Hi everybody, my name is Roger and live in Sweden.
I have an Alpari-Uk demo account with which I try to “get the hang of it”.
Now, ever since I opened this account a year ago I’ve noticed that sometimes I can’t get my orders through.
“invalid price”, “context busy” and other funny messages, and after pressing the “ok”-buttom, it won’t start to work again unless I close and restart the MT4, a process in which I will loose valuable seconds.
I have been in contact with Alpari about the matter and they say that it is just random events, that is most likely NOT to happend with a real account. But I have clearly noticed that this is happening more and more frequently as I get better in predicting the price move. At the most critical moments, many times, I am not able to open nor close a position. Or there is suddenly no connection for a while, and there is NO problem with my internet-connection as such.
This has happened so many times now, that I am convinced that it is NOT a random coincident.
I have read about dealing and non dealing desks, suggesting the dealing desks has systems that prevent them from loosing
(i.e they prevent YOU from gaining)
Is this really true? If so, Is it really legal to do so?
Is the forex-industry an unregulated “wild-west” scene? I have hard to believe so.
Alpari is supposed to be an non-dealing desk according to their website, but they for sure behave as they are,
at least on my demo account. I don’t know what to believe.
Would I open a sharp account and deposit my hard earned money and start tading at Alpari?
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
What broker do you recommend for a live account? Someone that is honest!
Answer me this question. Why would Alpari, or any other broker, intentionally mess around with your trading and/or your access to their platform when you’re just in demo?
Welcome to the world of forex…fasten your seat belt, place your seat in the upright position and hold on for dear life.
Metatrader 4 is a technically challenging platform for the brokers to get running smoothly. Some brokers handle it better than others…doesn’t mean they cheating you if they don’t quite get it right.
They are correct when they say it happens less with live account. Obviously this is where they dedicate their resources and sometimes the demo platform has to play second fiddle.
All the errors you describe are common in MT4 and you would do well to start reseraching them, their causes and how you can minimise the problems, as you are going to find them with all brokers…some more than others.
Yeah, why would they? I’ve been asking myself the same question. Seems pretty stupid to expose the real intentions on a demoaccount, hence scaring people off from opening a real account. Maybe they haven’t take on the effort it would take to develop a parallel (and seemingly honest) demoaccount system.
You are indeed being paranoid. But you join a long list. It’s a favorite past-time of new traders who are frustrated by things to want to place blame. Obviously, technical issues are a problem, but if it’s happening on a demo account you can be 100% sure it isn’t anything intentionally directed at you.
Last year when I was deciding which broker to go with I came very close to choosing Alpari UK. I didn’t however, I went with Oanda instead and I’ve never had any reason to regret that. Quite the opposite actually, they’re great imho.
I imagine that what you’ve experienced must be caused by something else than cheating from your broker. As you say yourself, they would be shooting themselves in the foot by doing that on a demo.
I didn’t choose Alpari after careful consideration, but if I had, I’m sure they would have been fine. Their reputation is good as brokers go and they’re regulated in the UK. For me, Oanda won due to better spreads, more pairs etc. I often recommend people that ask to have a look at them, mind that I have no association with them whatsoever, just a happy (so far at least) customer.
I opened an account with Interbank in August 2009. I knew they WERE cheating:mad: I just didn’t know HOW:confused: but I’m no dummy ALL the brokers are cheating with ONE integrated intrabroker platform, Metatrader Manager, I found it on youtube: stop hunting (MTLIBRARY) Over two thousand trades now and I see it EVERY DAY with Interbank and FXDD, just today the MM robot reversed EXACTLY at my line three times and I have saved pictures. The robot also moves sideways creating distance, it knows all stops, targets, alerts, and calculates everything from information across brokers.
brokers do cheat. but consider several things.
they dont cheat unless you win large sums.
and they cant really cheat if you trade on larger timeframes. they’ll cheat in other ways, like not giving your money back.
I have accounts with several brokers. Live accounts. Alpari UK is not the best and not the worst.
Some of their servers seem to not able handling the mass of connections in a successful way for all. I never had that problem with other accounts. I doubt it is really cheating, though. It’s just a lazy handling of their business I guess. They get the money anyways.
Anyways, I couldn’t suggest scalping with them, because of this and the long line. With another account (true ecn) my orders get filled in parts of a second while Alpari needs a few seconds.
What is really bad with them is stop hunting. I have screenshots here where with another account I have different bid prices in the 5-10 pips range in the dead time before Australia open. Plus they widen the spread to 10 or more pips that time. So, if you use stops, set them 10 to 50 pips wider. Plus it is true then that your risk:chance ratio will hit you by those 10 to 50 pips more loss.
Beside of that everything okay so far with them. I guess there are a lot of brokers out there if not the most where you will have way more issues. Plus i didn’t check out Alparis ecn account. I just have a mm account with them and my ecn with another broker.
If you intend to trade on the daily or bigger charts, you probably won’t have any issue with them.ould
How could you come to the conclusion forex is not wild wild west? It is in it’s purest form - that’s why I make money with it.
Hi,
I’m fairly new to trading fx. Here is what happened to me on my fxcm live account. Tell me if this is normal.During a recent news event I did a straddle trade with my pending orders at 10 pips,as soon as the news was released both my orders were opened at roughly the same time with significant amount of slippage on one trade.I trade manually on metatrader and when I looked at my chart the one order didn’t even get close to my pending trade yet still opened.
When I called them to find out why my order was executed they said I am looking at the wrong charts I should be trading on their platform where I can toggle between a BID chart and an ASK chart.The spread went to 20 when the news came out which meant the BID and ASK price with the higher spread is what went through my pending order and triggered it and I wouldn’t see that on metatrader.
So basically if you have a strategy to open a trade 1 pip past resistance and you are 10 pips away and the spread goes up to 11 it will trigger your trade way early making your strategy useless.
Is this normal? Because even if I was looking at their charts and trading manually how could anyone come up with a strategy when the candles,bars whatever has fluctuating spreads built into them.
Curious as to how things work.
You have two issues here i.e. variable spreads that can widen and slippage.
You’re quite correct i.e. with Metatrader you will not see the ask price and it may APPEAR that your order price was never reached but it was actually reached when the spread widened at the time of the news release. There is a way for you to see what the ask price WAS i.e. somewhere around here I believe that somebody wrote an indicator that basically just drew lines on the chart depicting both the bid and the ask prices ALTHOUGH (and to the best of my knowledge) this will only show you the prices at the time of the bar or candlestick closing so you may STILL not see what the ask price was at the time of your order being executed.
As far as slippage is concerned: remember that a stop order BECOMES a market order. If price moves very rapidly then the broker can only execute your stop order (by placing a market order) at the very first AVAILABLE price to them (again somewhere around here I’ve posted about the different types of orders and how they are executed as per the SEC’s website).
For what it’s worth: my advice would be to NOT trade news and trade on longer timeframes i.e. go for the ‘long haul’ trades so that even if there is slippage it’s not really an issue (a few points / pips are nothing really if your trades last for days, weeks, or months).
Keep in mind that most brokers make their money when you loose yours, you actually “bet” against the broker, so if you win they loose and the opposite. Just the spread is not enough…
I have also seen a case where a broker (i wont say which now) has decreased the leverage of an account during the weekend. So when the market opened on Sunday and the account had pending open orders, it hit margin call instantly :eek:
Let every one be put on notice ALPARI WILL stop/hunt your EA they will modify your stop lost, 5 trades :mad:on live account were modified so stop lost were hit for a 2-3 pip profit, they do this the asia/ london markets. I will post on every website i can find about there scam game. In the mean time is there a good honest broker around? Let me know.
I am currently using 3 brokers live and have EA set exactly the same. Results are very interesting especially on my “break even”. I set if in the money by 10 pip then set a break even, but this is where result differ.
Some broker activated while another did not.
I am sure they are not “cheating” but it must be the setting and the way the sixth digit move.
So I too am looking for a broker which is most suitable. Any recommendation ?
Plus it is true then that your risk:chance ratio will hit you by those 10 to 50 pips more loss.