MB Trading

I think its very obvious that shrike and fx chant are also from MBtrading/EFX.Check out their previous posts. They have never writen in another thread but the forexbroker discussion thread. And of course their all pro Efx/mbtrading. Its very hard for me to beleive any one has over 100 post and is a forex trader and has never written about forex news,forex system, the dollar or anything else about trading.Just how great Mb trading/EfX is and how bad all the other brokers are. Poocher looks like the only real positive post that is real. I dont understand why they are doing this.This post was just about how expensive they were and the quotes that they display. But I think every one has to question such shady practices.They could of at least put in a little bit more time to make their usernames look real. by posting in other threads. Just check out their previous posts. Hope this helps.

look mbtrading is okay, if u can live with the huge commissions. EFX is just an Introducing broker for mbt. basically sales agent for MBTrading.

but what real advantage is there to go with EFX than deal directly with the mother company, MBTrading ?

The advantage should be obvious - Justin is here everyday responding to and answering questions!

He cares, and that goes a long way in this business and in any business for that matter.

there or a lot of ecn brokers that or cheaper, i like the spreads at mb trading but they or to expensive

Tsk tsk aztrader. I was only trying to offer some help and feedback, but since I'm a shill from 8 different brokers, maybe you don't want to hear that. Like I said, you are quite blinded, primarily it seems by your resentment and suspiciousness of everybody's motives. You seem to think I care where you trade; allow me to give you a news update: I don't give a rat's rear end dude!! Go do whatever you want, what do I care? I only was responding to your blatantly false accusations.

If you post something here asking for any kind of feedback or help, you might serve yourself better to actually listen instead of formulating all of these infantile conspiracy theories in your mind. But again, contrary to what your posts insinuate, I don't give a rip what you do; have at it and good luck...

is this some joke ? okay okay. so he makes customers feel all warm and fuzzy. maybe some ppl would pay for that lol.

they have good fills. also no crazy widening spreads. i like the advanced trailing options, level 2 charts.

again i do understand 5 bucks commision, for retailers, thats the price you pay to have access to such market aka mbt routing system.

The original question was, what was the advantage of trading with EFX over MB. Do you see reps from MB here?

The costs are the same so it should be a no brainer you go with where the service is superior.

mb trading rep steve shows up on elitetrader all the time.

Were we talking about elitetrader? No.

And you have a funny definition of "all the time". Steve's last post on elitetrader was 08-29-07 06:43 PM.

Yeah, shrike and I hang out together over lunch. It's a lot of fun. Get real. There are countless people on these boards that promote the platforms that they love. I've been posting here since before EFX and MB ever showed up, I believe. If you are going to do research, do it right. Read my posts. I use Oanda and EFX both for different reasons, and I see no reason to change. If you think EFX is expensive, keep that in mind next time you get slipped on a trade entry by 40 pips when you could have controlled your fill with them. Better yet, don't bother. Your days in this market are numbered if you don't know that. It ain't about costs, folks, it's about control.

I don't think MB is allowed to post here because they don't advertise here. I've never seen their banner, only EFX. I could be wrong, but that's always what I've suspected. As for why to use EFX instead...customer support is top-notch, their webinars on the platform are very educational, and they are developing their own platform. Just my two cents.

Bottom line he was there and offer customer support, same as efx here. get real.

Actually you signed up 5 months after Justin and have never posted anything else about trading.But just about Efx and how cool Justin is.The funny thing about all the different usernames that you guys are using is you guys created them like you would a boyband. I think im talking to the bad sassy one now.LOL The cat is out of the bag..P.s I never get slipped using my ecn broker now and Im not paying 10 dollars a round trip to do it.You guys just are way to expensive.Listen to what everyone who has a real name on this board is trying to tell you!!!

I saw that the person who started this thread had a problem wth an open trade seeming to appear in their account and wanted to give a logical explanation.
I have been using an MBT demo account for about a month now and I had the same thing happen to me today. I finally figured out it was nothing that MBT did but it was due to my misunderstanding of of how their combination orders work.
I had entered a short position this morning with a market order. I had to leave to run errands and so I wanted to place a TP/SL order. Looking thru the order options, it seemd to me that a BUY STOP Limit + trailing Stop was appropriate. And so I placed that.
When I got home I was stopped out with a profit but there was this open order there to SELL another position... WTF??? I did not do that! What is going on here???
After some thought, here is what I realized: Each order is separate and you cannot go back and modify an existing open position with a combination order!
This combination order did just what I told it to do. After I had left, the price dropped to the point of triggering my BUY STOP which closed my open short position. (MBT doeasn't support hedging???) MBT's system does not seem to know that it was closing a position but assumed it had entered a new one. As such, it placed a SELL STOP in response to the Trailing Stop portion of my combination order. That is where the mystery open orders are coming from IMHO.
This all now makes perfect sense to me but, yes, it is somewhat confusing so be careful and be sure you use only a demo account until you are sure you understand the consequences of your orders!
And, no, I have no connection with MBT or any other broker. Another thing, "in general" I believe you are better off paying a commission than going with a commision free broker. If you would like to hear my explanation... just ask!
Marty

Please, I'd love to hear an explanation!

hehehe, ok you asked for it!

First you have to understand about the SPREAD. From reading various posts on FF it seems that alot of people think the brokers set the spread. THAT IS NOT TRUE! This idea is understandable due to the varying spreads from one broker to the next and some brokers offering "fixed spreads".

In reality there are two different spreads at work here: the REAL spread and the broker's spread.

The real spread is set by the big boy traders who are actually passing the paper back and forth. It is an ELASTIC thing that changes based on liquidity(volume), volatility/risk and supply and demand.

Liquidity - If you are taking trades on a pair like the EU with tons of daily volume, you can make a nice living flipping in an out for 1/2 pip or even 1/10th pip a gaggillion times every day, right? If you are trading a pair with almost no volume it is not going to be worth your while unless there is a decent spread. Make sense?

Volatility/risk - these kind of go toghether but are different IMO. Some pairs may be inherently volatile and therefore more risky to the big traders. Raw risk on the otherhand is like just before news on pretty much any pair. Anyone following sound money management knows that if there is more risk there HAS to be more potential profit. The big boys are playing by the same rules as you and I there. So it is natural for the spread to widen before news.

Supply/demand - This is what you see just after the news. If everyone is suddenly trying to go long on a particular pair, the ask is going to go up much faster than the bid. This is basic supply and demand and the result is a larger spread until some sellers come into the market.

Now, whatever the real spread is, the non-commisison brokers are going to add their spread on top of the real spread. The brokers spread may be fixed and it might not be. That is one of my problems with them, lack of visibility.

How much of your profits are going to your broker? Good luck trying to find out. If you are a scalper making a bunch of trades netting 5-10 pip profit each, I'll guarantee your broker is taking the lion share of your hard earned money. Its your money, your hard work and and you are the one with all the stress but they sit back and let you give it to them. Taking losses? They still get their piece out of your pocket. To get a feeling for it, take your broker's typical spread subtract the normal "real" spread and multiply by the number of trades you made (both opening and closing, 'cause they get you coming and going). But this is only a guess because there is no visibility.

If you use limit orders and feel you are ok, think again, the market has to move more for you to get in and out and the broker still gets the spread each way. When you place a limit order to lets say sell one lot, the non-commission broker is going to wait until your limit price is the bid before you are filled. Even though you knew what you wanted well in advance, you are treated like you just put in a market order. With a reputable broker, your limit sell will be sitting in the ask queue waiting for a market buyer to come along and you will often find yourself getting filled at the ask.

Then there is the fact that they can show you whatever price they want. This means you are probably getting "bad fills" and not even aware of it. You are being taken advantage of.

So, when you go with a broker like MBT and pay a commission, it is basically 1/2 pip to get in and a 1/2 pip to get out (your mileage may vary as it depends on the pair). You will get limit buy orders often filled on the bid and limit sells often filled on the ask. Finally, you can look at your account balances at any time and see EXACTLY how much you have paid your broker.

You also may think, well my broker's spread is usually only 1 pip more than the real spread, thats not too bad. WRONG! It is 200% more than you need to pay. Remember they get the spread in AND out. Percentages are the way to look at it.

No matter which type of broker you choose, the big traders get their piece so that does not come into the comparison. Everyone's spreads are elastic and there is nothing any broker can do about it. It is part of the cost of trading.

i like what mb/efx got going, there's only one problem i have with them and it's a big problem beacuse it limits my order entry, problem is you guys take out margin on pending order's, would this change with the new platform?

I opened a live account with what I originally thought was EFX. I was well aware that they were an introducing broker for MBT. No problem there. Been using this account for close to 3 months now. Was pretty happy with it until recently.

Last week I was in a trade around a news announcement on usdcad pair, I wasn't trading the news specifically, just happened to have a trade active.

Summary....

1. in usdcad trade short
2. price was around 1.0045
3. trailing stop was set to 30 at appox price 1.0071
4. news announcement came and pushed price long, passed my trailing stop and stopped me out at 1.101031, around 30 pips passed my stop ! price moved in a real hurry...

Investigating this I learned the following

1. EFX had no record of me signing up with them (later telling me they have/had a web cookie problem) - note that all my correspondance after initial sign-up was with MBT but I didn't think this was strange as I realised that EFX was the introducing broker.
2. EFX then wanted to sign me up saying they would follow the 30 pip missed stop up once I signed up.
3. When I later asked the question of EFX "can you guarantee my stop being filled" they said no.
4. MBT said about my stop being missed by 30 pips, we don't guarantee your stop being filled.

Today I had another experience with MBT.

1. I was long eurusd with a 50 pip trailing stop at 1.4686 and was automatically "sold" at 1.4722. This kind of software behaviour is worrying and cost me some profit although that trade ended in profit. MBT have said that they will follow it up although I can't see them adding additional funds to my account -if they do I'll state it here in a follow up post.

Regards all,

Joe

So what I've learned being a bit of a novice is

1. Not many brokers will guarantee your stop - I'd be interested to know if most of you knew this already ? and I'd be interested to know if anyone knows of any brokers that do guarantee your stop ?

2. My perception of MBT is that they are a bit ruthless with your money. This I've gained from my chats with their support guys and emails and the way their platform has performed.

I think I am pretty level headed and balanced and don't jump to conclusions. I'd like to see brokers state explicitly that they don't guarantee that your stop will be honoured.