Direct Market Access (DMA) Trading with FOREX.com

As the #1 forex broker in the US by client assets, our goal is to cater a variety of trading styles by offering multiple trading and charting platforms, educational resources, and markets. That’s why in response to popular demand, we are excited to introduce our new Direct Market Access (DMA) account.



1) What is Direct Market Access?

It means you’re trading on pricing sourced directly from our liquidity providers*. Ability to see the full market depth gives you greater insight and control to trade on the best bids and offers especially for large order sizes.

* While our clients trade on transparent DMA pricing provided directly from top-tier global banks and liquidity providers, FOREX.com remains as the principal and counterparty to the trade. We execute client trade requests in FOREX.com’s name with the liquidity providers and pass the fill price back to the customer with no added mark-up.

2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of DMA model?

Advantages:

1. Trade on prices sourced from global banks and top tier liquidity providers – with no additional mark up
2. You pay no FOREX.com spread, raw spreads can be as low as 0.0 – no mark up
3. You can trade on discounted commissions as low as $20 per million. Standard commission start at $60 per million with the opportunity to earn deep discounts that carry over month to month. Commissions are based on the value of the contract in USD.
4. Real time full multiple levels of full market depth of our order book
5. Split the spread, place orders within the top of book spreads

Commission example:

1. If you trade $350M volume in Month 1, your commission for trades in Month 2 will be $35 per million traded.
2. If you trade $550M volume in Month 2, your commission for trades in Month 3 will still be $35 per million traded, since it is based on your 3-month rolling average of volume traded.
3. If you trade $600M volume in Month 3, your commission for trades in Month 4 will be $30 per million traded (based on 3-month rolling average of volume traded).

Disadvantages:

1. When you are trading a DMA account, you are trading on raw pricing and liquidity and as a result, there may be periods of less liquidity such as during news announcements - spreads can widen further in a DMA model when compared with our standard spreads. Trade requests may be partially filled or not filled at all due to lack of available liquidity.

When you trade on a FOREX.com Standard or Commission account, FOREX.com acts as the market maker and is directly accountable for pricing and execution quality. Your orders are filled directly by FOREX.com.

With DMA, FOREX.com is placing an order on behalf of the client and passing along the fill received directly to the client, so there is the possibility of order rejections and partial fills.

3) Are there any account or trade restrictions with a DMA account?

The DMA account is available to everyone however, it is designed with high volume traders in mind. There is no minimum account balance or minimum trading volume required per month, but the minimum order size is 100K (or 100,000 units of base currency AKA one standard lot), and trades must be placed in increments of 100K.*

A tiered commission structure means your commission per USD million traded is based on your monthly trading volume.

* Traders who wish to place orders smaller than 100K, or who trade less than 100M per month have the option of trading our Standard or Commission account where they can place orders as small as 1K (or 1,000 units of base currency AKA one micro lot).

4) Are there other benefits of having a DMA account?

1. Earn interest: 1.5% APY interest on your average daily available margin** balance up to $50K, 0.5% APY on $50K-$100K
2. Get professional guidance: Enjoy dedicated one-on-one support from a highly trained Market Strategist that can help you with your trading plan
3. Waived bank fees: We will reimburse bank fees on all wire transfers

Visit our website for more information on our DMA account, or you can contact us at 646-512-5438 or [email protected]

DMA FAQs: Pricing & Fees



5) Will I save money on transaction costs versus a standard account?

Your transaction costs will vary based on volume traded and spreads. With a DMA account, you pay no FOREX.com spread. You are trading on raw pricing and liquidity sourced from our liquidity providers. So while you may trade at spreads as low as 0.0, there is no minimum or maximum spread as a result, during times of less liquidity or news announcements, spreads can widen further in a DMA model when compared with our standard spreads.

Your transaction cost to FOREX.com is the commission you pay on your trades.

6) Will FOREX.com.com prices be available in the DMA model?

No, FOREX.com prices will not be available in a DMA account.

7) What are the roll rates on DMA account?

FOREX.com sources institutional rollover rates and pass them to you at a competitive price. Similar to a standard FOREX.com account, rollover interest is not applied to intraday trades.

8) What is "top of book" pricing?

Top of book represents the best available bid and offer at that time and is available up to 1MM. In the example below, you can see there is liquidity of 3M available at the best bid price to sell EUR/USD at 1.15082 and 2.1M available at the best offer price to buy EUR/USD at 1.15082 (meaning the spread is zero pips in this instance).

Actual execution prices may vary to pricing displayed on the platform.

9) How will cost per trade be determined?

DMA is a commission only model, you’ll pay no FOREX.com spread. Your cost to us is the commission paid.

DMA FAQs: Execution


10) How will my stop and limit orders get filled?

Orders placed via the DMA trade ticket will be immediately passed to our liquidity providers (in FOREX.com’s name) where they will add to the liquidity in the pool. The limits and stops effectively become bids/offers for other participants in the liquidity pool to interact with.

Orders placed via the standard trade ticket on the Advanced Trading Platform and the mobile and web platforms will be top-of-book and will only be sent to the liquidity pool as a market order when the order is triggered.

11) How will liquidations be executed?

You are responsible for monitoring your account and maintaining 100% of required margin at all times to support your open positions.

If at any point, the equity available drops below 100% of the margin required you will be subject to auto liquidation of the position incurring the largest loss. The liquidation process is as follows: the net aggregated open position with the greatest unrealized loss is closed first, followed by the next largest losing position and so on, until the maintenance margin requirement is satisfied or exceeded. Depending on the size and unrealized P&L of the open positions, all open positions may be liquidated in order to meet the margin requirement.

In the event of a liquidation, the trade is executed in the market directly with the liquidity provider and then passed down to the client.

When your account falls below 120% margin, a margin alert will automatically be sent to you via email. This notification is for your convenience and should not be relied on to protect your account.

While our 100% margin requirement and real-time margin system is designed to limit your trading losses and help ensure that total losses never exceed your total account balance, you do risk incurring losses greater than your account balance, especially during periods of extreme market volatility. For this reason, we strongly encourage you to manage your use of leverage carefully. Increasing leverage increases risk.

12) Who is the counter party on trades with a DMA account?

FOREX.com acts as the principal and counterparty to the trade.

Here’s how Forex DMA execution works:

a. The Forex DMA dealing ticket displays the best bid and offer price available for a particular market as well as the additional prices available on either side of the order book.

b. Client places an order on the DMA pricing and FOREX.com instantaneously conducts a margin check to ensure the client has sufficient funds to cover the margin required for the proposed trade.

c. If the margin check is satisfied, FOREX.com places an order in to the market in FOREX.com’s name at the client’s chosen price.

d. When the order is executed in the market, we fill the client’s order at the exact same price without a mark-up and book into their FOREX.com trading account.

e. Therefore, while the client is trading on transparent DMA pricing provided directly from top-tier global banks and liquidity providers, FOREX.com remains as the principal and counterparty to the trade.

13) Are there any differences from the market maker model in executions and fills?

Yes, when you trade on market maker model:

1. Client places an order after seeing FOREX.com’s tradable bid/ask spread.

2. FOREX.com executes the order.

3. We confirm the execution to you.

FOREX.com is directly accountable for pricing and execution quality and customer orders are filled directly by FOREX.com.

When you trade on DMA:

1. The Forex DMA dealing ticket displays the best bid and offer price available for a particular market as well as the additional prices available on either side of the order book.

2. Client places an order on the DMA pricing and FOREX.com instantaneously conducts a margin check to ensure the client has sufficient funds to cover the margin required for the proposed trade.

3. If the margin check is satisfied, FOREX.com places an order in to the market in FOREX.com’s name at the client’s chosen price.

4. When the order is executed in the market, we fill the client’s order at the exact same price without a mark-up and book into their FOREX.com trading account.

5. Therefore, while the client is trading on transparent DMA pricing provided directly from top-tier global banks and liquidity providers, FOREX.com remains as the principal and counterparty to the trade.

With DMA, FOREX.com is placing an order on behalf of the client and passing along the fill received directly to the client, there is the possibility of order rejections and partial fills.

14) What is the difference between DMA and ECN model?

There are many similarities between the two models in terms of pricing. Both provide clients with access to the interbank market which creates tight pricing with depth of book transparency. 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. With FOREX.com’s DMA model, we leverage our existing Prime Brokerage relationships to provide customers with access to trade on prices sourced directly from our liquidity providers.

15) Can clients request execution data the same way as market maker model?

Yes.

16) Will I have access to historical data?

Clients will have access to historical data in the same manner that retail clients do today.

17) What recourse do I have if my stop or limit order is not filled?

Our ability to fill your trade is contingent on the order being executed with our liquidity provider(s). When you trade on our DMA service, your orders are passed directly to our liquidity providers with FOREX.com acting as counterparty to your trade. A lack of available liquidity from FOREX.com’s liquidity providers may result in your order not being filled at any price.

We will display currently available pricing for the contracts offered under the DMA Service. The actual execution price achieved in the market with our liquidity provider is passed on to you at the same price with FOREX.com acting as counterparty to your trade. There may be instances when the prices may differ from the pricing displayed.