Hi,
I’m considering 3 brokers and would like your thoughts (please don’t use this to market yourselves)
I’m UK based, looking to open a demo account with all 3 to see their platforms, then hope to open a live account with an initial £2k.
The 3 brokers are…
ALPARI
FXCM
xxxOANDAxxx
FXPRO
Look forward to your feelings and experiences with all 3
Avoid FXCM if possible, unless you like to be offquoted all day long.
Hi Simenkon,
There seems to be some confusion here about why you get “off quotes” messages.
First, it’s important to note that there are no re-quotes with FXCM. Re-quote messages are designed to protect a dealing desk broker from losses. By contrast, FXCM provides you with No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution, which means each of your orders is offset one-for-one with the best prices from 10+ competing liquidity providers.
FXCM doesn’t take the market risk on the other side of your trades, so we don’t profit from your losses or lose from your profits. That means, we see no benefit from you missing out on trades. On the contrary, we make money from your trading volume, so we want your orders to be executed.
“Off quotes” messages on our MT4 platform are designed to protect you from unwanted negative slippage. What you pointed out actually highlights a unique advantage of our MT4 setup. An “off quotes” message means the price that was available in the market to fill your order was outside your specified Maximum Deviation range. The message is to inform you that your order was cancelled to protect you from negative slippage beyond your accepted tolerance.
On the MT4 platforms of some brokers, the Maximum Deviation feature might not be available at all, and with others if it is available, then it can limit both your negative slippage and your positive slippage equally. By contrast, FXCM enhanced how Max Dev works on our MT4 platform by allowing you to limit your negative slippage while still enjoying the full benefits of any positive slippage.
Below are stats compiled from over 43 million trades executed through FXCM from August 2013 to January 2014. In just those six months alone, FXCM clients benefited from over $15 million in positive slippage.
[ul]
[li]73% of all orders had no slippage.
[/li][li]15% of all orders received positive slippage.
[/li][li]12% of all orders received negative slippage.
[/li][li]Over 60% of all limit and limit entry orders received positive slippage.
[/li][li]53.32% of all stop and stop entry orders received negative slippage.
[/li][/ul]
If you find that you are getting the “off quotes” message too frequently, then consider increasing your Maximum Deviation, particularly if you trade during times when prices can change quickly. You can access this on your MT4 platform by going to Tools > Options and the Trade tab as shown below.
Since FXCM uses 5-digit pricing (fractional pips), every 10 points on the Maximum Deviation is equivalent to one pip. If you adjust your Max Dev to 30, that would equate to price range of 3 pips.
Please let me know if you have any further questions about this.
Thanks,
Jason
Can you get IC Markets over there in the UK bro. If you can try them they kick ass my friend.
Alpari has good reputation all over the world so I`ll vote for Alpari 
Ive decided to add FXPRO to my list and take OandA off it, wont go into too much detail other than Ive heard enough on other forums and reviews to put me off them.
FXCM is still practicing 3 of the 5 accusations in the class action suit:
a) slow server commands
b) false “error” messages
c) flash trades
It happened to me today for more then 2 hours. error logs here and here
The same I was talking about in my article before. Every time this guy Jason posts about NDD, slippage stats, etc. but no changes to better at practice. After a year of trading with them, was finally pissed off and moved on Hotforex platform. Much better and spreads widening occur much rare comparing to FXCM…
Hi Mihk,
The case you’re referring to was dismissed over 3 years ago and has nothing to do with any issue you could be experiencing. That said, I want to get to the bottom of the problems you are facing. In regards to your error logs, I tried clicking on the links you provided but could not load them. If you could attach them some other way and provide additional details, I would be happy to help you as I have in the past.
With that in mind, if you have questions about your account, please ask me in the Broker Aid Station. :57:
I’m not sure what you mean. Do you have a link to that article? I would be interested in reading what you have to say.
On the contrary, FXCM’s new raw FX spread pricing model is just the latest example of how we continually strive to improve our services.
Avoid FXCM if possible, unless you dont care about swap-rates; they hide them quite effectivly
(please dont tell me that I can look them up in their trading software … that is a major pain in the *** and everything but user friendly)
I left them for that reason.
cheers
Ok, so in my case it is about:
Even automated trading is potentially dangerous with these guys. Especially when you cannot supervise the program during night or business hours.
Im surprised by the feeling against FXCM here, they seem to be well thought of elsewhere
Everyone has different opinions on brokers. You have to remember this site is called Babypips so plenty of noobs who blame their broker for their mistakes.
I have had a profitable account with FXCM for 2 years now with no major problems. Also the spreads have improved with the recent new changes.
These spreads are from Friday morning.
Good luck in choosing a broker.
Hi Johnnycash,
While I appreciate that you already know this, I will still respond for the benefit of Eddieb and others reading this thread. :57:
FXCM does not hide our swap rates. There is no reason for us to do that, since our swap rates are quite competitive. You can view them on our Trading Station platform listed as RollS (for short positions) and RollB (for long positions).
While it’s true that swap rates cannot be seen on the MT4 platform, it’s worth noting all FXCM MT4 account logins also work on Trading Station allowing you to view the real-time swap rates. Furthermore, FXCM offers desktop, web and mobile versions of the Trading Station platform.
If you don’t wish to download Trading Station Desktop, you can still view the swap rates using Trading Station Web for which no download is required: https://tsweb.fxcorporate.com/
Hi Mihk,
Thanks for posting these logs. I was able to view them using your new links. While I’m not familiar with API logs myself, I’ve ask our API support team to review the information you have provided. I will respond to you as soon as I hear back from them regarding the errors you received.
Heard that alpari is Putin’s company ^
Ditto cams.
My brother-in-law has also been a very satisfied customer of FXCM for over 6 years, prompting my wife to add them as a secondary provider in March 2011.
In that time she’s experienced only 2 insignificant issues (1 of which was her own fault) & they very quickly & professionally resolved them with no fuss whatsoever.
As you quite rightly infer, a good majority of complainants are newbies, most of who don’t possess the common sense they were born with.
If they did they would solve (& avoid) virtually all of these issues themselves simply by taking the time to properly familiarise themselves with the features & more importantly, the platforms limitations.
You listed 3 MM. This brokers are always in conflict of interest with their customers. (investopedia: MM vs ECN)
It is not that you cannot make money, the problem is you cannot leverage as much as with an ECN.
These guys are constantly looking at your exposure. If you stay withing 5% it’s fine. But I was not talking about 5% / month return.
Hi Mihk,
Thanks for your patience. I heard back from our API support team. They told me the rejection messages you received both on the Order2Go API and FIX were due to a combination of two factors:
[ol]
[li]You were submitting IOC (Immediate or Cancel) orders.
[/li][li]Timestamps indicate there was a 3 second latency between your computer and our servers.
[/li][/ol]
The result was that you were trying to execute IOC orders on prices that were no longer available. The solution would be to minimize your latency by running your API through a co-located VPS.
You may also be interested to know that, as an alternative to Order2Go, we offer the ForexConnect API.
