Hey there, I was just wondering if the Dukascopy 1000.00 dollar ECN account was a true ECN account? I read that you have to trade a full 1k lot to really be trading a true ECN. Any info would help.
Interesting… I’d like to know more about this as well.
I didn’t know you could use Dukascopy with just a $1000 account. I currently use MB Trading and like them. But Dukascopy has a nice java api that I would love to experiment with.
I believe that it is…
I also believe that the term ECN is bandied about fairly loosely. ECN in the broadest sense implies the elimination of the middle man. I prefer the term Straight Through Processing(STP). Unfortunately we are still at the mercy of the middle man even with these new ECN brokers. I am not implying that they fiddle with the datafeed, but you need to remember that they are allowing you to trade against their liquidity provider…but you are not the LP’s client(you wanted anonymous right?)…the broker is the client and the LP will offer any number of customisable options to the broker as they see fit in order to rope in business.
I think what you are seeing at places like MB Trading and Dukascopy are about as close as us retail traders will ever get to real ECN.
In terms of trade sizes, as little as a year ago you would have had to trade at least 1 full lot at such brokers but then again the number of brokers offering STP were limited to a few brave ones. The “Market Maker” broker model is more profitable for a broker than the STP model…but retail FX has evolved and brokers that do not offer STP are now being left out in the cold.
All ECNs are STP but not all STPs are ECN.
Go directly to Dukascopy website and read
up on their model instead. And yes, they
are true ECN but they are now realizing that
retail end is just too big and lucrative to
ignore… thus they kept lowering the base
level retail minimum deposit requirement
while still maintaining their original big
traders base to keep them satisfied.
But note that while they have lowered
various requirements, it still is not for
people with small trading balances… their
weekend, holiday, margin requirement is
approximately 3.3 times the norm. Just go
to their site and read. Then make up your
mind about them. But it really is not true
ECN if you choose to use MT4 once they
implement MT4 live in their system. But
using their proprietary platform Jforex, it
is true ECN.
And note… all genuine STPs and ECNs are
totally anonymous. The fact is most touting
themselves as STP and ECN are not STP or
ECN. That’s the problem. And all ECN should
charge a commission. If they do not charge
a commission, they are not ECN despite what
BS they spew to you and on their website.
If just a pure non ECN STP has fixed spread,
they are not true STP either. So watch the
questionable brokers very careful before eating
up their nonsense and redefining the standard
business terms and models. Now STP can also
choose to charge a commission and give you
a better variable spread but all STPs and ECNs
by nature can only give you variable spread that
they themselves get through liquidity providers’
feeds. And among the liquidity providers there
are market maker forex firms as well in addition
to banks and in case of ECN, other traders,
institutional and retail. But if they are true
ECN and STP, your orders are anonymous and
the price liquidity providers cannot see anything
about you. And your particular brokers won’t
care about your trading volume either or even if
you do 1000 scalping traders per hour. So first
determine whether they genuinely are STP and ECN
first. And remember that STP can still mark up
the variable spread to earn their commissions and
ECN will straight away charge you a commission
without marking up the variable spread but it must
be a variable spread… if the spread is fixed, they are
not STP or ECN. Now crooked dealers are fooling
newbies with this STP/ECN terminology. Just look
at their trading platform and their price feed and you
will immediately see whether they are STP or ECN or
whatever they are. Price feed/spreads cannot lie.
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Hi Johnfx, i have an account with Dukascopy, and i’d like to know what do you mean with this…can you please explain me why MT4 platform excludes the ECN?
thanks 
DISCLAIMER:
I’m both customer and Introducing Agent for Dukascopy. It means that i work with them, and gain profit for any new customer i find.
Consider this when you read what i write, but don’t assume that i’m always lying or trying to trick you…
I also think Dukascopy are a good broker but I just dont like their platform.
Anyone trading less than 1 standard a trade $100,000 expecting STP processing of their trade needs to do more research on how a broker is setup up to not only be a counterparty to every trade they receive but also what terms they are given by their prime broker to settle each trade.
ECN doesn’t really mean much. Dukascopy is definitely an ECN (google it). But they cannot be an STP if u trade micros.
Note that if u open a position with “1” contract that is 10 standard lots on the Dukascopy platform $1,000,000.
As for their platform - it could be a lot better and should never have been implemented in Java.
Nothing stops non-scalpers using another charting platform. And if you have $100,000 for a FIX protocol account, and can afford the monthly bill you can always use Multicharts or indeed ProTrader.
I only use the standalone API and this is excellent (given the givens) and still evolving.
Randagio, was it easy to get an IB account?would appreciate any tips.
How much comm. rebate do u offer?
Thanks for your useful information.
I find it interesting that you say micro lots can not be offered by ECN brokers. I can assure you that this is NOT the case at all, all teir 1 LPs do infact accept mirco lots there are about only 10 teir 1 LPs that don’t. I know of two retail True ECN brokers that also accept Micro Lots, both have multiple LPs providing liquidity as well as liquidity provided by their own client base. These brokers are MBT and IC Markets and to be clear I am NOT PROMOTING either of these brokers, this is simply a matter of FACT.
A FIX connection to DUKAS could be an alternative but its costly, MT4 is my preferred option.
Thanks for the useful info anyway.
Thanks for the info on microlot providers.
What I said above is that an ECN (like Dukas) can’t pass your trade straight through to their prime broker (STP) if you trade micros - they are filled within the ECN or bundled up into standard lots before being sent out.
If the micros are bundled it would mean that Dukascopy are actually B Booking their Micro lot trades, albeit for a short period of time. Doesnt this undemine the who concept of Dukascopy being a True ECN broker?
It’s a question of where you want your fills and quotes to come from.
If u sign up to an ECN, u have a venue of other traders and your liquidity providers ready to take the other side E.g. one trader’s micro buy matched with another’s sell.
If you trying to buy 5 mini lot within an ECN, the system will try to find liquidity within the ECN to match your trade up and if not you can be requoted or an intervention takes place to match your trade with other order batches at ur price (partially filling as it does so), or u take a bad fill as the ECN order book is traversed to get u filled at the contract size u want at a worse price and therefore slipped.
STP resolves ur trade without any intervention matching up ur orders to a counterparty (other ECN traders, or the liquidity providers).
Dukas supports $200,000,000 in one click meaning the system is prepared to route that kind of size away from other ECN traders to one of the liquidity providers who will only process 1 standard lot minimim. This is proper STP.
Most ECNs would requote 2000 standard lots or partial fill as they don’t have big liquidity providers in the ECN and no traders taking positions that could balance out the 200m.
ECN is just a network of liquidity. There can still be trade intervention.
STP is strictly automated order routing no matter the order size. But if u ask for 5 minis at price
1.40001 and it’s not there in among other ECN traders, u can’t have it picked up by for example Integral or JP Morgan if they only allow the broker to route standard lot trades.
One way for the broker to get you ur price is to bundle it - ur 5 minis with another traders 5 minis and get u the price as 50% of 1 standard lot sent to an LP. Another way is to fill you knowing the trade is a flop and sit and wait - if u come good it’s only 5 minis.
ECN, STP, NDD is colourful marketing, what matters is:
what is my slippage when I ask for 2 standard lots at price X and how many milliseconds does it take to fill?
Nothing else matters.
Most large LPs do not process micros and also mandate minimum monthly volumes, sometimes into the billions.
This is why with an ECN u still need big bills to open a PRO account. Such an account gets better spreads, better fills and better commissions as ur actually with the same broker
but in a completely different venue.
Im not sure that I agree with this 100% there are plenty of aggregators out there who aggregate bank and non-bank LPs that allow for small lot sizes ie micro lots. Integral is one example. A broker using integral can combine bank and non-bank LPS and allow micro lots to be traded in much the same way as one or 2 standard lots.
There are infact many tier one LP’s that take micros, morgan stanley, Citi, BoA to name a few. There are only 10 banks that I am aware of that will not take this sort of flow. I know this fist hand as I have configured many Integral setups in my past life… And then there are the dark pools, these guys take whatever you give them.
Talking about dark pools this just came in on my email
micro lots at morgan, not what they quoted me last week, although granted that is a prime broker setup and not via an aggregator 
Before settling with dukas i was gonna go with http://fibogroup.com/
Their integral hook up (under ECN) i can see is 5 micros minimum but of course if like u say integral mixes up bank and not bank providers it won’t be impossible to get that filled STP so I take that onboard.
For the OP, Dukas is the place to be until u can move up on to an account with a bank or institutional broker like NewEdge or Hotspot. Acronyms aside, their SWFX ECN has everything you need from 1 micro to 1000 standards + slippage control.
Any bank that is hooked into Triana will be able to provide you with Miro Lots.
You have to understand the currencies market is different from the stock markets- there is ‎more than one trading scene. Therefore, there will always be aggregators and some ECN ‎will have to use them. I cannot tell if Dukas is real ECN or not since I have never traded with ‎this broker. From my experience, my favorite real ECN brokers, in which I run live accounts, ‎are FXCM & Sunbirdfx. Verrrrrrrrrrrrry fast executions- great for scalpers!!! ‎