ANY Experiences Changing from OANDA to Dukascopy or IB

hi,

I'm planing to move from Oanda to Dukascopy (or IB - Interactive Brokers but more likely to Dukascopy ).


I would be interested from someone who has done so - or uses OANDA plus one of the other two.



Is there any particular hassle which you encountered at Dukascopy 'coming from OANDA trading experience'

Anything to watch out or so -- also any other useful advice would be appreciated

The last time I checked, Dukascopy's account minimum was $50K. Don't know it that's changed since then.

But I do know that they were my first choice, and if I had had the capital at the time, I would have gone with them. Still may in the future.

hi kibescorp,

Could you share WHY would they have been your first choice?

BTW: There Retail account minimum deposit is: $ 5.000.


What worries me at the moment is that they do not have any banking license at the moment.

Yes, that license was only applied for at the very last date. I wouldn`t do any business with them without that license.

But Oanda and IB are the 2 very best options (alas sans MT4). Effient, lowest (real) spreads, financial stability, API and no surprises.

Kind regards

Forex37

Maybe some others are interested too. I just got a feedback that Dukascopy expect there license:

Within Q1 2010.

as for the spread and execution ，if your min. trade size above 100k unit，i highly recommend IB！

good mind,

Thanks for your feedback

If you carry trade more than 5 days , IB require at least 25000 balance.
GBPJPY leverage is only 40

Both Ducascopy and IB show you their ECN book, so scalping takes on a whole new look, literally. IB allows one-click trades right into the book view; don't know about Dy.

Dy's API is intended to be FIX based, and since that's basically a STP tunnel right to interbank, approval and assurances of 8, if not 9, figure monthly roll is probably needed. IB has multiple language variants of API (and FIX as well, of course). API is a collection of event-driven low level calls into the real-time, history, order mgmt and accounting servers.

One attractive thing IB offers for their individual accounts is their Excel based DDE linkage, which allows you to trade from Excel and access all of the API functionality in cells. Given the amount of share/free ware you can find to add-in to Excel, as well as the COM enabled native VBA, you could build some pretty fancy things that way.

The kind of things that the MT platform provides natively for you are not there to anywhere the same degree. If you're dependent upon charts that are easy to build with all kinds of fancy pre-programmed lines and curves, there would be a period of withdrawl.

IB gives you simultaneous access to the futures and futures options alongside the spots. This is important as you evolve to lower frequency, larger sizes, and become more sophisticated in, and dependent upon, risk mgmt.

IB has two holes in its trading day: 17:00-:15 ET, and 23:55-00:18 ET. That requires a re-start of the Gateway or the desktop application and/or API apps. I don't know about Dy outages, but they likely have some, too. They need to freeze their balance sheet for a few minutes in order to do the accounting, rolls, exercises, and all the things full service brokers have to do.

Both Dy and IB are multi-currency brokers. If you trade, for example, E-G, you're going to have real account balances in EUR and GBP alongside USD by the end of the day.

Bottom line, operationally, is that with an ECN, you see the market. With an MT4 market maker, the market sees you. And when Oanda is showing 20-21.5, and the ECN is showing 20.5-21.0, and your market fill, either side, comes back 20.7, it doesn't take too long for it to be worth it.

One thing to consider,though: At IB, the commission is 20 per MM on the USD value of the notional, up to a billion per month, with a $2.50 minimum per trade. That means that 100M EUR is about $2.60, but 20M EUR will also be $2.50. The latter is two-a half pips in and out, at which point you're as well off, or even better off, cost-wise anyway, with the retail houses.

hello all..
i am considering Dukascopy..
(actually , an individual Retail account , mininum deposit 1000 usd)

i can fit any trading platform.. the lowest spreads are not a must ,, etc...
for me , the most important thing is safety indeed..
trading safety and withdraw safety..

anybody has live account in Dukas ?
any experiences , any advices please..

also , what about Interactivebrokers ?
(and actually , i cant supply a large deposit to open an acount .. )
what is the minimum ?

Hey I am having the same questions about switching from Oanda to Dukascopy... I want to know if anyone left Oanda and is now trading with Dukascopy? Any noticeable difference in reliability or execution? Thanks OldQuant for the response. I know a lot of what the brokers offer but want to see the response of someone who has actually used both brokers and understands. Thanks!

James

I transfered my account from Oanda to IKON Capital (Currenex Viking platform) 3 months ago. The difference is huuuuge. The spread even + commissions is lower and not so wide during news releases. The fills are much faster and the platform is not crashing all the time.

IB's minimum is $10K (I just funded an account) unless you're day trading US stocks, in which case they require the usual $25K. You can trade all instrument classes in one IB account providing your trading platform can handle it, unlike say TradeStation, which requires an account for each of three asset class. There's also a comment above about $25K min for carrying a trade > 5 days - look at the IB site, everything's there, if you can only find it :-)

IB also have net worth requirements buried in their help database. As with other 'serious' brokers, my impression is they want to hear you tell them that you have some trading experience and enough net worth, so you can't complain afterwards that they didn't ask you - they don't check (they don't ask who your previous broker was, so they can't).

IB has a very steep learning curve on all fronts compared to an 'open an account in 5 minutes with your VISA' style retail broker - starting with the application form (TradeStation's is worse...). Their own software is not immediately user friendly, but you can use many other platforms instead.

As OldQuant mentions, with IB you have to manage your own currency reconversion because you may well end up with a basket of mixed currencies in your account. Some research here suggests that's a plus, not a minus (providing you have the time and the inclination to study it), because you can reconvert when it suits you.

QUESTION please on IB for them that know (OldQuant?) - say you start with 100% USD in your USD base IB account, and after trading for a while without reconverting you have 40% USD 30% GBP 20% EUR 10% CAD. When you put an order in for a trade requiring GBP, does IB take account of the total USD equivalent of the account for calculating trade authorisation, or just look at the 40% GBP you have now?

If you're not in a hurry, TradeStation have a new FX offering coming in a few weeks (they say) that may be worth looking at. Word from one of their customer agents (via another trader) is it will have liquidity from about 9 banks, so I assume that'll be another ECN offering.

Max

Thanks srmfx, what is the account opening minimum deposit and how about leverage?

James

The minimum for new account is $1500. The leverage is 1:100 but I changed my to 1:50.