Just to share some information that I have just got. I have an indicator that can record spread (forgot which website I got it from, but you can simply google “spread recorder”). I always have it on and have already forgotten about it.
Today, I have a position stopped out around resistance point and realized that Oanda suddenly increases itspread to 20pips! In comparison, there is only 4.5pips on MB Trading (I will post details below if you are interested). However, most of the time, Oanda does have a better pip for most currencies.
Oanda (use for around 1 year or so, for the most part, quite happy)
Pro:
Better rate (most of the time)
Free withdrawal for SGD account (never try it)
Execution is, most of the time, pretty fast
Cons:
Sudden increase in spread. I found that sometimes this increase is NOT shown on their historical spread webpage.
MB Trading (I only try Demo, but may get an account soon):
Pro:
EXN
1:100 leverage for UK account
hedging allow
Seems to have a lot of awards and recommended by Barron
Cons
higher spread, surprisingly for a ECN you get higher pips than Oanda most of the time. Also, the real spread is always higher than the one shown on FXIntelligence.
The actual spread recorder file is attached.
Hope this info may help some who are choosing brokers. Please share your experience about your broker.
Just saw your message and signed up to respond to you. I want to assure you we only use live feeds for all of our broker connections, including MBT. Our MBT feeds are the same exact feeds that all MBT clients trade upon, they are not altered in any way by us or by MBT. I maintain other live accounts at MBT and I would be the first to notice if the feed they’ve given us to display differed at all from a client feed.
Please let me know if you have any other questions, I’d be happy to provide support.
Thanks for your reply. I am not saying anyone altering the quote but just sharing my observations. Perhaps you would like to explain the picture below. This is done over the weekend when market is closed. I get the same quote for Oanda but as I said before, almost always lower for MBT free EXN on FxInt. Print screen is taken on Saturday (3 Mar 12) 1pm GMT+8 time.
I use 1min average because there is no real time quote. Real time quote moves too fast and one can easily argue that it is just due to delay or some soft.
I am getting this sudden 200pips funny move on AUD/JPY on MBTrading but not on Alpari or Oanda. Wondering if it is data loading problem or some soft of errors?
According to this, dont waste Your time on MBTrading. They are real Dealing Desk brokers. They will hunt Your stops down.
There is no such thing like this on real market. Go and find someone really on the market. It is going to be a hard time…
Um, maybe you should try something NOT over the weekend when the market is closed for comparison. MB blows away Oanda and the FX Intel data on their site is accurate to what my live account sees.
Real Time, as requested. Is it only me who get higher spread on MBT or what? My MBT is always higher than Oanda and always higher than what is quoted by FxInt. Mine is demo but it is supposed to be the same as live account (as claimed by MBT staff). Also, there is always this funny move here and there in MBT, hopefully someone can tell me why. Thanks!
I am glad that there is some discussion of MB trading issues (if they really exist). Its very enlightening to see all those comparative charts you made; seems like stop hunting to me.
I created a demo account with them to practice my trading. I don’t have any prior experience with trading though, so my demo experience at MB that I’ll be outlining now needs input.
From the figure
First point: When my stop loss at 1.31780 is executed, it is actually 0.3 pips further. Similarly, another stop loss event at 1.32608 is 0.7 pips away from the actual set place. Tell me, if this is just normal behavior, or does it actually qualify as slippage? In total, it cost me a pip – $10 a pip.
Then I later entered a profitable trade at 10 lots – MB trading lots, where it seems a regular lot is always a mini lot. My take profit was reached at 7:58 EST. Notice that two 0.10 lots were closed at that time as tp was executed. However, the other two gigantic lots of 3.0 and 6.8 were executed 2 minutes later at 8:00 EST. Should this worry me? The market could’ve moved against me by many pips in that time. I don’t know if other brokers’ executions are like this or not so I can’t say if this is due to low liquidity. But it makes me afraid of entering into scalps. It even seems as if MB wanted to takes its time before executing my order hoping the price would go against me.
And if anyone can actually explain the lot sizes and account sizes that MB subscribes to then that would be greatly helpful. Their demo sets initial capital at $10,000 with 50:1 leverage. But a single lot is valued at $1/pip which would be a mini lot. So as I said earlier, they don’t seem to have a standard account category.
One more thing: I noticed that their spreads on FXIntelligence report seem smaller than they actually are in the demo, as observed. One step further this path, I even noticed that the two spreads on their website for EXN free model and commission model don’t have any significant differences. The free model should have a wider spread but I noticed that it actually is narrower at times than the commission model.
It looks like slippage to me. I have that too on Oanda real account. The reverse can be true: it can be executed at a better TPprice. It is actually quite dangerous if the system insists on only exit at exactly your price, because your price may not get hit at all even after the price move against your SL, say 100pips.
Quite surprised to get it executed 2min later. That seems very slow. But you do have the similar exit price though in this case.
YES, MBT is minilot and it is very strange. I asked the online chat guy and he said it cant be changed. So, just have to get used to it and not messed it up with other brokers’ system.
