Hello, newbie here.
This is my official second foray into Forex trading and this time I’m doing it myself. Last time I watched a pile of my money ($20k) disappear under a managed account. I’ve never been accused of being brilliant, but I do learn from my mistakes.
I’ve been paying special attention to brokers, dealing desks and ECN providers (If “provider” is even the right term) and those that purport to be one or the other and or some machination of both. I want to trade both styes and get a feel for the open market and a “dealing desk” type situation. I also understand that “live” vs “Demo” are two different animals, but I am leaning towards an ECN provider as while slippage is inevitable, I would prefer that it be genuine and not manufactured by a dealing desk (Yes I ALSO understand that all slippage can or is engineered).
Currently I am running two instances of MetaTrader4 on my dual monitor computer. One is for FXCM (demo) and the other MBTrading (Using MB’s EXN demo system). While I see a back and forth discussion that MBTradings platform is not a ECN per say, their platform does seem to provide pricing like an ECN platform. What I am noticing is that FXCM will show their pricing anywhere from 9 to 30 ticks above where the MBTrading platform shows. As I understand it, this is common practice for a broker. It is interesting to see none the less.
I have been doing well on the 5 minute charts trading the trends and making my 30 pips per trade. Putting my mad scientist hat on, since I am in the US and apparently one cant take opposing positions on the same currency pair, what is the boards thoughts on dual accounts at separate brokerages allowing me to place opposing trades? As the currency pair moves up and down I’d like to simultaneously trade within the average rage of the market in that time period.
I Look forward to learning as much as I can. Thanks!
