How could I understand that my order is passed directly to the market?
What do you mean by no part lot trades?
ECN broker charges commission and provide fast execution of trade .
I trade with LMAX, which is unique in the entire world. Itâs spreads can literally be ZERO, and a âcrossed marketâ condition can exist. This is REAL competitive bidding, I can steal liquidity from under the noses of the larger liquidity providers. And, believe it or not, I can win the ENTIRE spread with a resting Limit Order (subject to instantaneous liquidity, of course) with 0.001m size order. Itâs a dream come true, but for ânormalâ traders it is not a venue of much interest since its Trading Platforms are so relatively poor compared with the âfull serviceâ brokers. I am a specialist who uses API micro scalping, so, for me it is the best possible venue and they deliver on their promises. Brokers hate this idea since their business models are âfatâ with profits. A real exchange like LMAX is not likely to âcatch onâ with the broader brokerage community 
I wonder why not ?? LOL Get this: Even the Major Liquidity Providers âhateâ LMAX (but they participate anyway). They âhateâ it because if they post a Quote on the Book, and it gets HIT, they CANNOT back away⌠They donât like that one little bit 
No requotes, no last look. BOOM! You have to honor your quote no matter what⌠And you, as a little fish, are ALSO a âliquidity providerâ on a level playing field. That is the future⌠And Order Execution is literally the same as your Round Trip Ping time, a few msecs more⌠Wow, and you can quote me on thatâŚ
HyperScalper
Not available to residents of the U.S., Canada, or Australia.
Not available to small, retail traders in [I]any[/I] part of the world.
Good comment, but I think using LMAX as the broker may require about $5k in
equivalent capitalization, they are not terribly strict on that. There are a number
of Partner brokerages (you have to hunt for them) who may require less
initial capitalization.
But âsmallâ is a matter of definition. To me, any trader with less than $10k
capitalization is probably âsmallâ. Those with $500 are in the category I call
"wishful thinking" out of touch with reality, and should find another activity.
BUTâŚWhat is important is not to be impressed with âwholesaleâ and all of thatâŚ
If you are a âsmallâ trader, and you want to use LMAX it will be of little
to no advantage (and you will wish you had chosen a different broker)
UNLESS you are doing critical trading exploiting wholesale pricing
and fast order processing. You would be much better at a more "full service"
retail brokerage with a decent feed and all of the âwidgetsâ small traders
want in a platform.
I ran into a prospective client who, believe it or not, actually had an LMAX
account. But he chose to use MetaTrader so he really is not benefitting from
the LMAX platform especially, unless he has some âscalpingâ EAâs on the
MetaTrader, which he doesnât⌠So heâs wasting his time at LMAX really,
unless he used software similar to what I use to exploit this venue.
Thanks!
HyperScalper
And thatâs the truthâŚusing real ecn brokers beats out the rest by a mile and more, the downside, you get charged commissions, but itâs not much. I use tradersway and fxcm and after reading up on LMAX, going to check and see if its worthwhileâŚeither way really need to replace the A that went belly upâŚ
I have done precision micro scalping with Dukascopy, which is an âECNâ. Now, as has been noted, that is an fairly âvagueâ concept but basically it means that an automated matching process is using and you are exposed to ânear real marketâ pricing. Ordinarily the liquidity providers, as in the case of Dukascopy (you can get an Atom8 account, much cheaper, 100% Dukas feed) are quoting you close to âinterbank typeâ rates.
As an EXTREME scalper, I know exactly that there is NO SLIPPAGE, and Counterparty Rejections at Dukascopy are VERY RARE. Their API resubmits the Limit Order on rejection. Keep in mind that I am using Limit Orders inside the spread at Dukascopy, so 0.5% of the time, mainly in slow conditions, a counterparty rejection is encountered. Dukascopy gets pissed off when their liqudity providers reject, so you can be sure that you get amazing fills. BUT⌠and this is not a problem for ânormalâ traders. WHOLESALE fills are not available on Dukascopy, and the displayed Book is for sizes 100k+. Smaller sizes are not shown, so the Book is more âorderlyâ⌠a sensible decision.
At LMAX, any âpiss antâ trader with a 1k Lot is shown directly on the Book. This makes for a ânoisierâ book, and ânoisierâ means âmore opportunityâ for some idiot to match my Bid or Offer Spreads on LMAX are perhaps 30% narrower, but this is of course a matter of liquidity and the âdistributionâ of tiers, so not directly comparable.
LMAX is not an ECN, but a true âexchangeâ where the Exchange does the matching, and the participants (You, the Trader, and Small, Large and Huge Liquidity Providers) are operating on a âLevel Playing Fieldâ with âFirst In First Filledâ Price/Time priority on the âexchangeâ matching engine.
I have access to Dukascopy but am a U.S. person; and I accomplish that ONLY by having a European Partner who is able to open the accounts. They are NOT available directly to U.S. persons, unless you are a âmagicianââŚ
So orders are not ârouted outâ as with Dukascopy to the liquidity providers where they get a chance to reject the transaction. As I said, with Dukascopy it doesnât really happen anyway, and believe me, I know.
But you can do excellent Micro Scalping on Dukascopy, with the software platform managing dozens of simultaneous orders, itâs amazing⌠Much better to use Dukascopy, a âfull serviceâ retail brokerage, because VERY FEW are looking for Wholesale advantage, like me.
But, for Wholesale, IF you can get your hands on the right software platform, custom designed to their API; then LMAX is incomparable. Ordinary retail traders, like you or me, with the right software can take liquidity from under the noses of other liquidity providers, and literally achieve wholesale pricing. I just executed a couple of resting limits and got the Whole Spread with only 0.005 million (5k) lots. Here are the stats, where >>> or <<< means each mark = 0.1 PIPs wholesale advantage over retail price.
01-29 16:28:49.603 GBPJPY SEL *>>>>S (5.0) wPI: 5.00 qty: 0.005m @ prc: 177.829 bid: 177.824 msecs: 68 LMAXoid: AAGJJQAAAAJutKyU
01-29 16:28:57.763 GBPJPY SEL *>>>>S (5.0) wPI: 5.00 qty: 0.005m @ prc: 177.856 bid: 177.851 msecs: 68 LMAXoid: AAGJJQAAAAJutLST
Times are in CET (Central European Time) since I run from the U.S.A. via VNC to my platform, but it is situated on a dedicated Quad Xeon Linux box in Germany.
LMAX is âthe real dealâ but it is NOT for normal traders, they will be quite unhappy it does NOT have very good platforms, charting and all the âcreature comfortsâ which ordinary retail traders want.
HyperScalper
A real ECN broker charges for commission. They will not trade against you instead they pass your order directly to the bank or another customer.
Itâs not easy to determine a broker whether is true ECN since a broker could be both true ECN and MM. Because every broker have some or multiple professional trader, market analyst are working inside, so they can easily know how market would move in a certain period. Then they filter all trades were made through platform in their system, and they can fight against with those trades to maximum the income instead of only charge the commission.
But no one tell me this, itâs like a business trick. And I think for VIP client, they should be true ECN.
Thanks for the infoâŚI guess with LMAX, we donât get all the bells and whistlesâŚeither way, will check both out soonâŚ
I have decided I have no bias for ECN vs. MM. A given strategy may cause some to have such a bias, but mine does not. I think traders make a much bigger deal about their dealer trading with them than they need to. If slippage is going to kill you, then your dealer could be the least of your worries.
If it feels like light years since we started this thread off. I have also learned a lot more about an area of the market that very few participants know about.
The truth is the banks have sold their clients orders that are suppose to be in the banks own dark pool to HFT companies you have never heard of (Citadel LLC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), that trade against those clients. So the bank is no longer executing orders not even in the dark pool. So ECN or not those orders are not getting filled at the best price everyone is being ripped off.
These guys have 0 risk they buy and sell so fast that they never even hold a position. Imagine a MM that does not have any inventory can buy at 1.2001 and sell it to you at 1.2005 in a matter of micro-seconds (1 millionth of a second) before even the market knew they were there. This is simply because every price we see on our platforms is in most cases 3 whole seconds
behind the actual market price. So imagine how much money a HFT comapany can make buying selling outdated pricesâŚ
It is a system wide conspiracy, all the market needs is volatility and everyone is fair game, big and small investor alike. There is a new predator in the market and the sad news is no one knows he exists. In the words of Brad Katsuyama. The truth is there is no market, there is just HFT so we should stop worrying about MM and ECN and so on. Just trade your plan and take your pips when you get them, I like the ECN guys because of the tight spreads when you are intraday trading even the minors and the cost of trading those on commission is cheap, my broker sends their flow to Morgan Stanley the prime broker who likely trades it in their dark pool where HFT firms will execute those orders at the best worst possible price some will get executed by the banks own prop desk who are trading against me as well.
It never ends. MM Brokers on the other hand just execute the order at the worst possible price while they are placing orders into the ECN that will eventually get passed on to HFT in which case you doubly screwed but you have no clue because the worst bit is you canât even see what is wrong and you pay to be ripped off too.
Enough saidâŚ
You just make simple steps, join and feel it.
But I totally recommend ECN account from Liteforex. Its really really using Electornic Communication Network Technology (ECN). All orders process more smooth and excellence.
I was about to open a practice account with MB Trading & I guess time has moved on. 886 days since the last post here. Does anyone feel like updating their broker recommendations with reasons why?
you should check out hugosway they are an ECN broker!!!
HugoFX is not an ECN broker. Thatâs just marketing lingo.
In a typical anonymous ECN model, the individual client must have secured their own credit line from a traditional Prime Broker or Prime of Prime provider in order to participate in the ECN.
Also, theyâre not even regulated so thatâs big red flag right there.
Retail forex traders canât access ECNs. Trading volumes are too small.
One way to know if youâre on an ECN is if you can be a âmarket makerâ and post your very own limit bid and ask orders and it goes out to the ECN (which means you can see it on the order book) and it can be taken.
If you trade crypto on exchanges like Coinbase Pro or Binance, youâd be able to do this. Same thing if you trade equities (and you can see your order if you have access to Level II quotes).
Since forex is OTC, you usually canât do this with your forex âbrokerâ because you can only âtakeâ prices not âmakeâ them. But if youâre actually part of an ECN, you can actually âmakeâ (and âtakeâ) prices.
Probably the closest thing to trading directly in the âmarketsâ is Interactive Brokers, Forex.com 's DMA account, and IGâs Forex Direct (might be limited to being a price taker here).
But again, look at their commission schedules. Unless youâre trading like 10,000 standard lots or more a month, meaning youâre trading billions of units on a monthly basis, theyâre not accessible to the typical retail forex trader.
3 Likes
Regulated or not, iâve had no issue with them trading crypto with them,
1 Like
Crypto market is already an unregulated market and youâre unnecessarily multiplying your risk by trading with an unregulated broker that doesnât even provide a phone number on their website. If thatâs what you want to do, then thatâs your call. (pun intended 
)
You should Google their address:
Global Gateway 8, Rue de la Perle, Providence Mahe, Seychelles
See how many different offshore companies use that SAME address.
You should try copy and pasting their address in Google Maps and see what appears.
They havenât posted on their Facebook page since last August, and on their Twitter account since last September.
There are just too many red flags already for anybody to want risk depositing your money with them.