Broker Fairness?

Hi,

I would be grateful if you could tell me are there certain types of Brokers who don`t mind if you win consistently, I think they may be called non-dealing desks and if so could you give me a few examples of good ones.

Thanks a lot

Alpari UK
ABN Amro MarketIndex
Oanda
Saxo Bank

Don't know about others as I only have live accounts with the ones above.

ABN will close your account if you win too much

All the brokers say your orders go into the real live market, but what does it matter if they do or not? As long as the position gets filled quickly enough by somebody on the other side then I could not care less who it is. I would stick my neck out and say every single broker will not put some orders through into the market. A profit maximizing business would be literally throwing money away by not taking the other side of the majority of traders if the oft-quoted 90% stat is true. I was talking to a rep from a large UK spread betting firm and we spoke about this in some detail. They are a bookie so they will take the other side of most trades but some they have to hedge either because the trader is profitable (meaning they would lose money in the long run) or if the trader is using especially large positions (to offset the risk).

Of course none of it means anything if they do not let you withdraw. Brokers still make money from the commissions etc.. The only brokers that will mind you winning consistently (ie taking money from their own coffers) are those that do not put any trades into the live market. That is poor business sense on their part and will not be in the game long, so forget start-up brokers. Go for a well known broker with longevity and a reputation to lose. They make more than enough from the losers, so they just hedge the winners and pay them out and keep them sweet. It'd only take one bad apple, one disgruntled customer to tarnish the rep of a broker.

I have several brokers, but I would not personally guarantee any of them do or do not execute all my orders in 'the market'. For that, I would need to go down to their place of business and possibly take some hostages.

+1
I had the same conversation with a trader at a spreadbetters in the UK last year too who said much the same thing. He also added that of their 20k+ customer base, 20% are successful (not losing money, so that includes the break evens). But plenty of those are long-term futures held for several months and even years so it's hard to determine lucky/vs talented. And of their entire customer base, they follow (meaning they believe the trades have some predictive value) under 10 of their clients. If you're a consistent winner, they'd love to have you, because they'll use your trades to influence how much position gets hedged in the market.