Automated longer term trading with MT4

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend a broker for longer-medium [days-weeks-months] term automated trading with mt4?

I currently trade with IB and are more than happy with them but I have developed/tested all my systems with MT4 and currently only trade manually - too much work.. Systems themselves are quite simple but I would like to eliminate the human factor (myself) completely. Also calculating correct position sizes is a pain in the ass with manual trading.

So.. I'm looking for reliable MT4 broker that doesn't start to act funny if I make some gains too. All my current systems operate on daily level so execution speed is not a big thing for me, slippage [of stop orders, I don't trade market orders] is much bigger thing than execution speed.

I have been looking into Alpari UK [I'm in EU] and ATC brokers [I like that they are using hotspot but don't like their commissions], so are there some other suggestions? I would especially like to hear from people who have made some moderate [at least tens on k's] gains with no problems.

I'm really looking forward for MBTrading MT4 but at the moment I can't get any reply from them regarding what their actual timetable is for going live so I'm tired to waiting and decided to look for other places.

Thanks in advance for your comments,
Mikko

ps. I could always code the strategies with IB TWS api but TWS is really pain in the ass for automated trading, you have to use all kinds of stupid tricks like restart the platform every day or automate it with some kludgy program etc and my algorithms are already tested and coded to MT4 so using it would be much easier option.

You could go the FIX route with MB, this way your code will be broker independent to some extent.

This has been one of my thoughts as well as IB offers FIX too but at the moment I'm looking for lazier way of doing this.. But it's something I might take a look again.

The problem with fix usually is that it's usually not free, at IB it's something like $100 per month which is a bit too much for basically nothing - I'll see what the MBT pricing is. The main problem with fix is that I would have to get market data and history somewhere [at IB i still would have to use TWS to get the market data.. uh] and code some of my indicators again but maybe it's worth it anyway [mql4 is horrible language so maybe it would be a good idea anyway].

.. still if someone has comments about longer term trading with MT4 brokers then please send some comments.

There is a fee for the MB gateway as well, but you have a couple more options in terms of getting market data, you can connect directly to their quote server (which is what I do), or you can use the Nav COM object to access data and history. Yeah, it's lots of work, but as the old saying goes...

The Interactive brokers FIX solution is completely retarded, as you end up running two pieces of their Java bloatware instead of one, and the TWS API is awful.

Couldn't agree more..

I'm getting a bit interested in reprogramming my stuff for FIX, does MBT quote server give out historical data as well or just the latest quotes? Does the quote server offer some kind of order book data?

- The quote server only gives real time data, I have a service running which collects it in real time to a database, which I then use to backfill my strategies. One can get historical data via the Nav COM API.

- The quote server does offer book data, but like IB it's limited to a small (5?) simultaneous subscriptions.

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look at MBT fix - I have used alpari historical data in the past, it can be downloaded in CSV format from their site so historical data is not that big issue (it's not that hard to automate fetching of those csv files).

Does anyone else have any comments about running longer term automated strategies with MT4 brokers?

*bumb*

Anyone?

I'm simply looking for reliable broker that doesn't play against me if I make profit on longer term trades (I only use stop orders and only open/close/modify trades once a day) - there must be profitable people who are using mt4 who could tell what broker they use?

I have read bad comments about alpari recently, also I have read many bad things about IBFX - am I forced to wait for mbtrading client, are there really not other viable alternatives?

atcbrokers (LIVE! but now with fxcm. seems the same though) - mb (whenever mt4 goes live) and fxdd mxtreme (only 4 digits, 15$ per 100k!! maybe negotiable?) are what you're looking for.