Well, I have heard good reviews about oanda and most of the people here said that Oanda was proved better than ECNs like mbtrading as slippage occurs more frequent in ECNs. Can youtell ay downside of using Oanda as compared to ECNs?
With a nice deposit like that I personally would only go for an UK FSA regulated company. I’ve preached my thoughts about this elsewhere amongst these forums but I cannot stress how important it is.
If a company is properly licensed by the FSA, (you can check on the FSA website) you will receieve multiple levels of protections such as Capital Adequecy requirements, GBP 50,000 insurance of funds and sergragated client accounts.
You should definately consider and ECN or DMA platform, depending on your trading style and strategy. Definately open with a company that has the option to be transferred to a DMA platform. However, sensible market makers will ‘hedge’ positions on an account that size to elimanate risk and if they cant cope with your trading style they will put you on a DMA platform, many companes will have access to a DMA for cases like this.
Hey Greedy, how do you know that Oanda’s platform is no good? Perhaps you have already opened a small live account with them? I can’t tell you if it is or not as I’ve never used them, but I know they are big. As for FXCM, I wouldn’t say their spreads are abnormally high to be honest but perhaps you were not aware that they actually also charge commission fees: Trade less than $10m amonth you are charged $10, to quote them:
[I]" Say you buy and later sell back one 100K lot (value: US$100,000) of USD/JPY, and receive the typical spread in and out of 2.9 pips. Regardless of the profit or loss for the trade, you will pay $27.03 in transaction costs, roundtrip.
2.9 pips x $9.32 per pip**= $27.03 The spread on the traditional FXCM platform includes a markup (typically 1 pip on either side) to the price. FXCM ActiveTrader clients receive much tighter spreads, typically only 0.9 pips for USD/JPY.between $10m and $50m you are charged $5 per side, per lot"[/I]
You don’t stipulate if you want to be able to hedge and/or scalp? If you do then definitely stay out of the US, have a look at the UK (though they are most likely to follow the NFA’s lead before any other regulator) and Germany (FYI dbFX is an FXCM white label) or Switzerland (keep away from the likes of Mauritian, Maltese and Cypriot (too a lesser extent) brokers, it is almost impossible to find out what their cap is. Have a look at AC-Markets, they are Swiss, have a net cap of CHF30million (today that is pretty much $30million). For the currency pairs you mention, EUR/USD you will get a spread of 1.5, USD/JPY is 1.6 and they guarantee fills on all limits and stops as well. The platform is theirs and is excellent, full of the gizmos you would need and they even have the MT4 if you want (I am trying to follow the info you gave us). 1 account will give you access to 4 platforms as well as to a mobile phone and iPhone platforms. As you can gather, I trade with them, they have all in all given me good service.
Just remember to open demos with all those you have an interest in, see if you like what you see, don’t just go by what people write, very often they are wrong especially if it is someone who has little experience and knowledge. Which, by the by, reminds me to stress to you the importance of using this websites education section, reputed by all to be the best.
I like TradeStation I still have yet to open a forex account with them but, I deal with them on Futures and have in the past with stocks. They have features I still haven’t seen with any other brokers as far as placing and exiting orders.
