IC Markets

Joshi90, this work(forex) is very difficult for trades, for a broker to have technical problems
You try to protect the broker, You look as an employee of ICM.
I help protect my colleagues or companions of this forum.
Customers know their own conclusions.
I just try to newbie to be alert and be careful.

If your internet is these measures, it is a risk or danger to operate in IC MARKETS.

Packet loss 0%
Ping 132 ms
jitter 0ms

This is the link to check your internet: http://www.pingtest.net/

If are NEWBIE and you have these measurements you should not open an account on IC M.

I stop trade in real account by the freeze problem in high volume market, especially in news.

Now I am in demo and this is worse in IC Markets.

I think it would be best if you try and explain what you are trying to prove here rather than changing the topic.

Do you see anyone else complaining? As mentioned in both Donna forum and here, the recent improvements made by IC Markets can already be seen and there were no issues reported during the recent NFP release and hopefully things are only going to get better.

Coming to the only issue reported late last week, that is your "Demo" execution delay, the head of trading Desk has already made a detailed reply with data from their server journal showing that your demo order was executed instantly and the "please wait" message you received was due to packet losses.

Yes i see your image with report from www.pingtest.net, you have low ping, that's good. But that alone is not sufficient! Let me quote you the reply again made by Angus "A low ping to the server will not guarantee the safe transmission of an order, this is largely determined by the design and integrity of a client’s local internet". Therefore, It is a common recommendation and a known fact that using a vps that is closer to the server is recommended for fast execution and low latency, especially when you want to trade news. I'm not sure what fault you find with this recommendation.

Jon(IC M.) say: The latency from your home to NY4 would ruin any slim chance of trading a strategy that is already difficult enough to trade, even under ideal conditions.

You say that my internet connection measures are not enough to have a good operation with a broker.
Just let the customers get their conclusion.
Angus say:
The ‘please wait’ message in your attachment is an example of ‘packet loss’. The orders were processed instantly by the demo server which can be seen from the server journal messages below. A low ping to the server will not guarantee the safe transmission of an order, this is largely determined by the design and integrity of a client’s local internet. This is why a VPS is recommended for this style of trading and or a client’s local connection has a history of packet loss.

That horrific story you try to show your clients. You want to show that I'm the bad guy and ICM. the good guy, people are smart and they know draw their own conclusions.
My measures:
My Packet loss is 0%
Ping 132 ms
jitter 0ms

Please check your internet: http://www.pingtest.net/

M. IC believes it is ethical and proper Disconnect clients when they know they are going to enter and win.
I made ​​per month 90 to 100 entries and you disconnect me (or freeze) 50 or 60 trades. in real o demo.

Ak386,

In case you ask, I am an independent retail trader, so have no ties what so ever with any broker.

If you want the best ping results get a VPS with CNS NY. Honestly you can get Ping down to between 1 and 2 ms.

In the end there are so many variables and obstacles between your decision to open a trade and when it can (or may) get filled that ping rate doesn't mean sh!t. My trading style is mostly scalping and I tested vigorously between my NY server and my Aus server and the benefits are just not there, so I now use an Aus based server so I have better faster communication with my VPS as I live in Aus.

Just some variables not considered when being overwhelmed by 'Ping Rate':

1. Banks choose whether to, or not, fill your order. Spikes during news - very few ticks occur ie- banks won't take orders on these spikes.
2. Spread variation in an ECN market. If you want better or fixed spread go to a genuine market maker.
3. Slippage, well slippage happens, work your strategy around it.
4. Internet connection and interference.
5. Most of all your own strategy, have you chosen a good entry point?

Honestly you need to use a live account, any broker it doesn't matter, open some small positions and watch what the market does. Every order that gets filled will cause a move in the opposite direction at least 80% of the time, it may only be small but it is an emotional test. This small move can negate any ping rate instantly.

Different brokers can use different demo set ups, but honestly demos are not to be used with accuracy below lets say, 30min time frames, which negates ping rate again. Unless you are about to go HFT (true HFT) and set up fiber next to the exchange, which there is no exchange in FX, ping rates can be misleading.

Having said the above if orders are not being filled within approx. 1 second on a live account, some investigation needs to be done starting with our own systems.

Cogs
You try to say that I need to use a VPS.
I have VPS and I refer them to advise me, you know what was the response. (see attach)



You say that I need a real account. I say, I trade until June 30 in real account. and then suspended and I pass to a demo account.
I return to operate in real, when my demo account works excellent. I made ​​per month 90 to 100 entries and you disconnect me (or freeze) 50 or 60 trades. in real o demo.

Ok, I see.

Freeze during 'High Impact News' so is that the problem you having?

If so, you will have the same problem with any broker, at a retail level. For example, watch the AUDUSD when the rate release hits in approx. 2hrs. The big spike WILL NOT have hardly any ticks anyway although it shows movement, so you cannot trade it anyway. However just before and just after, trading is 'kind of' normal and so are ticks to enable orders to be filled.

You have a slightly better chance of trading 'High Impact News' if you use CTrader or similar, in case you are trying to use MT4, as they don't bridge and receive slightly more data with effectively better feed at 'High Impact News' times.

For whatever the reason your/our platform freezes during 'High Impact News' we rarely get orders filled anyway because banks wont fill orders during the first few seconds of the 'High Impact News', also spread widens, and as far as I am concerned 'High Impact News' is just a mess of noise. I trade after it has hit, successfully.

In short what I am saying is we as retail traders cannot generally trade 'High Impact News', you are not missing anything. You are going to need a big dollar setup to link directly into good data feed (monthly subscription) and a 'big opening dollar' (eg $50-100k+) account to prevent platform freezes.

Demos will not freeze as they do not work with the massive data flows of live accounts.

I am no expert, but I have learnt to trade around 'High Impact News' and noise, it's wasted effort with very little gain trying to trade it.

I think you will find IC M server is based in NY (I think as are all brokers servers regardless of country).

Get off Demo mate before making reviews. I am not trying to protect the broker because I was finding disconnections during news too but the previous 2 weeks have been good ....so far. The Demo from ICM is crap but no one cares. Trade live for 6 months then comeback.

Angus I will reply to your private mail:
Angus, I hope you've learned your lesson, that customers are respected.
Now you know that the problems you need to correct them in time.
You never thought that a customer could affect ICM. new accounts.
Angus you know why I do complaint in public? Because as a customer you underestimate my posts in ICM. and also offended me with your arrogant aptitude. Now you're more educated and fluent in responses to customers, otherwise you're giving customers face. It looks like your felt my pressure. That’s positive.
You say that it is better to cancel the account with ICM. let me tell you. If you thought I fund the account again, I think you’re very naive and innocent.
If you believe that customers $ 500 do not matter you are wrong. That is why we use internet forums, to help us protect from brokers.
Endpoint. If I'm winning 80% in the month I remind you that it is an offense or crime disconnect the mt4. to create difficulty in operations. All your excuses were very cheap. and your clowns were too poor to Convince customers.
Angus I'll bet that is more dangerous an offended customer than all your advertising or your listings and commercials.
Ok. Here I end my story with IC M.
Best regards to all colleagues of this forum

note: Never underestimate the customers.

Hmmm?? Me thinks there is a prob in translation. Golden advice given previously, and the penny still hasn't dropped.

im on ic markets and this has happened many times in the past even skipping my stop loss allowing me to lose more money than i wanted.

Worst broker ever!

I had 13k in trading capital of which 3 k was profit, 1k was deposit and the remaining 9k was kept in a bank account with NAB, the same bank, in the same country that ICMarkets use. Deposits via bpay from within the same bank are usually 24hrs max so I earn interest on my reserve balance while able to quickly transfer funds for free should the need arise.
After 6 months of profitable trading I decided to deposit another 1k to bring my trading balance to 5k. They lost this deposit for 4 weeks. They didn't even bother responding to my first two emails regarding this and it took live chat, a phone call and more emails where I had to prove the deposit before they finally released the funds, and then into the wrong trading account.

Meanwhile, for the first time in 6 months, I needed to add more funds due to some large short positions over leveraging my account. I couldn't wait another 4 weeks so I attempted a visa transfer with a deposit card on file but that was rejected. I had to get a new credit account and have it accepted in order to get any money into my account. It took a few days for me to get this organised and uploaded and accepted by IC. Meanwhile they liquidated my positions at 2k losses.

I sent an email holding them responsible for the fact I could not fund my account quickly enough and asked them to look at my case and consider refunding my losses.

I have paid them over 3k in commissions in six months and I have promoted them regularly on this forum, referring numerous requests via pm to my IB, Kyle Cancilla, on their behalf. I believed I had a valid case for compensation as did my IB.

They didn't reply to the email. Only after Kyle contacted them on my behalf did I get a response via telephone from Angus. He said they are not responsible for losing my funds as "mistakes happen" and they don't refund traders losses as a policy.

Heres the thing, Both CMC Markets and GFT responded to my complaints by refunding the disputed amount. I left them years ago for what I thought would be superior conditions and service with an ecn broker. I find after 8 years of trading and broker research that what I thought was the best ecn broker turned out to be even worse than the Market Makers of the old days. I am now demoing with CMC and the conditions are comparable, platform is far superior and customer service can't be any worse thats for sure

This broker is complete BS

Do you live in Australia M.A.C? Looks like an international transfer fee at $70.

If you do not live in Australia, did you do a trace with your bank to see where the funds were? I had to do this when I traded with a U.S. broker. The finance company I was using used 'Travelex'. Travelex lost my money for just under 13 weeks, denying all knowledge of it, in the end ASIC and F.O.S pressure got them to front with my funds. The broker 'Inifinity' helped me as much as they could. A trace could have revealed the delayed step, as it mostly did mine.

In the end I found it far less stressful to just trade within my own country.

If you are however in Australia you certainly have a case, with someone, not sure who until you find evidence who held your funds.

All I can say is if you find a reliable bank for these transfers stick to it. Most banks use delay tactics to better utilise your/our funds. In my case the credit union I used to begin with took betwen 7-10 days and charged $120, I then tried my ANZ bank and my funds were in my Infinity account in between 45-90mins with $70 bank fee.

Yes I live in Australia. I keep my funds at the same bank as ICMarkets so transfer is fast and free, or so I thought. The $70 fee is for the use of a credit card. I used this as a last resort to try and fund my account but it was approved 6hrs too late

I wanted to keep the positions and I had the funds to back the trade but I could not trust ICMarkets not to bungle the transfer again so I looked for alternative methods. Credit card was going to be instant so at least I would know straight away if there was a problem. I didn't have a card on file as I had no intention of paying the fee to use that method. It didn't help that a storm here had knocked out our internet connection. The process took too long to save my account

I wish I had just done the transfer, it probably would have been fine and I would be still trading now. If they did lose the funds again I would at least have proof that I made the deposit and had a more concrete claim

In the end all I had was a moral argument and was relying on goodwill to resolve the matter. I have paid them over $3000 in commission in six months and took every opportunity here to promote them. Angus did admit that maybe they were a tiny part at fault but not enough to bother compensating me. Its the clients responsibility blah blah blah.....

I thought it was a good risk management only to put 10% of my trading capital in a non interest bearing trading account, how else would you utilise 500:1 leverage? I have used Bpay for all my bills and banking for 10 years without any problem before now so the possibility of something like this happening was inconceivable

As a business myself, I know if I lost customers money for 4 weeks I would be morally, if not legally obliged to compensate them for any inconvenience caused. If I didn't bother to answer emails and told them to go jump when they finally caught up with me, I would not stay in business very long. I don't see why a forex broker thinks they can treat customers this way and get away with it

Do not use this broker

I am the one who lost and I know that it would not have happened if you hadn’t undermined my confidence in the deposit method of my choice. I was there at the time and remember thinking “theres no way I can Bpay $10k and have to worry if I would ever see it again". That is what happened. That is why my account was underfunded and got liquidated. That is why I asked you to look at my case and consider a refund.

I know had you not lost my money I would not have hesitated to fund my account and those positions would have delivered a profit. It is not unreasonable therefore that I raised a dispute. I was prepared to negotiate with you to avoid this very situation we now face.

I accept there are things I could have done differently and my loss of internet connection due to weather didn't help either. I was prepared to enter discussions with you and really hoped to be able to come to a mutually agreed settlement but I don't think you even heard what I was saying let alone give a little. It is a lousy 2k loss, I could have taken a third, blamed a third on the storm and you could have copped a third for your part. Less than $700 bucks against the 3k Ive handed you in commissions in six months and much more to come in the future as my account was 5 times what it was when I started. I guess I just expected more from you

I don't trust ICMarkets because they somehow lost funds and would not take any responsibility for the consequences of this for me. They don't know what customer service is and believe that a public dispute is preferable to listening to their clients and looking for ways to foster mutually beneficial relationships.

​Ive moved on. Traders can judge for themselves and make there own call.

Guys...why shoukd ICM manipulate, freeze or whatever you claim they do, considering the broker is not a counterparty and makes money purely from comissions (ecn accounts)??

My advice to you all - leave mt4 forecer...use ctrader on icm to be safe. Mt4 is joke and most manipulated and unstable crap.

Hi:

Actually, mt4 has improved a lot on its speed issue.

There are always concerns about some back door softwares plugged in MT4.
But I believe that concern also exists anywhere, including cTrader (it is just about technical issue.)

So my point is, broker might be more important than the platform.
I admit cTrader has few more advantages over mt4 (I personally dont like mt4 as well),

But just also be aware of cTrader's disadvantages:
1) by the time I used it (few months ago), it doesnt support OnSchedule function, which can be inconvenient sometimes.
2) cTrader's business model requires higher cost for the brokers, so there are many good (well...relatively good, I think there is no a absolute good broker nowadays) brokers are not willing to use it, and rather waiting for mt6.
3) the higher cost of cTrader for brokers is usually past to client, so you may pay higher commission by using cTrader.

Cheers, Wjack

Angus I will reply to your private mail:
Angus, I hope you've learned your lesson, that customers are respected.
Now you know that the problems you need to correct them in time.
You never thought that a customer could affect ICM. new accounts.
Angus you know why I do complaint in public? Because as a customer you underestimate my posts in ICM. and also offended me with your arrogant aptitude. Now you're more educated and fluent in responses to customers, otherwise you're giving customers face. It looks like your felt my pressure. That’s positive.
You say that it is better to cancel the account with ICM. let me tell you. If you thought I fund the account again, I think you’re very naive and innocent.
If you believe that customers $ 500 do not matter you are wrong. That is why we use internet forums, to help us protect from brokers.
Endpoint. If I'm winning 80% in the month I remind you that it is an offense or crime disconnect the mt4. to create difficulty in operations. All your excuses were very cheap. and your clowns were too poor to Convince customers.
Angus I'll bet that is more dangerous an offended customer than all your advertising or your listings and commercials.
Ok. Here I end my story with IC M.
Best regards to all colleagues of this forum

note: Never underestimate the customers.
Angus, good evolution, support you in forum, customers are not always bad, they help you grow.
I hope you make changes to those who continue in IC M.

Paying a vendor (or funding an account) via BPAY is the most efficient and reliable methods for australian bank account holders.
I have written software for vendors that processed thousands (upto 80K transactions daily) of transactions from BPay, direct debit,internet banking, cash, cheque etc. BPAY is the most reliable client-initiated payment method.

All payments to a "client" account or segregated bank account means that it has to be applied to a trading account. There should not be any 'un-applied' payments especially from Bpay since the trading acct is supplied during payment. Brokers do not always have reliable back-end processing since they concentrate on getting good spread, market making and marketing and all their core business. IT is not one of their expertise.

For all traders using Bpay, if the payment is not in your account by lunch time the following business day, contact the broker. If no response from broker by another 24 hours, file a complain with financial ombudsman. You may be cosy with the broker since it has good spread and making a profit or maybe they are your drinking buddies, but trading is a business. telco/utilitles have been slapped on the wrist so many times by the ombudsman that any penalties/fees caused due to their mishandling of payments are refunded.(This is the essential services ombudsman which is different from financial ombudsman). Unlike utilities, time is of the essence for funding to broker due risk of margin call.


Doug, it is still not too late to complain to the FOS if you feel that your funding was not applied on time and causes margin call which causes losing trades and let all of us know the outcome. It is good marketing for all ASIC regulated broker to know that traders have alternative venue for complaints. Isn't that one of the reason why we chose ASIC brokers in the first place?

regarding the comparison between ctrader vs Mt4.
If both platforms are introduce around the same time today, Mt4 will be out of business. Brokers core business is not IT and ctrader business model is the way to go. In fact 10 years from now(or maybe 5), most services (accounting, email) etc will be provided as Saas(software as a service) and no business justification to have it in house.

I used Cbot for my live trading (ctrader's EA) and writing same code in MQL will takes 10k+ lines of code. But Cbot does take more RAM (just like anything microsoft introduces).

With ctrader, a broker cannot manipulate feed targeting a specific trader. But a broker can still widen spread or stop feed since this is still under brokers control. But their action affect all traders unlike MT4 plugin.

Even if you decide to stay with Mt4, choosing a broker that offers both Mt4 & ctrader means that the broker is likely to be a true STP/ecn. No reason to be a market maker using Ctrader.

FYI I cannot remember how to use Mt4 after about 2 months using Ctrader!