Brokers based in Australia

I'm an Australian based trader, & after much research & demo trading I decided to go live with MB trading (US based ECN), because there are no decent FX brokers (all bucketshops) based in Oz for small cap traders like myself. IMHO.
I've been live with MBT for 1.5 yrs & I'm happy with their service, execution is instantaneous in most circumstances. I would certainly prefer to keep my funds in AUD though, only USD denominated accounts available.

I'm still waiting for them to receive a document I had to post. I would have thought they would have got it by now. I was expecting to be going live today so I haven’t been able to do any trading as of yet.

CMC have just withdrawn my account balance within the last few hours so I will be waiting to see it in my bank account. I received a margin call email from cmc at 3.28pm gave me a scare as I thought perhaps I'd been done over with a fake trade. When I logged on I saw it was only a previous position that I [hadn't] been able to close because it was only 15 pounds and using a few cents of leverage. So anyway my account has slipped into negative by some infinitesimally small amount so cmc had placed a 15 pound stop - to make sure the position would be stopped out should the account go further into the red ....

I like them too, but prefer to wait until they show 20 mil netcap.

Well I've received the full amount of my cmc trading account into my bank account now so that's good.

http://www.pacconsec.com.au/

they have a Saxo Bank white label platform, very nice CFD, Equities and Futures integration.

I would stay clear of all brokers in australia, for the simple reason that they have no control over their platforms. They are all white label, and take ages to get back to you if have a problem with a trade or the platform. Nearly all of them are saxo whitelabel, and the spreads are aweful for scalpers, and their rates for cfd and futures trades are very very expensive. I know because I have tried nearly all of them.

The best option for Australian based traders (unless you have the capital for cnx brokers) in my opinion is Oanda. You can get AUD accounts (an absolute must for me because I hate loosing capital value for no fault of mine); they control their platform, so you can get a response straightaway; I was recently told you can get your orders closed/modified over the phone (as I had a situation recently where they would not close my position over the phone); good spreads, etc etc. Am sure there is enough info on oanda to say why they are better than a lot out there.

The only other potential alternative if you want to stay onshore is Sonray. They are coming up with a platform called Sonray Global (or something to that effect) in the very near future. It is whitelabel to IB (interactive brokers). I have had discussions with their rep, and the spreads you will get are the same as IB, but the commission is more than IB. The advantage is that you can keep the funds onshore at St.George bank, in you own at call account (which btw is also earning interest). I haven't got the complete finer details as yet(as we say here, read the fineprint). I have had a look at the net cost to trade (ie spreads + commission). Not as good as IB directly, but wayyyyy better than saxo (so by default, all other australian brokers).

Just by way of eg. I had a problem with a trade. Rang the broker, was told they would get back to me asap. 1 hr later, no answer, rang back, was told they were waiting for the general manager to get back from lunch. "Lunch, at this time of the day!!"" was my response. Was told that the general manager is in Singapore, so nothing can be done until they come back!! Needless to say, I closed my account the next day.

Those of you who know me, know I am not affiliated with any broker. Just giving you guys feedback from someone who has already tried nearly all of them, been around full circle. Just waiting for Sonray to release the full details abt this new platform. Could be good for non-scalpers.

Regards,
K.

This bits a worry,

"Please contact Sonray for pricing.
1) Target Bid/Ask spreads

Our target bid / ask spreads listed are our best possible target spreads used in normal market conditions. In quiet market conditions, the spread may be even narrower but in periods of volatile markets, the spread may be increased and autoexecution disabled. For certain categories of clients, the spreads may in general be wider by up to 2 pips."

Here's another one for Oz, although FxCFDs and I could not find their costs.

http://www.fpmarkets.com.au/ForexCFD...8/Default.aspx

I'm still with IGMarkets.

Why is that a worry?

Also, that particular "fineprint" is for their saxo whitelabel platform, which you will find for all the other saxo whitelabel brokers listed in this thread. It is basically the trading conditions of saxo.

Regards,
K.

Thought I'd seen it somewhere before! However the only info on fx spreads is on this site, there is none (that I could find) on the global site.

I haven't got the link either to their spreads, only what I know from my discussions with the rep. He did show me something that amounted to telling what the spreads will be, but since it is going to be ECN "model", ie whitelabel IB, the spreads will be variable, and be reflective of what they would as if you were trading with IB directly.

Regards,
K.

How is the live trading with Latitude?

I was giving it a bit of time before saying anything but at the moment it's very good. Execution is instantaneous and clearly currently automated for me. If the price is moving very rapidly and you click buy/sell but there happens to be a change in market price during the ping-time the order will be rejected and you don't get a requote. This happens from time to time but the process is rapid enough to pretty much leave my trading unaffected.

A thing to note, the execution I'm getting now with latitude is exactly how I started off on cmc - rapid and obviously automated. However, after several months with cmc they put me on manual execution which was frankly absolutely hideous. Execution time after clicking buy/sell could be upward of 30seconds, but I still made money with cmc despite that.

Time will tell with Latitude if they do the same thing but currently execution couldn't really be much faster and after doing a bit of platform customisation I’ve got a pretty mint setup.

Hi Grantman,

Are things still going well with Latitude? I'm based in NZ and thinking about opening an account with them. I would appreciate your insight.

Regards, Jim

Interactive Brokers. You'll need USD$10000 to open an account, but you can have your money in an Australian account, denominated in Australian dollars.

And their spreads are the tightest I've seen. If you're trading the news spike you won't be able to use Oanda because of the amount they widen their spread at news time.

My experience: I've got accounts with FXCM and Oanda - IB are the best, hands down.

Thanks knightsy.

Hi Jim, things are okay. I havn't had any problems with them. A thing to note is that entering a trade during extreme volatility can take a few tries. They seem to be doing everything right at their end so far.

I use to trade with cmc and at the start they where pretty good, no requotes, no matter what size trade i put on, it generally went on pretty quick and then a few years ago things started going downhill.

Anyway I researched alot of platforms, even flew over to the States and had a few meetings over there, but alot of them could not deal with the system that I use.

Anyway on my return to Australia I had a meeting with IG Markets and have been trading with them without any requotes or any problems at all, infact they take me and my trading buddies out for lunch every month, but I think that has something to do with the size of my business.

Hope this helps

cheers

Now there's a benchmark!

Thanks Grantman. Always great to receive some first-hand insight. Think I'll open that account this week.

Regards, Jim