(Edit note: I originally titled the post - 'Is IBFX really that bad? Maybe...'
It seems that Forex Factory has manually changed the title on me to the generic phrase 'this broker'. Very interesting since the blatant 'FXOpen is a scam' posting was left intact. I'm thinking that someone from IBFX requested the change. What's to hide, since these are actual charts?...If my whole post disappears later, you'll know why. And, for any IBFX personnel reading this, you've only worked to hasten my decision.)
I've traded with IBFX for my first live year of trading and I've made decent money. I've had my suspicions about them, but chalked it up as paranoia. Recently, I started looking at some other brokers such as ATC and MB Trading and read very positive reviews. I decided to look at IBFX and was surprised that the majority of people said they were a scam and crooks. Some of the reasons are sudden widening of spreads, constant requotes, price manipulation, and stop hunting. I thought back to my own experiences over this past year, where I switched from declaring my SL to leaving open for a manual stop; I also would set a TP, but since they almost always reverted with 0.5-4 pips from my price (we're talking trades that sometimes can take weeks to complete, not scalping) I began leaving the TP in there, but manually closing (with requotes of course). Still, perhaps I'm being paranoid. Then I decided to check back on an odd occurrence on January 14th, where I saw two incredible jumps on the minute chart (I was following up on a long tail on the 4hr). Things had been running almost dead on GBP, but there were two jumps in a row of almost 100 pips on the minute chart - down, up, down, up, continue on as before. I'm posting two charts of that time period - one from IBFX and one from ATC. Not only do those jumps not appear on ATC, but the whole volatility is quite different. And yet, IBFX reports a daily OHLC only a pip different from ATC. Further, the low reported for the day is above the low on the minute chart for the day. Stop hunting and price manipulation?
It seems that Forex Factory has manually changed the title on me to the generic phrase 'this broker'. Very interesting since the blatant 'FXOpen is a scam' posting was left intact. I'm thinking that someone from IBFX requested the change. What's to hide, since these are actual charts?...If my whole post disappears later, you'll know why. And, for any IBFX personnel reading this, you've only worked to hasten my decision.)
I've traded with IBFX for my first live year of trading and I've made decent money. I've had my suspicions about them, but chalked it up as paranoia. Recently, I started looking at some other brokers such as ATC and MB Trading and read very positive reviews. I decided to look at IBFX and was surprised that the majority of people said they were a scam and crooks. Some of the reasons are sudden widening of spreads, constant requotes, price manipulation, and stop hunting. I thought back to my own experiences over this past year, where I switched from declaring my SL to leaving open for a manual stop; I also would set a TP, but since they almost always reverted with 0.5-4 pips from my price (we're talking trades that sometimes can take weeks to complete, not scalping) I began leaving the TP in there, but manually closing (with requotes of course). Still, perhaps I'm being paranoid. Then I decided to check back on an odd occurrence on January 14th, where I saw two incredible jumps on the minute chart (I was following up on a long tail on the 4hr). Things had been running almost dead on GBP, but there were two jumps in a row of almost 100 pips on the minute chart - down, up, down, up, continue on as before. I'm posting two charts of that time period - one from IBFX and one from ATC. Not only do those jumps not appear on ATC, but the whole volatility is quite different. And yet, IBFX reports a daily OHLC only a pip different from ATC. Further, the low reported for the day is above the low on the minute chart for the day. Stop hunting and price manipulation?