Here is a very detailed response from ACTIVTRADES ;they are not ECN brokers but allow connection to interbank market with realtime spreads and also various constraints .
Do you really think it would be really better to trade in such ECN like conditions ??
Here is what Activtrades told me :
""" I have written answers to your questions below:
Activtrades offers clients streaming prices for clients. We are not an ECN as this would require you to be able to participate in the spread by adding your order to the price and thereby making the spread narrower. ECNs are based on very high volume for the sake of reaching an economy of scale. This is normally done through trading on Credit lines through a Prime Broker into the Central clearing entity (JP Morgan is this for Currenex, Citi bank is such for Lava, etc.). ECNs do normally require a minimum turnover of USD 100 million per day. Activtrades does however offer direct streaming prices from our liquidity providers to high frequency/ short term trading clients. This enables you to trade from direct market prices on same terms as institutional clients. This includes constantly variable spreads, minimum order size 10,000 (0.1 lot) � banks will not take trades for less than that, orders sent as market orders rather than instant orders (so the price you ask for is the price you get or it is rejected as the market has moved), normal market hours are followed (Sunday evening through to Friday evening 9 PM GMT time), No partial order closure possible (as liquidity providers only see us, not our closures, so they naturally do not know if orders are related).
Our Standard spreads can be found here: ActivTrades - Trading on Futures, Forex, CFDs with Metatrader
To see the variable spreads, please open a real account with us and we will have your account switched to Variable spreads. The spreads are sometime narrower, most times the same as now and sometimes wider. Needless to say that when we are seeing a volatility of historic magnitude that effects variable spreads accordingly. This should hopefully calm down shortly when Central banks have completed their historic inter rate lowering. The key element is just to realise that we are offering automated trading clients such as FAP turbo scalper realistic pricing. Most other brokers do not wish to facilitate this sort of trading due to infrastructure costs whereas we have chosen to invest into this, thus they will normally close such accounts.
As stated above scalpers are welcomed, but as explained above in point 1 & 2, they will have to face market conditions of institutional trading, which is really what automated trading is. Essentially this is: Variable spreads, minimum 0.1 lots trading, All orders handled as market orders, no partial closure of an order and market closing Friday 9 PM GMT. The reason behind this is that for us to get a regular feed, fix it, send it to the client, for them to accept, us receiving it and sending it on to the market takes several hundreds of milliseconds. In comparison automated systems can react within 100 milliseconds which causes �out-trades� on our side; trades we cannot cover in the market as the price has moved. The only solution to this is give the client the �raw data� which then cannot be fixed.
On the basis of variable spreads being applied to high speed clients, we do not see any conflicts of interest. “”" [ end of qoute ]
Is it better to trade directly on the rough and harsh interbank market than trading with a broker fixing the prices and earning his living with the spraed ; I don’t know what is better ! Share your experience .
i think in the end, brokers are doing just that to us, making us go broker! u got money and a good scalping EA, better trade institutional style through an ecn bridge. I’ve seen guys in other forums laugh at us for using these mt4 “bucket shops” they say a custom mt4 ecn bridge is the way to go when you get your cash righ and the statements to prove it. in the end, you’ll be laughing to the bank, literally. besides, the more banks a certain ecn uses, the less of a chance you have of a trade not happening because they can’t match you up.
Yes, I know where to put my expert id number to get my activation number on step 4 as you have shown the page to be.
But what if there are already 2 numbers there for you, the expert Id number and the activation number that just don’t work.
Also…I was given a new expert ID number when I went live and now that page 4 has my two numbers without any boxes for me to place my brand new expert id, I am stuck with the two numbers that are there…that do not work and a new expert ID number that I have no place to insert!!
How can you help me on that…support hasn’t sent an answer about this for over 2 weeks now…
Alfred Marton
I went live with FAP Turbo v23 and in about four days of trading, I have about a 10% return. It would’ve been closer to 30% were it not for a wayward USD/CAD loss on the 23rd that seems to have hit most people running it on that pair. So far, I’m still impressed.
But, here’s the thing: yesterday I was running a back test on the live account with extremely aggressive settings from 1/3/08 to the current date on EUR/GBP, and it was turning 2000 into something like 108K over the course of the year. I ran this test about 15 times to make sure I wasn’t missing something - each time, the same result. Even EUR/CHF was having similar results. So I go to run the test today one more time, just for the heck of it, and now everything is wonky. Same exact settings and it’s only making a couple of grand now. The only thing I’ve noticed that’s different is the spread on EUR/GBP went from 3 to 5 pips, which should make a difference but not much, right? Even the main guys at FAPT say on the forums there that 5 pips is riskier, but it should work. The weird thing is, EUR/CHF’s spread is STILL at 3 pips, like it was yesterday, and I’m getting crappy results there now too.
What could’ve changed overnight, without modifying any settings, for this test not to work exactly like it did a bunch of different times yesterday?
ODL rejects most EAs. They go out of their
way to screw up most EAs. Whether you
are running off the shelf EAs or one that
you programmed yourself, NEVER GO WITH
ODL. If they hate EAs so much, why the
hell are they offering MT4 as a platform?
That tells me that they are morons.
fapturbo a scam ! no sorry i cannot agree with you on that. this e.a is so far very profitable,in fact i had it running with a real account with scaled down settings to see how it performed. it perfomed very well in these volatile periods, where i would never trade.
for now im going to put manual trading on hold.
But their product suck, it is a lifted code that
was posted on various FX forums most of which
was available as free codes on metaquotes.net
programmning forum, and to top it all off, they
use actors on their websites; fake people
who are not real. The morons posted on their
website are not real people who created FAP
Turbo. I am sure some people on here recognize
them from many other website templates.
Marcus Leary is not real either. He is also
an actor. Most of ClickBank EA products
are in fact sold by just 2 or 3 people. They all
suck and prey on newbies who do not have
the smarts or the money to pick out decent EAs.
There are damn good EAs out there. Some
out way out of range costing upwards of $5,000
and most are not sold and used privately.
A $97 EA discounted won’t get you anywhere
especially considering that the bulk of the code
is available for free on metaquotes.net programming
forum.
jonny thanks for the metaquotes.net link looks very educational.
i hear what you saying ,but i could not care less if these guys where thunderbird characters or cardboard cut-outs, the e.a made me more than i have lost in a year.( i had a small �300 account with capital spreads to practise on and lost the lot). the only thing i can see thats going to give is the brokers getting p…sed off with fapturbo users. or fapturbo pulling the plug.
I’m very curious if this free download works for you without activation.
Honestly, if this EA makes you money, it will earn the cash spent in one night.
ya well guess what been there done that, have used there product, the EA has serious flaws in it, there is a extreme lack of support , and on there forum anyone that questions these problems are banned from posting, now what would you say to that!, I made a little money with it nothing like they claimed, but the EA only worked for a couple days then i’ve had issues with it tha they just don’t seem to want or know how to fix.
How do you know that their EA is copied from that codebase? I know that there are lots of code for custom indicators and EA’s but you do not have any access to the code of FAP turbo because the only thing you get is the executable version, so still you did not present any evidence that they just merged some code available to the public and sold it. And even if they actually did that, it’s does not mean it’s a scam. Besides, FAP turbo is a clickbank product, you have 60 days to test it, if you’re unhappy, you have your money back. I tested this procedure with one clickbank product and you get your money w/o any trouble.
but from what i have see and done and heard, everything so far points to scam scam scam, i have put a request in to get my money back, the problem they just got is that i’m not one of those people who will just let it go, I will post anywere and everywere to let people know what kind of problems they have. they screwed me around period and for that i will return the favor.
