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Day Trading vs. Swing Trading vs. Position Trading 86 replies

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  • #1
  • First Post: Nov 27, 2007 11:38pm Nov 27, 2007 11:38pm
I looked at my platform and I am in three new positions that I did not place and was closed the position that I was in. Has anyone else had this problem? I tried to call them and they were no help at all and said that their was nothing they could do it about I would just have to wait. They were just plane rude about it.Oh yea by the way it wont let me close out the new positions. Its going to be a long night.
  • #2
  • Nov 27, 2007 11:55pm Nov 27, 2007 11:55pm
Were you the one who was just in chat? I went into chat 5 minutes ago because I too had something weird happen after the midnight maintenance (my Account Value was incorrect), and somebody in there said that their Navigator was trading by itself.

It sounds like the same problem you are having.

I wasn't in any positions at the time nor was my Navigator entering positions on its own, so I didn't have that strange occurrence, just the wrong Account Value showing.

It's corrected itself now though.

I can't see how they are telling you that they can't do anything about it. It's clearly a server error.

* edit - Oh wait, are you saying that they just can't do anything about it right at this minute? But that they are trying to figure out the issue?
  • #3
  • Nov 28, 2007 3:57pm Nov 28, 2007 3:57pm
I think paying a commission is insanity and the tighter spread makes no difference because every time I try to close a position they widen the spread anyway.
  • #4
  • Nov 28, 2007 5:06pm Nov 28, 2007 5:06pm
Quoting NewstraderFX
I think paying a commission is insanity and the tighter spread makes no difference because every time I try to close a position they widen the spread anyway.
I have to admit, that at times (more frequently lately) the spreads on most of the pairs (except EUR/USD which has been consistently about 1 - 2 pips), have been getting wider at times (between 4 - 5+ pips). I have attached a screenshot of how my FXBoard looked several days ago when most of the pairs were wide (and this wasn't during any news that I was aware of, nor during the maintenance).

I think my timezone, however, may be what's causing me to notice the wider spreads more frequently than maybe others (probably most are sleeping or not trading when it happens). However, I have seen a few others posting about it, so it is more than just me experiencing it, lol.

However, I haven't found the commission to be outrageous ... it really depends on whether one is doing more winning trades (especially with higher $ value) than losing ones.

On my last trade, my commission came to only 1.77% of my profit. So again, it all depends on how much profit you make per trade and if you win more than you lose that determines whether or not the commissions are feasible or not for each person.

For me, even 10% - 15% commission is not unreasonable (I've been used to having to pay that to sales reps in the wholesale industry), however the smaller the percentage the better, of course .

I guess that's where we have to become better traders, so that we make more consistent and higher profits to losses, which keeps the commission percentage to a fairly decent rate.
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  • #5
  • Nov 30, 2007 7:58pm Nov 30, 2007 7:58pm
they are great wihtout a doubt. fast fills, awesome spreads. however, what eventually turned me off is the ridiculous commissions and the hassle i had go through because i live in a "rogue" nation (BC is rogue nation amongst Iran, North Korea, barred from opening accounts) i think EFX has same structure since they are IB as well.

keep you day job, get 5k, and open with Interactive Broker.

They are exchange listed, been around for a long time, and very well known. and forex commissions makes look MBT/EFX well...shameful. they offer like MBT insurance of ur money in case they go bankrupt.

Of course if u have under 5k, Oanda is the only rational choice ( btw i wonder who these "fund managers" claimed by Oanda are with 1million+ accounts and why in the hell they would be trading with Oanda). If you happened to go down the MT4 route, good luck. the ass kicking will begin after being unable to close positions, slippages, error messages.

Yes Oanda widens their spread but again, look at the bigger picture, if u have under 5k, whos gonna take u seriously ?

Then again I hear ppl are very satisifed with North Finance, but this is from ppl with rather tiny accounts...500:1 leverage, debit card, i say its pretty potent combination, and there has been no complaints that i am aware of (google north finance, read every single thread there is on NorthFinance)
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  • #6
  • Nov 30, 2007 8:01pm Nov 30, 2007 8:01pm
Quoting leighsww
I have to admit, that at times (more frequently lately) the spreads on most of the pairs (except EUR/USD which has been consistently about 1 - 2 pips), have been getting wider at times (between 4 - 5+ pips). I have attached a screenshot of how my FXBoard looked several days ago when most of the pairs were wide (and this wasn't during any news that I was aware of, nor during the maintenance).

I think my timezone, however, may be what's causing me to notice the wider spreads more frequently than maybe others (probably most are sleeping or not trading when it happens). However, I have seen a few others posting about it, so it is more than just me experiencing it, lol.

However, I haven't found the commission to be outrageous ... it really depends on whether one is doing more winning trades (especially with higher $ value) than losing ones.

On my last trade, my commission came to only 1.77% of my profit. So again, it all depends on how much profit you make per trade and if you win more than you lose that determines whether or not the commissions are feasible or not for each person.

For me, even 10% - 15% commission is not unreasonable (I've been used to having to pay that to sales reps in the wholesale industry), however the smaller the percentage the better, of course .

I guess that's where we have to become better traders, so that we make more consistent and higher profits to losses, which keeps the commission percentage to a fairly decent rate.
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imo, i dont think they are being fair with such ridiculous commissions. its gets very very expensive when ur daytrading.
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  • #7
  • Dec 3, 2007 11:44am Dec 3, 2007 11:44am
I think Mb trading is the biggest joke on the net. They charge crazy commissions and still is a market maker. Just for fun compare the qoutes to that of Oanda a known and up front market maker.Basically the same. And most of the time Oanda is better. I use Dukascopy and used a small account with Mb trading but after using them for the last three months Im switching all my account to Dukscopy and might look into Interactive Brokers. I also heard from a one of the Introducing brokers that they he's receiving 10 dollars for a round trip trade.If this is true how is Mb Trading making their money?
  • #8
  • Dec 3, 2007 12:01pm Dec 3, 2007 12:01pm
Quoting jjk2
Of course if u have under 5k, Oanda is the only rational choice ( btw i wonder who these "fund managers" claimed by Oanda are with 1million+ accounts and why in the hell they would be trading with Oanda).
Why is Oanda only a good choice for people with under 5k? What is that makes them a bad choice suddenly when you have more capital?
  • #9
  • Dec 3, 2007 1:54pm Dec 3, 2007 1:54pm
Aztrader20 ~

Justin from EFX here…I’m going to respond on behalf of MBTF. Understand that all traders are welcome to their opinion, I'm just here to correct any inaccuracies.

With regards to trades appearing to be placed without the traders knowledge, this occurred during maintenance when the servers came back online and the wrong files were uploaded showing the previous days positions. When we noticed the error, the files were removed and replaced with the correct files and trading resumed as normal within 30 minutes. I believe you assumed that the trades were being made by another trader, when it in fact it was just a reflection of the previous days trades.

You stated in a later post that MB was a market maker; this couldn’t be further from the truth. I believe anyone who trades on our system will strongly disagree with you considering we offer Transparent Pricing, Anonymous Trading, No Trading Restrictions, Ability to Trade between the Spread, No re-quoting, and liquidity from more then a dozen of the largest qualified designations in the world. So I’m confused on why you would even state that?

“I also heard from a one of the Introducing brokers that they he's receiving 10 dollars for a round trip trade. If this is true how is Mb Trading making their money?” We appreciate your concern on how we make money….but this quote just makes me giggle a bit. I would like to see where you read or heard that.

One last thing…. think you might be interested in the average spread statistics in pips that have been collected from Kreslik.com. It's calculated from the millisecond-precision tick data comparing EFX Group and Interactive Brokers from mid August.

The source data only contains new quotes. In this methodology, a quote consists of both the Bid and Ask values. A new quote is created when either the Bid or Ask or both differ from their respective values in the previous quote.

The resulting table also contains information on how many quotes for the FX pairs in question were available for the calculation. The quote stream is not always continuous, i.e. if there is some internet connection or other failure, the quotes are missing in the source data. But, provided the spread values are distributed normally, this should not skew the results in an essential way.

EFX offers more FX pairs than IB, so there are only the resulting values for EFX for some pairs.
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  • #10
  • Dec 3, 2007 2:19pm Dec 3, 2007 2:19pm
Glad I could make the Introducing Broker recieving the commission laugh. That actually makes me laugh.I dont know what a a sight that has Efx all over it(not MB) has to do with any thing. I heard that you guys are great at promoting your self but I didnt know how well. Again this is just my opinion after using all ecn brokers. Thats what I thought this forum was here for. If I have a questions about MB or EFX I would of contacted you myself.
  • #11
  • Dec 3, 2007 3:05pm Dec 3, 2007 3:05pm
Quoting aztrader20
Glad I could make the Introducing Broker recieving the commission laugh. That actually makes me laugh.I dont know what a a sight that has Efx all over it(not MB) has to do with any thing. I heard that you guys are great at promoting your self but I didnt know how well. Again this is just my opinion after using all ecn brokers. Thats what I thought this forum was here for. If I have a questions about MB or EFX I would of contacted you myself.
Again, I was only responding to correct inaccuracies, I of course am fine with you having an opinion about our company or any other company for that matter.

However, regarding questions, so would you rather make inaccurate statements then ask?
  • #12
  • Dec 3, 2007 3:32pm Dec 3, 2007 3:32pm
According to felix, he gets a kickback of 15% of the $5/100k commissions from EFX. Must be quite rewarding if one could recruit enough newbies. And it shows that its not really a low-margin business for EFX if they give 15% away like that.
  • #13
  • Dec 3, 2007 3:44pm Dec 3, 2007 3:44pm
Quoting shrike
According to felix, he gets a kickback of 15% of the $5/100k commissions from EFX. Must be quite rewarding if one could recruit enough newbies. And it shows that its not really a low-margin business for EFX if they give 15% away like that.
.....while most Forex Brokers (Deal Desk) offer 1-2 pips per 100,000 rebate for being an IB...thats $10-20 for just referring someone. At the same time for the same amount of volume, we are only able to offer $1.00 per 100,000 to our referring agents.

Plus our liquidity fees...actually I would say it is a low margin business and we should be entitled to make something, right?
  • #14
  • Dec 3, 2007 4:45pm Dec 3, 2007 4:45pm
Quoting jleblang
.....while most Forex Brokers (Deal Desk) offer 1-2 pips per 100,000 rebate for being an IB...thats $10-20 for just referring someone. At the same time for the same amount of volume, we are only able to offer $1.00 per 100,000 to our referring agents.

Plus our liquidity fees...actually I would say it is a low margin business and we should be entitled to make something, right?

Ok so its 20%($1 out of $5) for the IB.

But i really dont buy that the $5 is a low margin business. Firstly, your direct competitors (Hotspot and IB) undercut you by more than 50% commission-wise, and they are still alive. I understand that you have high development costs with the new platform and all, and problably carry way more customer support-staff too. While it is nice to have a technologically superior platform, and people who actually pick up the phone, the gap in commissions is really very high.
Second, MB offers EuroFX for $2.50. EuroFX is €125k, so ~$180k notational, so that would be ~$1.38 per 100k compared to ~$7.3 that i pay for a 100k Eur/Usd spot-transaction with MB/EFX. Of that $1.38 MB pays the exchange-fees and makes a profit. So i think there must be a VERY nice margin in your $5.

While you are answering on behalf of MBTF, maybe you could clear up why in the same firm a spot-transaction is so dramatically more expensive than a futures-transaction, while common sense would dictate that OTC should be cheaper than trading on a regulated exchange(exchange-fees, data-fees, and i bet Penson wants its share too).
  • #15
  • Dec 3, 2007 6:07pm Dec 3, 2007 6:07pm
My complaint is why would you pay anything for the quotes that you are receiving from them. They have exactly the same quotes as Oanda(market maker) And every other ECN broker is getting alot better quotes. When Oanda is beating your quotes you know some thing is wrong. They are not a ecn.They are taking a pip from each side. Its pretty simple to see but they bank on traders who dont know what a big difference it is paying 10 dollars a round trip plus another 1 pip each way. Its not hard to figure why most retail traders lose. When your paying 20 to 30 percent to place the trades. I cant wait until the forex market gets some kind of regulations.
  • #16
  • Dec 3, 2007 7:00pm Dec 3, 2007 7:00pm
Quoting aztrader20
My complaint is why would you pay anything for the quotes that you are receiving from them. They have exactly the same quotes as Oanda(market maker) And every other ECN broker is getting alot better quotes. When Oanda is beating your quotes you know some thing is wrong. They are not a ecn.They are taking a pip from each side. Its pretty simple to see but they bank on traders who dont know what a big difference it is paying 10 dollars a round trip plus another 1 pip each way. Its not hard to figure why most retail traders lose. When your paying 20 to 30 percent to place the trades. I cant wait until the forex market gets some kind of regulations.
i think they have the same model as fxcm, fxcm add pips to the spreads and mb trading take a pip or so from the spreads, plus its cheaper to go with interactive broker anyway. mb is just to expesive for trading.
If I Go Broke Trying Then I Will die happy.
  • #17
  • Edited 3:45pm Dec 4, 2007 12:46pm | Edited 3:45pm
Quoting aztrader20
My complaint is why would you pay anything for the quotes that you are receiving from them. They have exactly the same quotes as Oanda(market maker) And every other ECN broker is getting alot better quotes. When Oanda is beating your quotes you know some thing is wrong. They are not a ecn.They are taking a pip from each side. Its pretty simple to see but they bank on traders who dont know what a big difference it is paying 10 dollars a round trip plus another 1 pip each way. Its not hard to figure why most retail traders lose. When your paying 20 to 30 percent to place the trades. I cant wait until the forex market gets some kind of regulations.
 Aztrader20 ~

We are, as has been discussed forever on these boards, NOT a deal desk. At all. Remotely. I challenge anyone to suggest differently. We’ll get on a webinar and walk you through it. Your order sits on a server that no one sees and when that order becomes marketable, it hits a bank in the interbank system. We don’t take the other side of your trade. Ever. We pass your order through and settle your exchange of currency at the end of the day between ourselves and the bank that took the trade at the price that your order executed against the bank. We charge you a fee for making that transaction possible. Obviously, it’s working. We have so many banks now in the system that our EURUSD quote spends much of the day under 1 pip. So does the GBPUSD. Ever heard the phrase “When banks compete, you win”? Maybe we should have had that motto first.

 These are the things that I think separate a true NDD platform, such as ours, from other platforms:

 1)Direct access to the biggest piece of the market possible. This is really the key to it all. A deal desk is basically a trader trading against a professional on a desk who can decide when and when not to sell to them. An NDD platform, before everything else, has no one working for the platform whose job and income are based on making money against the clients of the firm. When we execute a trade, it is executed purely electronically, without bias, without human intervention, and at the best price that our system could find at the time. I think this little fact is something that people overlook. We are paid on the commission on the trade, just like in the stock, futures, and options markets. Our incentive is therefore to get the best price possible to keep the customers happy. Deal desk platforms operate in an entirely different manner. They only make money when the clients lose money. Playing with a deal desk is like gambling in Vegas. It always favors the house because of the spread. They control if and when you get executed. We have interest in the spreads being tight and the executions being the best that they can be. In fact, the better that we do for our clients, the better that we do overall.

 2)Execution should be no different whether you are closing or opening a trade. Many of the traditional deal desk platforms separate positions as “open” versus “closing,” which is what leads to something like “hedging.” The reason that they do this is because they believe that the average Forex client loses 6.7% per month in Forex (NOTE: that is the average based on their system, which means some people make and some people lose). Therefore, when someone is closing a position, they usually just accept the other side. When someone is entering a position, they might not. Why should this be the case? Why should someone who is long the EURUSD and selling it get a better fill than someone who is shorting the EURUSD at the same moment? They shouldn’t. I’ll talk about hedging in a moment.

 3)A related point here is therefore anonymity. The system should not care where the trade is coming from. It should not care whether that person is starting a new position or closing an existing one in the same direction. Try opening an account with a deal desk platform and trading for six months. If you are making money, then open a second account under a different name. Try to buy in both accounts at the same time. The new account will get filled, while the account that is making money might get slipped or requoted at the same moment. Why is this the case? Because the platforms (all of them) profile their clients, trade against them, and make sure that the clients who are making money start to get worse fills. Remember that if you were the guy on the desk and you took the opposite side of every trade, you would want to slow down the people that were making money too because they are making money against you by default. A true NDD platform shouldn’t care who the trade is coming from when it executes. I can tell you right now that when it comes to the EFX GROUP / MBTF system, a sell order to close a long position and a short order that are put in simultaneously on the EURUSD will be filled at the prevailing market price together, period.

 4)No re-quoting. Deal desks mark certain accounts as “A list” clients. This means that the clients are good traders that are showing signs of being successful. “B list” clients are the rest of the client base. “B list” clients are set to auto-execute against the platform because they lose on average. “A list” clients are not. In fact, "A list" clients in a fast market are often shown pop-up windows that say “The price is no longer here, would you prefer to pay this price.” NDD platforms never re-quote. Either the order is marketable, or it isn’t.

 5)A non-deal-desk system lets you know everything that they are making off of you. Would I rather trade on a deal desk, where I spend 3 pips to buy the EURUSD, and then later, 3 pips to sell the EURUSD, or would I rather trade on a system that lets me get executed by the true market, which includes customers and banks, with the narrowest spreads possible, and get charged a fee. The answer is the latter.

 6)ECN vs. STP vs. Deal Desk. It needs to be made clear that there are really more than two types of platforms. A deal desk is a fixed spread platform where the desk makes their money in the spread trading against all of their customers. This rigs the market against the retail trader because they aren’t seeing true market quotes. The platform can move their quote wherever they need if they want to fill the client. STP (Straight Through Processing) platforms execute directly from the retail client to the banks. The more banks and liquidity in the system, the better the fills for the customer. ECN (Electronic Communications Network) platforms let customer orders interact with other customer orders. Non-deal-desk (NDD) platforms are either the second or third type of platform. EFX GROUP / MBTF are both. We have over a dozen banks in our network which customers execute against directly (STP), but we now also allow customers to hit other customers (ECN) inside of the standard pip increments of the banks. We do not shave anything against customer executions.

 AZ, I hope you know I’m not against you, I just want you to understand the differences between an NDD and DD so that you have some basis in your arguments. Right now you have none. You can’t just go onto the forums and accuse a broker of lying to their clients with absolutely no substance to back it up. I hope the above points show you that we truly are an ECN and believe that by taking the steps we have taken so far, we are helping to legitimize a business that at times can be questionable.

 Regarding regulation and your quote “I can’t wait until the Forex Market gets some kind of regulation”….I was under the impression this has already started to happen?

Not only did the NFA a just raise the Net Cap requirements to a minimum of $5,000,000, but the NFA has fined and shutdown multiple brokers over the past 6 months, most recently One World was forced to close their doors for unsavory business practices.
  • #18
  • Dec 4, 2007 4:32pm Dec 4, 2007 4:32pm
The proof is in the pudding. Oanda.com and then Mbtrading.com and compare price quotes. And no its no where even close to be regulated enough.In the futures market and equities it is highly illegal to take your profit on the back end. And im not saying that you guys are trading against your clients.But you are manipulating the price by a pip. The market is alot more tighter then you think.And its pretty easy to tell when brokers do this.
  • #19
  • Dec 4, 2007 8:33pm Dec 4, 2007 8:33pm
Quoting aztrader20
The proof is in the pudding. Oanda.com and then Mbtrading.com and compare price quotes. And no its no where even close to be regulated enough.In the futures market and equities it is highly illegal to take your profit on the back end. And im not saying that you guys are trading against your clients.But you are manipulating the price by a pip. The market is alot more tighter then you think.And its pretty easy to tell when brokers do this.
Place a limit order between the spread, get filled and then tell me about.

9:26EST (NO VOLUME IN THE MARKET) - Quotes on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY showing 1-2 PIPs. EUR/JPY showing 2-3 PIPS, GBP/JPY 3-5 PIPS.
  • #20
  • Dec 5, 2007 5:01am Dec 5, 2007 5:01am
Quoting aztrader20
The proof is in the pudding. Oanda.com and then Mbtrading.com and compare price quotes. And no its no where even close to be regulated enough.In the futures market and equities it is highly illegal to take your profit on the back end. And im not saying that you guys are trading against your clients.But you are manipulating the price by a pip. The market is alot more tighter then you think.And its pretty easy to tell when brokers do this.
Oanda may display better prices, but try trading with them for a few weeks and you'll find you're getting prices 2-5 pips worse than MB/EFX.
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