 5 minute period:
<code>
Symbol USDCADi tickCount: 44
Symbol AUDUSDi tickCount: 65
Symbol NZDCADi tickCount: 66
Symbol AUDCADi tickCount: 67
Symbol AUDNZDi tickCount: 72
Symbol GBPNZDi tickCount: 83
Symbol NZDCHFi tickCount: 94
Symbol CADCHFi tickCount: 98
Symbol GBPCADi tickCount: 122
Symbol AUDCHFi tickCount: 126
Symbol NZDUSDi tickCount: 131
Symbol USDCHFi tickCount: 141
Symbol EURUSDi tickCount: 159
Symbol GBPAUDi tickCount: 160
Symbol NZDJPYi tickCount: 172
Symbol EURAUDi tickCount: 175
Symbol EURGBPi tickCount: 175
Symbol GBPUSDi tickCount: 177
Symbol CADJPYi tickCount: 188
Symbol EURNZDi tickCount: 195
Symbol GBPCHFi tickCount: 200
Symbol EURCADi tickCount: 203
Symbol USDJPYi tickCount: 206
Symbol AUDJPYi tickCount: 208
Symbol EURCHFi tickCount: 215
Symbol GBPJPYi tickCount: 250
Symbol CHFJPYi tickCount: 274
Symbol EURJPYi tickCount: 314
</code>
FinProTrading.com MT4 ECN counts of ticks over a comparable 5 minute period:
<code>
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol USDJPY_ tickCount: 278
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol NZDUSD_ tickCount: 325
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol AUDUSD_ tickCount: 331
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol CADJPY_ tickCount: 332
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol NZDCAD_ tickCount: 339
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol AUDJPY_ tickCount: 402
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol USDCAD_ tickCount: 405
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol AUDCAD_ tickCount: 415
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol AUDCHF_ tickCount: 418
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol AUDNZD_ tickCount: 432
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol NZDJPY_ tickCount: 440
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol NZDCHF_ tickCount: 445
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol CADCHF_ tickCount: 461
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol USDCHF_ tickCount: 520
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol CHFJPY_ tickCount: 623
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURNZD_ tickCount: 735
-18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPNZD_ tickCount: 764
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPCHF_ tickCount: 809
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPAUD_ tickCount: 838
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURCHF_ tickCount: 871
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPJPY_ tickCount: 920
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPCAD_ tickCount: 956
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURUSD_ tickCount: 979
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURAUD_ tickCount: 986
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURCAD_ tickCount: 1016
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURJPY_ tickCount: 1030
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol EURGBP_ tickCount: 1044
18:00:46.411(GMT)] Symbol GBPUSD_ tickCount: 1385
</code>

hyperscalper

These freezes on Fxchoice MT4 happen everywhere. On my computer, my friend’s computer and on our VPS too. We use BEEKSFX. Our EA trades during the news, and we have been using Tallinex for a few years actually since we got transferred from FINFX. We still have accounts with Tallinex, but since they discontinued accepting new US clients, their spreads widen a little so we started to look for other alternatives.

One thing, I agree with you, is that TradersWay is solid. We get around 10ms ping using BEEKSFX, and we do not experience any freezes. Our Ea works great.

We brought up this up to Stephen Mater, I believe he is like top manager for Fxchoice, but we never heard back from him or anybody else. At that time, we stopped wasting our time and we switched to TradersWay.

Then I found a site that mentions FX Choice implements 5 pip freeze so it sounds like FX Choice freezes when the pip spread is > 5.

Hi Clint,

Appreciate all you do with updating these brokerage list.

I see you have these two as the trusted and honest brokerage to deal with:
Trader’s Way (Dominica) — TRUSTED BROKER
FX Choice (Belize) — TRUSTED BROKER

If you had to pick 5 of the top TRUSTED and Honest brokerage for US client, who would you say it be now (Feb 21, 2017).

Thank you
nick

If it were entirely up to me, I would retain Trader’s Way (Dominica) and FX Choice (Belize). Then, I would add FinproTrading (UK) and LMFX (Macedonia). I would leave the 5th spot vacant, at the present time.

But, it isn’t up to me.

Regarding our List – [I]and especially regarding the brokers designated as Trusted Brokers --[/I] we try to base decisions on a [I]consensus[/I] of participating members.

Recently, I asked for suggestions regarding additions to our Trusted Brokers. But, there was no interest among thread participants. So, the matter is tabled for now.

Welcome to the forum, and welcome to this thread, Nick.

.

When it comes to pure Forex, the 28 major pairs; I can tell you that FinProTrading.com
is likely to be the “king of performance”. Their support is also responsive, although I haven’t
needed much of it.

If you are a fast scalper, and you want to be able to execute in <100 msecs reliably, then
FinProTrading.com (aka TurnkeyFX) is for you.

However, as I’ve said earlier, then will swamp you with high rates of market data, and you
will also find (perhaps unexpectedly) that their Spreads can be worse than those of TradersWay.com
but that’s because their spreads are just more “raw”.

I think FinProTrading.com should be a Trusted Broker, so I agree with you Clint. I can speak only
for the Forex symbols on FinProTrading; I don’t have any experience with any of the other markets…


[20170221-19:08:16.802(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 156 msec
[20170221-19:22:31.587(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 71
[20170221-19:22:31.587(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 76
[20170221-19:22:31.619(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 97
[20170221-19:22:31.650(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 57
[20170221-19:22:31.666(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 69
[20170221-19:22:31.712(GMT)] OrderOp elapsed: 193

I think I mentioned before that FinProTrading’s MT4 Tick stream appears to be able to tell
you market trend direction. You won’t see this with other brokers. When the BID is really
“jagged” and the ASK is less so, the market is RISING (pushing or preparing to push up).
And when the ASK is showing these “spikes” but the BID is not; then the market is
FALLING (or preparing to fall). If you are a short term scalper, for fairly short target
distances, this could be of value to you. I plan to quantify this as a predictor; but the
tick rates are so high, I need to figure out the best way to do it. If I can focus on just
one symbol’s tick stream, I think I could make an indicator. I think a specialized server
instance would be able to capture this fast enough… but I digress, as usual :wink:

hyperscalper

Hello Clint,

Much appreciate the democracy of this thread, indeed thats why your thread got over a million views :slight_smile:

I would like to add my few cents to this list.

I think the two brokers that totally deserve the title of “Trusted Brokers” are

  1. FinPro Trading
  2. Trader’s Way

As all the thread members have voted TraderWay as trusted broker, I will not make my inputs redundant. For FinPro I see a lot of reasons why it should indeed be a trusted broker as well. One they have an amazing client support, always available always helpful, second their execution quality is FAR FAR FAR better than majority of other brokers that I have seen. Here is a link that I found online from a trader who posted their live spreads on the day of BREXIT and it by far outblows my mind. Link ( disq.us/p/19fj9n9 )

To top it, I was trading with them during GBP flash crash (along with one more bigger broker) and FinPro DID NOT HIT MY MARGIN while the other broker killed my account into negative, Both the accounts had same positions and similar margin usage.
Now I can not expect a broker to help me make money or help me reach the moon, all I can expect that the broker is honest, provides real ECN quality execution and gives me withdrawals on time. If that is a criteria to judge by, then FinPro and TraderWay are my top choice.

So whenever you next consider to upvote FinPro, do count my vote in.

And all the traders who are reading my post, consider contributing to this thread with your respective experience. I know this thread has been a darling of almost all babypips readers (includingmyself) for so long and all credit goes to Clint for being so diligent and democratic about this approach

Dear MarcinFX,

We have thoroughly investigated this problem and we would like to extend our thanks to you for noticing this glitch. We have made a few changes in our system and this matter should now be resolved.

We would like to stress that the issue only affected a tiny amount of traders. We also stress that the “5-pip freeze level” you have quoted is from a long-outdated article - we do not operate any freeze level now.

We continue to remain vigilant, but if you should notice anything like this happening again, please get in touch with us via our Live Chat.

FXChoice

Hi Clint,

Thank you for response and hope we can all work together to find the most honest, reliable, and trust worthy brokers to deal with.

Thank
nick

Yup — finding “the most honest, reliable, and trust worthy brokers to deal with” is what this thread has been about for the past 6½ years.

If you’d like to join that effort, you are most welcome.

.

First of all, I doubt this was a glitch. I have been in this industry for too long to fall for that. You need to explain to us why FXCHOICE has been freezing during news. You stated you were freezing before which = to cheating clients out of their money. Then you said you are not doing this anymore.

Maybe you are not implementing the 5-pip freeze like you used to, but you are still freezing, so you are still cheating client out of their money but maybe on less scale than before.

You took all this time, and you gave us nothing. You admitted to wrong doing, but you did not explain anything to us.

Some of us would like to know what was the glitch ( which I know it was not ), and how did you fix it.

PLEASE EXPLAIN TO US!

GIVE US MORE DETAILS PLEASE!

1 Like

We urge you to remain patient as the situation should actually be resolved before the end of this week (24th Feb). Again we stress that this is not a freeze level, we do not operate one. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but we remain vigilant to this glitch and work tirelessly to provide our clients with the best service in the industry.

FXChoice

I do not care if you resolve this issue or not. I have already switched TW. What I want is for FXChoice to let us know here, what was the glitch, and how are you planning to resolve it.

Also you mentioned, that this “Glitch” effects tiny amount of traders. I disagree. All the traders with stop losses, are affected, because when the stop loss get hit during the freeze, you always get slippage.
That is how you stole from me.

Thank you Clint for putting co much into this thread. This post you made about your top recommended brokers was very helpful to reduce the amount of time sifting through 400 pages of this thread. If you or someone else doesn’t mind helping me a little further, I’m trying to find the answer to the legal question, tax implications ultimately, of a US resident trading with an off-shore broker? So far I havent’ found anything conclusive and perhaps this has already been answered in this huge thread.

So the question would be… Are there any problems with a trader claiming profits or losses, that anyone has experienced, from an off-shore broker when filing a tax return?

I would imagine this is truly where things would show in regards to the legal topic of US residents going off-shore. If there are any other legal problems, please let me know. Thanks!

I dug into the topic a little further and read Clint’s post #3522.

I think this may answer my question. However, if anyone has any personal experience and tax-related knowledge about the question I presented, I’d love to hear it. Thanks.

Hello, Tim

Here are 3 more posts you might want to read.

Post #2201 — 7/23/14

Post #2822 — 4/2/15

Post #3005 — 7/19/15

These posts were written as replies to questions from three different members, over the course of a year, so a lot of the material is repeated from one post to the next. I’m sure you’ll be able to boil it down.

Welcome to this thread, by the way.

Wow - you’ve posted 3 times in 9½ years. You’ve been busy! :slight_smile:

.

1 Like

Terrific - all of this covers exactly what I was hoping to find. Thanks again for the help. It amazes me how much info is here and furthermore, how much I see you’ve invested into the matter. I can’t help but wonder if there’s something you get out of all of this, being so helpful - or is all of this simply coming from the goodness of your heart? :slight_smile:

Ha! Right - not too active on the forum front, but definitely involved with FOREX trading ever since I created that babypips account 9.5 yrs. ago. I’m one of those types of guys that sits on the sidelines and watches all the action, soaking it all in. As you mentioned in one of your posts, something to the effect of… there are lots of other people reading this thread who simply aren’t posting… I’m one of them.

I appreciate the welcome! Regardless of the motive behind your efforts, I enjoy any gesture of kindness, which is a quality that seems to be in short order these days. Fear, anger, and blame are crazy cheap and the public is buying it up in droves!!

You’re welcome.

.

Hello,this is my first post and I would like to share my experiences with all of you.I know it is suspicious but I will try to not praise anyone too much.

I tried following brokers out of the list : Tallinex,FxChoice and TradersWay.Here is what I have to say so far.

I tried all of the brokers on demo.I trade exclusively news and events,thus slippage and freezing is obviously a problem for me,but the one which I can not avoid.

First off I will start with Tallinex.A friend of mine uses them on live for ECN - Micro and I used them on demo for a while.I must say they are really reliable.They never freeze,they do not stop and go,no disconnects,fast support answers and all that,BUT…there is always a but.The spreads on ECN-Micro are huuuuuge.I have no idea why he stuck with them,it is just pain to pay those spreads.For ECN-Pro account (20000 USD deposit) the spreads are good and normal,and for all those with such amounts available to risk,I think Tallinex is great.

Next up is FXChoice.Nice broker,thin spreads,fast execution and timely news.Seems too good to be true for me.And it was.As soon as the “big news” like GDP data and CPI started hitting the whole platform literally froze.Usually the freeze would last anywhere between 5 and 30 seconds.Last time I traded the Eur/GBP on UK Services PMI when the platform froze for whole 9 minutes.That is when I decided that it is not good for my trading style.I checked on Tallinex terminal,and it was qouting the price just fine.

Now I am on Traders Way,hoping to have hit the gold.I notice that it does not provide MT4 news feed like other two,but I can live with it.Spreads seem acceptable.I will keep you updated.