Hi!
I have been demo trading a year and a half now and I’m planning on opening an account with FXCM. Since I really liked their platform .
But one thing that is freightning me is the fact they were fined 2M$ And later 14m$ for slippage issues
Slippage if too much could ruin me.
Do they make a problem if you make a good amount of money and withdraw it and How long does it normally take to withdraw ?
So can I trust FXCM?
Hi Aimann,
In regards to the NFA action, that primarily concerned positive slippage not being passed on in full when transactions were offset with liquidity providers. I posted a detailed explanation here.
If you have any other questions about FXCM, feel free to reach out to me in the Broker Aid Station.
Welcome to the forum 
Jason
I am with FXCM for a while and haven’t had issues with them. I withdrew money as well, that was no problem.
Thanks Toekan and Jason , can anyone else comment ?
I’ve been with fxcm for 4 years, only ever had one problem and that was a few months ago, I’d set my stop at break even on £100pp trade, clock turned to 10pm and the spread increase took me for a loss of -4pips so £400 which was annoying, I didn’t do anything about it and not sure that I could have?, I’d forgotten about the spread increase at that time and put it down to experience, did annoy me for a day or 2 I must admit, but I’ve withdrawn from the account and had no issues and was the only time i’ve had a slippage issue, was typical really that it was on the day i’d taken a trade of that size
Hi Tom,
If you ever have questions about the execution of a particular trade, you can always log a case for the Trade Audit Committee to review. If there was an error in our trade execution, FXCM will make the appropriate correction to your account.
In regards to the situation you described from 4 years ago, as you mentioned, the spreads widened at 10pm UK time. That corresponds to 5pm New York time, when the 24 hour trading day officially ends, and rollover interest is applied. This is typically a very quiet period in the market, since the business day in New York has just ended, and there are still a couple of hours before the new business day begins in Tokyo. Banks will often widen their spreads at this time as they refresh their servers for the new 24 hour trading day.
On FXCM’s No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution model, we execute client orders on the best bid and ask prices from 10+ competing liquidity providers, and simply add a pip markup for our profit which acts as a commission. Our pip markup is fixed which means we make the same amount whether you win or lose on a trade, so we have no incentive to hunt your stops. It also means that when you see the spreads widen, it’s because the banks quoting prices have widened their spreads.
Note that FXCM also offers a new dealing desk execution option which offers spreads that are 1 pip lower for the most popular currency pairs. Dealing desk execution is used by most brokers in the forex industry. However, FXCM’s dealing desk is different because we use the FXCM NDD price feed as a base to derive prices and execute orders. This means that our dealing desk execution shares important features with our NDD execution such as no requotes and no restrictions on stops and limits.
Jason
thanks Jason, honestly, on the whole, I’m very happy I chose fxcm to trade with.
Like music to my ears
HI Jason,
Actually I read the question of Aminn that is related to her/his worry from FXCM slippage and as well I read you reply to her/his, me too I have a demo account since not long time with FXCM but everytime i fell that I need to open real account with FXCM I hear something against FXCM and to be honest I am afraid from FXCM because of what I hear that trading station has a lot of technical problems that does not help the trader to sell or buy at the moment that he/she wants and also i heard that sometimes trading station does not care about the point of stop loss that is determinate by the trader and it can take the trade to a new stop loss point that is deeper then the one that has been determinate d by the trader and this lead to lose his.her money because of the technical problems and the company does not give refund the traders easily or maybe never,the opinions that I have heard say that demo account is very nice to work with but one start a live account you will see all those problems , so how can i trust FXCM after all of what I heard ?
Hi Ehabpop,
Thanks for telling me about your concerns. You’ve brought up several points, so I’ll address them one by one.
The reliability of our trading platform is one of the main reasons why over 170,000 active accounts trade with FXCM as of our latest quarterly results. When you understand how FXCM makes its money, you will realize why it’s in our interest for you to be able to execute your trades when you want. On our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution model, we execute client orders at the best bid or ask price being quoted at any given moment in time from 10+ competing liquidity providers. For our profit, we just add a fixed pip markup which acts as a commission.
That means we make our money off of client trading volume, not client losses. We make the same amount regardless of what price your order is executed at, so we have no reason to prevent your orders from executing quickly. In fact, we added one-click trading functionality to our Trading Station platform, so you can open positions complete with stop loss and take profit orders all with a single click and place trades even faster.
It sounds to me like you are talking about how slippage can occur with stop loss orders. This is not a tech issue and can happen with any broker. It’s important to understand how stop loss orders work. When a stop loss is triggered, it becomes a market order. A market order will be filled at the best price available in the market which could be better or worse than the price you specified. If an order is filled at a better price, this is called positive slippage or a price improvement. If an order is filled at a worse price this is called negative slippage.
As you can see from the stats above, you are just as likely to receive price improvements on our platform as you are to receive negative slippage. Also note how price improvements are more likely to occur with limit orders, while negative slippage is more likely to occur with stop orders. That is because limit orders trigger when the price momentum is moving in favor of your trade, while stop orders trigger when the price momentum is moving against your trade.
You might be interested to know that we added a Market Range feature to our Trading Station platform to help you minimize negative slippage when placing market orders.
FXCM is one of the few retail forex brokers that is also a publicly-traded company (NYSE ticker: FXCM), so information regarding us is readily available. This is one of the reasons why traders have entrusted us with $1.2 billion in client funds as of our latest quarterly results.
Welcome to the forum
Jason
HI Jason,
Thank you for your prompt explanation but i still have a few question marks and I would like to share them with you.
I can understand from your talking that it might happen that FXCM execute some of my trades at rate that is lower then the rate i chose for my trade, and it cause to make me lose some money however i did my trade in good way ??? do you think that is fair ??? and can you tell me then in this case the mistake would be of whom??? of me or of FXCM??? so i have to concentrate in the chart very well and read all the news and do a very good Analysis for the charts to be able to chose a good entry and exit point and after all of this done as it should be , FXCM for some reason execute my trade in different rate then i determinate???and what then??? FXCM will give me back the money that I lost??? or not?, I heard that FXCM does not refund customers !!! so how the policy of refund works in your company? i read that your customer service sometimes says that slippage is due to an error coming from the PC of the trader , i read this in a conversation between a trader and one of your customer service, do you think that is professional answer ?do you think that the customer service able to know that the error coming form customer pc?
Hi Ehabpop,
There seems to be some confusion about how prices are determined on FXCM’s platforms. On our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution model, FXCM acts as a price aggregator. We take the best bid and best ask prices from all of our liquidity providers, add a small, fixed mark-up, and stream those prices to the platforms we provide. FXCM’s liquidity providers include global banks, financial institutions, and other market makers. This large, diverse group of liquidity providers is one of the things that makes this model special.
When you trade with a standard dealing desk, you don’t know where the prices are coming from or if they actually reflect prices in the broader market. FXCM’s deep and diverse pool of liquidity providers helps to ensure that NDD prices are reliable - not set arbitrarily by a single provider - and that they do reflect the broader forex market. Also, through competition, the NDD model ensures that prices are market-driven and fair. FXCM rewards liquidity providers with order flow when they provide the best bid or ask prices. The more advantageous their prices are the more order flow the liquidity provider will receive. The less advantageous, the less order flow they will receive. This efficient selection method keeps a single liquidity provider from adversely affecting FXCM’s NDD price feed.
Another advantage of the NDD model is that execution is transparent and fair. FXCM does not take a market position-eliminating a major conflict of interest. Dealing desk brokers, which act as market makers, may be actively trading against your positions. Because of this, they may manipulate your orders with re-quotes or in other ways. This cannot happen with our NDD forex execution. Your orders automatically fill from the NDD price feed, which is the best bid and best ask prices from all of our liquidity providers plus FXCM’s small, fixed mark-up. Additionally, your orders are anonymous to the liquidity providers. They cannot see your stops, limits, or entry orders; they only see market orders coming from FXCM.
Slippage occurs if the best price available in the market is different from your order price. An order can only be filled at a price that is available in the market. It’s important to note that slippage can be either be positive or negative. For example, suppose you place a market order to buy EUR/USD at 1.2800. If the best price available is 1.2801, then your order will be filled at 1.2801 which is 1 pip of negative slippage. On the other hand, if the best price available in the market is 1.2799, then your order will be filled at 1.2799 which is 1 pip of positive slippage, also known as a price improvement.
The stats above show that with FXCM, price improvements are just as likely to occur as negative slippage. There are specific trading strategies and market approaches that may increase your chances of receiving price improvements. Click here for specific tips that can help you minimize negative slippage and maximize price improvements.
Jason
Jason -
Your input by this thread is a huge plus from FXCM as a broker or “market maker” - which is the sole issue with my choice of brokerage — how slippery the slope is it when a market maker can generate and control its own environment … Spreads become suspect to flux changes? Commission is in the interest of the company first isn’t ?! Of course I’m speaking on the conditions of plenty of market maker brokerages, whom practice bad science for their business, and in no way am I implying FXCM as so- but voicing real concerns … How can I take advantage of ECN capabilities from FXCM as a smaller player for now under 1500$ - or shall I or us in this forum hear from you as a rep for FXCM to address these questions. ?
Also has FXCM taking on a partnership with Deutsche Bank? And I’m wondering as a state side broker why haven’t you guys been report in rating s reviews more often? Appreciate your attention … Hope this thread helps in transparency .
Hi Mbworks,
Welcome to the forum
You can open an account on our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution with as little as $50.
We used to license our trading software to DB in the past, but no longer.
We share your views on the importance of transparency. That’s one of the reasons we felt it was important to list on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker: FXCM). Since we are one of the few forex brokers that is a publicly-traded company, there is more information regarding our financials available to traders than is the case for smaller brokers that are privately-held companies.
Jason
Jason, thanks for the welcome — so how does NDD suits the smaller “upstart” trader. Is it a different concept than market making?! You guys will allow ECN priorities for the smaller depositors ?! Thanks for the attention!
Hi Mbworks,
NDD stands for No Dealing Desk forex execution. I discussed the advantages NDD has over traditional dealing desk execution (market making) in this earlier post.
The minimum to open an NDD account with FXCM is $50.
Jason
how fast is execution on live accounts?
Their platform freezed again on 13Nov. I could not open/close, just looked on as my funds were going. I was asked to submit a form which i submitted, but since then i never got any response from FXCM. Just imagine if you have trades running and you do not have control over them?. Means you might loose all your money and your trading bussines will be affected negatively because you will not be trading, you will be waiting to prove to FXCM to prove that you lost, and this might delay you months?. WONDER IF YOU WILL EVER GET YOU MONEY BACK?
Hi Samson,
I believe you’re referring to the tech issue we had on October 13th. Please rest assured that if any of your positions were negatively impacted, FXCM will make the appropriate correction to your account. You did the right thing by using our online form to file a trade inquiry. The Trade Services Team will follow up with you shortly with their resolution, if they have not already.
I’ll be happy to check on the status of your case for you, if you send me a private message with the email address we have on file for your account. Thanks for sharing your concerns. I apologize for the inconvenience this issue caused you, and want you to know we will take the steps necessary to make this right for you.
Jason
Hi Ycomp,
Sorry for not responding to your question sooner. I regularly search the forum for new posts that mention FXCM, but since your post did not contain the word “FXCM”, I only noticed your question now.
FXCM uses No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution, which means we don’t set the prices that fill your orders. Instead, your orders are offset one-for-one against the best price quotes from 10+ competing liquidity providers on our NDD feed allowing your orders to executed rapidly.
Sometimes, when someone asks about execution speed, what the really want to know about is latency. Latency is the time it takes for your order to reach to servers of your broker for execution. That can depend on your internet connection and your location relative to your broker’s servers.
Where are you located? You may be interested to know that using one of the Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers that is co-located with our servers can help to reduce your latency: Free VPS Hosting - FXCM