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  • #2,081
  • May 27, 2008 12:16pm May 27, 2008 12:16pm
Anyone else get these spikes up to 1.9772?

This is a 3minute chart and times are recent...pacific time zone in u.s.

I wasn't in a trade but am committed to trading gbp/usd more and more and this kind of stuff scares me. These spikes are not on the Alpari UK mt4 platform which is usually within a couple pips of MB Trading.
  • #2,082
  • May 27, 2008 12:17pm May 27, 2008 12:17pm
Here's the chart:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: $GBPUSD 5_27_2008 (3 Min).jpg Size: 97 KB
  • #2,083
  • May 27, 2008 12:45pm May 27, 2008 12:45pm
Quoting Poocher
Anyone else get these spikes up to 1.9772?
Yes saw them here too. This has been going on for the past 5 hours, each spike occurring at exactly 5mins past the hour (9:05am, 10:05am, etc, all times EST). Each time the bid jumped to 1.9772, but the ask did not move in tandem.

time bid ask
9:05:20 1.9760 1.9761
9:05:21 1.9772 1.9761
9:05:22 1.9772 1.9760
9:05:22 1.9772 1.9761
9:05:22 1.9772 1.9760
9:05:24 1.9772 1.9759
9:05:32 1.9758 1.9759

10:05:21 1.9733 1.9734
10:05:21 1.9772 1.9734
10:05:23 1.9772 1.9736
10:05:24 1.9772 1.9735
10:05:24 1.9772 1.9736
10:05:25 1.9772 1.9735
10:05:28 1.9734 1.9734

11:05:16 1.9744 1.9746
11:05:20 1.9772 1.9746
11:05:23 1.9772 1.9747
11:05:27 1.9745 1.9747

12:05:19 1.9749 1.9751
12:05:19 1.9772 1.9751
12:05:21 1.9772 1.9751
12:05:24 1.9749 1.9751

13:05:18 1.9749 1.9750
13:05:20 1.9772 1.9750
13:05:22 1.9772 1.9749
13:05:28 1.9772 1.9749
13:05:29 1.9748 1.9749

I'm hoping we can get some answers from Justin. Technically, this shouldn't be happening on an ECN, as locked/crossed prices should be matched instantaneously. Who knows how many false stops were triggered inadvertently due to this..
  • #2,084
  • May 27, 2008 1:06pm May 27, 2008 1:06pm
Thanks for your feedback Trader KBG
  • #2,085
  • May 27, 2008 1:18pm May 27, 2008 1:18pm
Hi jlpi, do u know a good broker for trading the news? My country is barred from using mbtrading
  • #2,086
  • May 29, 2008 4:43am May 29, 2008 4:43am
I want to share my thoughts about MB Trading.

I've had a live account with them for over a year now, and I must admit MB was the best retail fx broker I could find.
But things are always changing and now MB really needs to change something, because it's losing all his appeal.

I currently have live accounts with OANDA, MB, AMP Futures, and 3 other italian brokers. In the past I also had live accounts with Interactive Brokers and Forex.com, so I know what I'm saying.

Among the (serious) retail fx brokers, MB is the best at:

1) spreads
2) transparency
3) order types
4) ticks datafeed

But they deliberately choose not to take advantages from these pros, by offsetting them with other cons.

1) the spread advantage is nulled by the very high commissions (the highest among ecn's?). The reality is that is cheaper trading with OANDA, which has comparable spreads with no comms, especially on the EUR/USD, where OANDA has a 0.9 pip spread: 1 pip move and you are in profit. With MB you usually have 1 pip spread plus the 1.5 pips added by the comms, so you have a 2.5 pips spread. Add that most of the time price moves in one pip increment, and you need a 3 pips move to be on profit.
Also they encourage every type of trading, but with a minimum *real* spread of 2.5-3 pips, you cannot scalp from a small profit.

2) trasparency, to me, is not offsetted by any other cons. They are a real good ecn.

3) the long list of order types supported by MB is impressive, and they are extremely useful in every market condition, particulary when trading news. I think order types is what really set MB apart from other platforms, even institutional platforms. But the entry screens are really bad: they seems to be designed to make the order entry process as slow and inefficient as possible. It's unbelievable! They have a real gem, but it's hided under the navigator interface (of course this is just my personal opinion). The only situation in which one can really exploit the many order types is in trading news, where you can pre-set a number of sofisticated orders and watching them making money during the news spikes.

4) the ticks datafeed is absolutely the best I've ever seen, and I currently see fx ticks feeds of esignal, prorealtime, gain and mb. This is high quality and they know it. But they don't provide an historical backfill. Unbelievable. The best feed and no backfill. Even a 3 days backfill would be enough.

So, MB, I love you but until you don't:

1) lower commissions at least to $2 per $100.000 traded ($4 round-turn) and
2) provide a backfill

you're really not an option to the informed people.
And if you also add a redesigned and modern interface, you'll be the first choice.

Regards.
  • #2,087
  • May 29, 2008 8:49am May 29, 2008 8:49am
Very good post. Thank you.
  • #2,088
  • May 29, 2008 9:59am May 29, 2008 9:59am
Quoting jagui

So, MB, I love you but until you don't:

1) lower commissions at least to $2 per $100.000 traded ($4 round-turn) and
2) provide a backfill

you're really not an option to the informed people.
And if you also add a redesigned and modern interface, you'll be the first choice.

Regards.
I agree that the lack of backfill data is ridiculous. And I agree that they have a great variety of order types, and you can get better usability with Remote Trader than Nav in terms of putting those orders in. But I doubt we're going to see $2 per $100,000 anytime soon based on what they have said in the past about their liquidity providers. To do that, they'd probably have to drop half of their providers, and I'd rather have the liquidity.
  • #2,089
  • May 29, 2008 11:00am May 29, 2008 11:00am
Quoting jagui
I want to share my thoughts about MB Trading.

I've had a live account with them for over a year now, and I must admit MB was the best retail fx broker I could find.
But things are always changing and now MB really needs to change something, because it's losing all his appeal.

I currently have live accounts with OANDA, MB, AMP Futures, and 3 other italian brokers. In the past I also had live accounts with Interactive Brokers and Forex.com, so I know what I'm saying.

Among the (serious) retail fx brokers, MB is the best at:

1) spreads
2) transparency
3) order types
4) ticks datafeed

But they deliberately choose not to take advantages from these pros, by offsetting them with other cons.

1) the spread advantage is nulled by the very high commissions (the highest among ecn's?). The reality is that is cheaper trading with OANDA, which has comparable spreads with no comms, especially on the EUR/USD, where OANDA has a 0.9 pip spread: 1 pip move and you are in profit. With MB you usually have 1 pip spread plus the 1.5 pips added by the comms, so you have a 2.5 pips spread. Add that most of the time price moves in one pip increment, and you need a 3 pips move to be on profit.
Also they encourage every type of trading, but with a minimum *real* spread of 2.5-3 pips, you cannot scalp from a small profit.

2) trasparency, to me, is not offsetted by any other cons. They are a real good ecn.

3) the long list of order types supported by MB is impressive, and they are extremely useful in every market condition, particulary when trading news. I think order types is what really set MB apart from other platforms, even institutional platforms. But the entry screens are really bad: they seems to be designed to make the order entry process as slow and inefficient as possible. It's unbelievable! They have a real gem, but it's hided under the navigator interface (of course this is just my personal opinion). The only situation in which one can really exploit the many order types is in trading news, where you can pre-set a number of sofisticated orders and watching them making money during the news spikes.

4) the ticks datafeed is absolutely the best I've ever seen, and I currently see fx ticks feeds of esignal, prorealtime, gain and mb. This is high quality and they know it. But they don't provide an historical backfill. Unbelievable. The best feed and no backfill. Even a 3 days backfill would be enough.

So, MB, I love you but until you don't:

1) lower commissions at least to $2 per $100.000 traded ($4 round-turn) and
2) provide a backfill

you're really not an option to the informed people.
And if you also add a redesigned and modern interface, you'll be the first choice.

Regards.
Jagui ~

Thank you for your excellent post.

With regards to pricing, I’m not exactly sure when that is going to change, but it is certainly not something we choose to deliberately ignore, it’s just a matter of business economics for us right now.

  1. Feel free to contact me directly to talk about pricing discounts based on certain volume criteria being met.

  1. Consider taking advantage of the ability to place limit orders between the spread, potentially reducing your trade cost significantly.

The Navigator is what it is – we can’t expect everyone to love it. I have lots of traders who tell me it’s the best platform they have ever used and others who share a much different opinion. I recommend spending sometime with one of our reps or watching some of the tutorials that we’ve created, and most likely you’ll learn some short-cuts that will really help make the process of order entry very straight forward. Additionally, if you want, I can send you my personal Navigator layout for you to use.

Historical data – this is right around the corner. We have successfully been populating our servers and once we feel comfortable releasing the data, it will be available for anyone who wants to use it.

Once again, thank you for your post. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

  • #2,090
  • May 29, 2008 12:04pm May 29, 2008 12:04pm
Justin: How much history do you plan to offer (Daily/Minute/Ticks) ? Will you offer historical bid/ask prices too?

Regards,
P.
  • #2,091
  • Edited 3:50pm May 29, 2008 12:57pm | Edited 3:50pm
Quoting shrike
Justin: How much history do you plan to offer (Daily/Minute/Ticks) ? Will you offer historical bid/ask prices too?

Regards,
P.
Shirke,

I don't personally have all the details right now, but I'll see what I can find out.

Update: (This is subject to change)

5-7 days of tick

We have bid data...not bid/ask.

Historical - how far back would you like it to go?
  • #2,092
  • May 29, 2008 4:32pm May 29, 2008 4:32pm
Hi justin, thank you for your answer.

To be fair to MB I must add that I was thinking about an hipotetycal user-looking-for-a-broker... me is a little different

Navigator is not that bad, it's light, rock-solid and fast. I used it a lot. Just the entry screens need to be reworked.
However I don't use navigator anymore, as I trade thru Ninja with its fantastic order management. And I usually don't pay the spread, cause I click "Buy Bid" and "Sell Ask" buttons, and get filled very quickly most often than not (I like to enter when the market is quiet) cause liquidity is high and price is always moving between bid and ask. And if I need I could write a custom front-end to nav by using the api.

And even the lack of backfill is not a problem for me personally, having my private cluster of servers that, among other things, collect MB EUR/USD ticks 24/7 (well... not really 24/7... but when I need it).

So, for my very personal interests, the only thing missing is low commissions, and I don't think I qualify for a volume discount, being a part-time trader with both long term and short term strategies.

Anyway MB is great and if I write these things It's only because I see the potential for MB to become the "perfect" retail fx broker.
  • #2,093
  • May 29, 2008 5:20pm May 29, 2008 5:20pm
Quoting jleblang
Shirke,

I don't personally have all the details right now, but I'll see what I can find out.

Update: (This is subject to change)

5-7 days of tick

We have bid data...not bid/ask.

Historical - how far back would you like it to go?

That sounds very reasonable for charting purposes. I would suggest 1 minute bar data like 120 days (thats what eSignal provides - along with 10 days of bid/ask tick data) and daily data since platform inception. Daily isnt really a big deal resourcewise - its just a few kilobyte per year.

What would also be very useful is if you could make available more or all data (ideally also all top-of-the-book bid/ask ticks) for http/ftp download (not via SDK) for offline research purposes - that could be imported into the application of every users choice. Trading/Simulation software is getting more and more sophisticated, and i find whats possible and whats not is often limited by the availability of accurate high resolution data.
  • #2,094
  • May 30, 2008 3:58am May 30, 2008 3:58am
Quoting jleblang
Historical data – this is right around the corner. We have successfully been populating our servers and once we feel comfortable releasing the data, it will be available for anyone who wants to use it.
Justin, this is great news! I can finally scrap e-signal and their expensive $100 a month fee!

Question, these are free right? When will this happen, care to provide an indicative timeline?

regards
jest
  • #2,095
  • May 30, 2008 4:24am May 30, 2008 4:24am
Quoting jleblang
The Navigator is what it is – we can’t expect everyone to love it. I have lots of traders who tell me it’s the best platform they have ever used and others who share a much different opinion. I recommend spending sometime with one of our reps or watching some of the tutorials that we’ve created, and most likely you’ll learn some short-cuts that will really help make the process of order entry very straight forward. Additionally, if you want, I can send you my personal Navigator layout for you to use.

Historical data – this is right around the corner. We have successfully been populating our servers and once we feel comfortable releasing the data, it will be available for anyone who wants to use it.
Justin I think there will a few people who would like to look at your own Navigator layout.

Please post a zip copy on here for people to download
  • #2,096
  • Edited 5:12am May 30, 2008 4:54am | Edited 5:12am
Quoting jest1081
Justin, this is great news! I can finally scrap e-signal and their expensive $100 a month fee!

Question, these are free right? When will this happen, care to provide an indicative timeline?

regards
jest
Soooooooooooooooonnnnn
----------------------------------------

But hey the fact Justin is here and trying to answer all the questions and getting feedback shows how much they care to provide better service to their client or at least showing they care.
  • #2,097
  • May 30, 2008 10:40am May 30, 2008 10:40am
Quoting jest1081
Justin, this is great news! I can finally scrap e-signal and their expensive $100 a month fee!

Question, these are free right? When will this happen, care to provide an indicative timeline?

regards
jest
Yes, the data will be free.

I don't want to quote a time - but I've been told testing is going extremely well and we are very close.
  • #2,098
  • Edited 12:46pm May 30, 2008 10:47am | Edited 12:46pm
Quoting nqtraderman
Justin I think there will a few people who would like to look at your own Navigator layout.

Please post a zip copy on here for people to download
File attached:

You'll need to unzip it and save it as .nav in your MB Trading Layouts folder.

Steps to save layout;

  1. Open Local Disk C:
  2. Open Program Files.
  3. Open MBTrading/EFXGroup file
  4. Open Navigator.
  5. Open Layouts.
  6. Save in Layouts.

Once the file is saved in layouts, return to the MBT Navigator and open file, layouts and you should see the layout.

This particular layout was built for a 17inch monitor - I have another for 22inch monitors which is what I run, but basically you can just resize the windows to fit your current monitor and save it.

Attached File(s)
File Type: zip Justin's Trading Layout.zip   1 KB | 416 downloads
  • #2,099
  • May 30, 2008 10:49am May 30, 2008 10:49am
good stuff jaqui - glad to hear Ninja is working so well for you.

Quoting jagui
Hi justin, thank you for your answer.

To be fair to MB I must add that I was thinking about an hipotetycal user-looking-for-a-broker... me is a little different

Navigator is not that bad, it's light, rock-solid and fast. I used it a lot. Just the entry screens need to be reworked.
However I don't use navigator anymore, as I trade thru Ninja with its fantastic order management. And I usually don't pay the spread, cause I click "Buy Bid" and "Sell Ask" buttons, and get filled very quickly most often than not (I like to enter when the market is quiet) cause liquidity is high and price is always moving between bid and ask. And if I need I could write a custom front-end to nav by using the api.

And even the lack of backfill is not a problem for me personally, having my private cluster of servers that, among other things, collect MB EUR/USD ticks 24/7 (well... not really 24/7... but when I need it).

So, for my very personal interests, the only thing missing is low commissions, and I don't think I qualify for a volume discount, being a part-time trader with both long term and short term strategies.

Anyway MB is great and if I write these things It's only because I see the potential for MB to become the "perfect" retail fx broker.
  • #2,100
  • May 30, 2008 12:21pm May 30, 2008 12:21pm
Was anyone able to unzip this file? My winrar as well as windows writes that file is either damaged or of a wrong format.



Quoting jleblang
File attached:

You'll need to unzip it and save it as .nav in your MB Trading Layouts folder.

Steps to save layout;

  1. Open Local Disk C:
  2. Open Program Files.
  3. Open MBTrading/EFXGroup file
  4. Open Navigator.
  5. Open Layouts.
  6. Save in Layouts.

Once the file is saved in layouts, return to the MBT Navigator and open file, layouts and you should see the layout.

This particular layout was built for a 17inch monitor - I have another for 22inch monitors which is what I run, but basically you can just resize the windows to fit your current monitor and save it.

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