basically a market maker is taking the other side of your trade and profiting from your losses, an ECN broker passes on all the trades into the ECN market place, their incentive is for you to make money not loose money.
Thanks jack snack so what does this mean for us as traders are ther pros and cons to both?
Market Maker Means
- Spread blowouts
- Order Rejections and Requotes
- Stop hunting
- Excessive Slippage
basically you dont want to deal with a market maker broker as they will do anything in their power to ensure that you loose money.
You best bet is to go with an ECN broker, unfortunately some people think that STP brokers are the same as ECN brokers however they are just market makers in disguise. An ECN broker will always be able to show you market depth and more often than not they will charge a commission rather than a widened spread.
Sadly there are only a handful of genuine ECN brokers out there, the two ECN brokers that I have had good experiences with are MBT and IC Markets. Of course you should try a few brokers before making a decision and trade on their demo accounts first.
Good luck !!
I have been using fxcc from Cyprus for a while, fantastic broker, but today:
- their website is down
- execution on their true ecn takes 3-8 seconds.
- mobile app doesnt connect
whooopa whooops?
That is a long execution time.
I had an account with them once but I quickly closed my account as I also had similar issues but not as bad as yours.
I agree. I am using Axi and IC Markets. Currently testing Armada Markets they seem decent
Squach, can’t find anything that actually refer them as being the best fx brokers? How did you determine that? Is it just because they are cheap?
I picked one. Armada markets. A three minute search gave me this:
(19 Sept 2012) Finantsinspektsioon (the Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority) would like to inform investors that Armada Markets AS (commercial registry code 12189652) does not hold an activity licence for the provision of investment services and therefore Armada Markets AS is not authorised to provide investment services in Estonia. The company offers the possibility to trade different derivatives on electronic trading platform available on its web page Forex | Armada Markets | LMAX | FX | Kauplemine.
But on the Armada site it says:
Armada is a registered foreign exchange and metals broker by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (nr VVT000289, FRA000029) in Estonia.
Perhaps something happened since September, but it worries me that one of the top fx brokers you mentioned actually received a public comment from their regulator. But I looked on their regulator site where there is still no record about Armada markets in their register.
Would it be wise to keep your Millions there on your trade account.
Did you choose a broker if yes who and why.
I have an account with Armada Markets and also at first I was worried about this notification from Estonian Financial Supervisory Authority. I sent a question by email to them, and this was their answer:
The notice was put up to inform public that we cannot provide investement services, such as trading in CFDs, futures, stocks, etc. We provide only spot Forex and spot gold/silver. For these services we have proper license from Estonian Ministry of Economics.
Actually, I don’t care much about Armada. I have greater concerns that people call brokers the best FX brokers without actually knowing if they are and why. I think it is not a good advise to call out some pretty unknown brokers and say that thet are the best. I heard about Pepperstone, but that is it.
Yes, I don’t know all brokers myself, but I would at least expect some more know brokers to be part of that list.
Are you really thinking that I would base my opinion on brokers just based on my own opinion. Before I moved to IC Markets and Axi I searched in many forums. Why I started to test Armada Markets was that one of my friends recommended Armada. I found good reviews about them from forexpeacearmy and donnaforex forum(traders who do HFT trading wrote there). I must say so far I am more than pleased with them.
Funds security is one of the biggest concern and it should be in the checklist of every forex trader before opening an account…
I prefer Australian brokers for many reasons and you guys can check and verify any of these brokers… AXITrader, Pepperstone, ICMarkets & ThinkForex…
All of them have received good reviews but you can give it a try…
I hope that helps…
Happy Trading… :19:
I am already using Armada Markets. I am looking to open additional account with some other broker If would have to choose one then what would be your choice. I am between Pepperstone and Axitrader