I would be curious to hear what brokers have to say about the disparities that we see between live and demo accounts, assuming that we could even get a reasonable response that was not overly vague and dismissive.
To me, a simulation is a controlled environment and I personally do not see why a live data feed cannot be mirrored in a virtual environment where trades can be made without impacting anything. It really makes no sense to me. Maybe someone with more technical knowledge can chime in.
I have zero problems with FXCHOICE they are my main broker but I only trade XAUUSD with them currently.
the way I learned it was that a Demo feed is the same as a Live feed, it’s just delayed by a couple minutes so it’s not “usable” in any way to influence live trading. Which is why it’s always a issue for me when I see a broker change spreads or conditions between live and demo. I don’t see any point to it other than purposely doing it for some reason.
do you day trade with FXChoice? just curious. I’m sure they are still good for swing traders, it’s just when I attempt to day trade with them I get all kinds of issues like server connection issues and MT4 freezes. They are still on my list down the road if I ever change to D1 trading full time, just not very functional to me right now
Interesting read. Thanks for sharing. Obviously spread is not everything but is very useful what you listed there.
Never used a broker that went out of business so cannot comment there my friend.
got this email from LQDFX
Dear Client,
We would like to inform you that the Payment Service Provider connected to the BITCOIN deposit option available in your Client Area has recently updated their system by adding full support for SegWit bech32 addresses.
There are several technical benefits to using bech32 addresses. This newest type of Bitcoin address allows for up to 30% lower fees as transactions using Bech32 take less space in Bitcoin blocks. Also, the “bc1” address format is used by Bitcoin only, so this lowers the chance of anyone accidentally sending coins to the wrong block-chain.
We recommend all our clients that prefer using BITCOIN for their deposits, to update their settlement BTC address and replace the old BTC format address with a new type of Bech32 address by contacting their bitcoin wallet providers for further assistance, if they do not have this address in place already.
In the event you are unable to proceed to this update or need to fund urgently your account, we recommend to alternatively use the CRYPTO deposit option in your Client Area, and select Bitcoin from the drop-down list.
We remain at your disposal.
Kind Regards,
The LQDFX team
Your Loyal-Quality-Devoted FX Broker
Hmmm it’s still usable though because when in a demo, I am not simultaneously looking at a live screen so the demo is all I can rely on since I can’t see the future.
you guys see this scam folder on FPA about FXCHOICE
just going threw his post he didn’t address if he was or was not arbitrage trading
I use renko which is based on price movement rather then time…my preferred method of trading.
He did say this “Even if it would be arbitrage, I do not think FXChoice prohibits any kind of strategies. Plus, they did not say why they cancelled profits” Also looking at the enormous lot sizes he was using for the the account size in short period of time does appear to be arbitrage trading. Maybe he will share more information in the coming days to know for sure the issue. Would be nice to hear a response from FXCHOICE on the matter. FXCHOICE on their website claim they allow arbitrage trading. They did respond to him and mentioned he was doing latency arbitrage trading to manipulate the system…
So the problem will be latency arbitrage trading? and not arbitrage trading.
Yeah, basically he noticed a delay in price data feed. It happens from time to time. Some get away with it, most do not.
I never liked the use of the term arbitrage for this kind of thing since I always saw arbitrage trading as something totally different.
If he was taking advantage of a slow feed or similar then obviously that should be prohibited. The problem with that is, it is almost impossible to prove your innocence if, in fact, you are actually trading legitimately.
For example, I can scalp the 1-minute chart and get in right before a small move very consistently. On the flip side, if he was actually gaming the system, then surely he could take bad trades from time to time in order to hide his tracks.
From the broker’s perspective, better to be safe than sorry, I suppose, and they do set their own rules that everyone basically has to agree to in order to trade through them.
yeah i don’t see FXCHOICE taking this guy 250k unless something was wrong, they also have a lot of 6 and 7 figure traders, if this was the norm we be hearing about it long time ago
Hankotrade did the same thing today. At the US session open, the Dow spread was around 57, then at 9:30 when the stock market opened, it dropped to 17-27-ish, where it is now. So they do manipulate the spread at will, which I don’t really like, but if you know WHEN they do it ahead of time, you can plan accordingly. Still don’t like that practice, but their spreads on BTC and crypto are still really good, so I’m keeping them on the list as a backup
There is enough trading volume for FX, that realistically, there should not be any spreads at all. Maybe the occasional slippage, but that would likely only last for a split second and would only be seen by traders that are taking massive trades (for major pairs, anyway). So all spreads, even variable, are technically manipulated since they are manually applied by the broker and would not exist otherwise.
Since we are often dealing with several middlemen before our trades actually hit an exchange, there is likely going to be a cost for that so that everyone can get paid, unfortunately. Personally, I would prefer to eliminate brokers, altogether, and see something similar to crypto, where traders can trade directly on the exchange and the exchange provides liquidity through their own LP’s. It might eliminate a lot of the unnecessary regulation that we see being applied to brokers (maybe).
That being said, the adjustment of spreads during different times is normal practice. Brokers will tell you that it is the result of available liquidity during those times (i.e. during NY session, there is access to more liquidity during that time). Now, whether or not that is true is unknown to me.
On the one hand, it might make sense that LP’s would only be interested in tying up their capital during high-volume trading since it may be more profitable to do so. However, it might also make sense that the liquidity that is offered to the broker would always be available for the broker upon request, and not restricted at certain times.
I’ve always read that spreads = commissions for the broker, period. You can either have zero commissions with spreads, or zero spreads with commissions. Pretty much cancels each other out at the end of the day in my book, as long as none of it outrageous.
So I guess Hanko figures with more traders getting in at 9:30am, they can lower the spread and make their money on volume of trades, which I guess is a good thing for us? Who knows.
Since I’m a US trader on EST, I just wish they would start their lower spreads for the NY session open. I might have to wake up in the middle of the night some time and check the London session
EDIT: one last point about Hanko, they also have ECN accounts and STP accounts so the spreads will be different between account types, so I need to check that tomorrow AM as well.
Too bad the CFTC can’t “protect” US traders by focusing on US banks rigging the FX markets instead of a few traders wanting to trade with offshore brokers…
As far as I think, all brokers manipulate spreads to some extent even if they say they provide Raw spreads. But knowing that Hanko openly does that and it is very much visible on their trading platform makes me uncomfortable.
