Oanda,IBFX or MB Trading

Been with a few different shops. Harrowed to these three, recommendations please?

IBFX Very good customer service, withdrawal deposits etc, however, lowest liquidity out of the 3 you've asked about. Which means that prices are least likely to get filled at the price requested, despite their "fixed spreads". I have recently completed 7 other trades and have realised that they regularly slip you by a pip or 2. 5 trades slipped and not one was during major news.

Oanda very good rep, but never personally dealt with them. Greater funds than IBFX and therefore likely to have greater liquidity than IBFX

MBTrading Have a completely different way of trading. They are a true ECN broker, offering the tightest spreads I've seen. EURUSD and USDJPY are regularly less than 1 pip. GBPJPY is regularly 3 - 3.5 pip. Many times tighter than IBFX. However charge a commission of $0.5 per 0.1 lot traded, this commission cost works out to be about worth 1 pip. The best in my opinion out of the 3 you mentioned.

MY VIEWS ON IBFX

Straight after having said what I said, above they did the exact opposite. They dishonoured their own spread by two pip.

In the end the trade was still a profit. However, this "slippage occurred more than 5 minutes after the hour and it was no where near any major news. Further to this their original consultant said that they would fix the 2 pip mistake, however, the manager then sent an email later saying that they won't honour the 2 pip. Giving a long winded explanation. To add insult to 'injury' my order was a pending order.

If truth be truth.... A client trades against their hedger / broker in the fixed spread world. IBFX offer a fixed rate spread, which is agreed to by both the broker and client. By being allowed to slip you because they cannot match the price in their data feed simply means that they are increasing the spread because they are not willing to forfeit the loss that should of been theirs. IBFX offer fixed spreads and should be willing to honour them consistently that and not when they choose to. Lack of consistency in data feed is the broker's problem and is simply the result of them not having enough banks offering the price to them.


And no I am not some other broker trying to bag out another broker. I will post the evidence below

A fixed spread broker is also the one that hedges against your position, by hedging against an aggregated number of positions by all their clients at the one time. They are also, in charge of the data feed, and as a result you should be able to expect that a fixed spread is fixed with the exception to exceptional conditions like BIG news release such NFP or CPI.

So as a result slippage should be within their control, what you click should be what you get. IBFX are one of the most expensive brokers out there so far as fixed spread brokers and as soon as I can close out a hedge trade my money is walking its way to another broker. Possible direct ECN (not STP styled ECN) with MBTrading, where brokers are less likely to have conflict of interest with hedging and make their money simply out of commissions.

2 pips is not much but honouring your agreed spread is everything in the fixed spread broker world, especially when their spreads are as high as IBFX.

I have not seen an MT4 broker that charges such high spreads. Evidence will be posted below.


The Chat with Customer Service
J *****:Hi Just wondering is it normal for a stop order to be slipped 2 pip in non-news times?
J *****:Buy order
J *****:it was a pending order 10 mins before hand
Client Services: Stops are not guaranteed.
Client Services:Thank you for your questions. At IBFX, we work hard to make the trading experience a good one for our customers. Unfortunately, there are many variables that play a part in online trading technology and we cannot control all of these. There are risks associated with online trading including fast moving markets and prices, the spreads in the market widening, latency in the time it takes for a customer’s request to reach our systems and many others. We value your business and though we work hard to maintain great execution, we also understand that there may be times that even though you may be trying to execute on a valid price, you may not be able to get the execution or the price that you would like. This is part of the nature of trading online and though these instances are rare, we think you will find the trading experience here very competitive with other financial brokers. We look forward to serving you and welcome any additional questions you may have.
J *****: this was a slow moving market and a pending order, so there should not have been any latency
J *****:almost stationary as a matter of fact
Client Services:If you have problems with a particular trade, I can submitt a trade ticket for you.
Client Services:I just need to get some information from you.
Client Services: May I please have your live account number, full name, date of birth and phone number?
J *****:ok
J *****: ***** account
J *****: **************
J *****: ********
J *****: 612*******
J *****: Australian phone number
Client Services: And can I have the trade ticket number?
J *****: 33074881
Client Services: Thank you.
Client Services:One moment please.
J *****:on the gbpjpy
J *****:it was only a 2 pip slip but I was sure that entered it at 138.25
Client Services:One moment please
Client Services:So the trade is still open ?
J *****:yes
Client Services:Then what what went wrong with it ?
J *****:i put in a pending order for 138.25
J *****:it put me in at 138.27
J *****:i was watching it at the time
Client Services:What this should happened ?
Client Services:What time* this should happened ?
Client Services:What was the price on the platform?
J *****:platform price came from beneath and 138.25 pending
J *****:but entered at 138.27
Client Services:What time ?
J *****:the pending had been placed 5 mins beforehand
Client Services:What time this this happened?
J *****:15.05GMT
Client Services:Do you know that on a buy trade you enter at the ask price ?
Client Services:The platform only display the Bid prices.
J *****:yes
Client Services:Ok.
Client Services:Then one more thing,
J *****:not if you have the ask price line showing which is what I have set Client Services:What is the expected resolution for this? The trade ticket that I am going to submit ?
J *****:its just that I could close it and maybe 138.25 should be given as the entry Client Services:Ok, no proble,
Client Services:problem*
J *****:yeah it was simple thanks
Ticket order was submitted but as you will see it was rejected in the follow up email.


IBFXs Dishonouring of their Spreads
Red is my editing - This was their reply

Thank you for contacting IBFX today with questions about account ****** and trade number 33074881. The trade ticket that was created states you believe this order should have been filled at 138.25 and not 138.27. It also states this was during a non-news times and the market was fairly stable. Please remember that a Buy Stop or a Sell Stop are defined as stop orders. This means that if the market gaps during a news announcement or over the weekend the fill price can be drastically different than the requested price. Additionally, it is possible to see smaller jumps in price during a stable market especially on a currency pair like the GBPJPY.

I know this but that is the whole purpose of having fixed spreads to your client, that is they know how much they will be charged in spread. I also know that it is especially the cas with the GBPJPY which is why you charge 9 pip spread during high volume times and 12 pip (approx) during the Asian session (low volume times).

It is common to see the price jump 2 or 3 pips between ticks on this pair. In a situation like the one you experienced this morning the Ask price moved from just below your entry point to just above it in one tick. This would create a slightly different fill price since stop orders get filled at the first available price. There was no error in execution and no adjustments or credits will be made to your account. Please contact IBFX with any additional questions.

Yes there was an error in your execution IBFX did not honour IBFX's fixed spread agreement. And although IBFX might trade against me (hedge), IBFX is also responsible for IBFX's data feed and I the client should not have to argue over IBFX's tick data feed (whether it was inadequate or not). IBFX, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR TICK DATA FEED not me, and if I place a pending order, it should be honoured.

During news times / week ends it is understandable as banks withdraw their offers in the market place creating a temporary void of price availability in the market that is being fed to IBFX. But during non-news times IBFX have made an aggregate estimate of the costs to trade and have given a fixed spread, so that your client and IBFX have a stable price agreement. I should not have to debate it, I should not have to grovel for it, I should not have to argue my case, it should be simple case that IBFX agree to IBFX's fixed spread whether it benefits IBFX or not.

This is IBFX’s ability to be transparent in the fixed spread world of forex, and if you cannot be transparent my money will walk away from your brokerage. And even if the next brokerage is as untransparent as IBFX was in this case, at least they will be a number of pips cheaper per standard trade.

I about to close my account with IBFX because of their dishonesty and price manipulation ... MB Trading looks very nice, except their trading platform ...

Yep,

MBTrading are developing an MT4 ECN at this very moment.
This is something that a smaller broker ATCBroker's have already done, MT4 ECN. However their ECN feed is not as good as MBTrading's by the looks of it. I heard through the grape vine that ATC are in someway affiliated with FXCM.

They aren't fixed spread, and been for quite some time. IBFX went away from that model when they added JPM and DB as liquidity providers.

If 2 pips is a big deal in your trading style on a pair like gbpjpy....you have no choice but to use a true ECN. Try Interactive Brokers. Minimum account size is 10,000 USD though....but to get into the actual ECN market, it's a little different game.

If you think getting slipped 2 pips in GBPJPY is a big deal, you are going to HATE ECNs.

Remember, non-fixed spreads work both ways. I have seen EUR/USD as wide as 15 pips during Asian session on certain nights with Interactive.

I use IBFX for forex because of this.

CW

[quote=clockwork71;2583077] If you think getting slipped 2 pips in GBPJPY is a big deal./quote]

Its not that 2 pips is big, however, this has happened on 5 out of my last 7 trades. Effectively making their 9 pip charge / spread 11 pip. Not one of these has been during news times, the closest to the change of hour was 5 minutes, and every trade was a pending order. And with manual closing of trade I have not been able to do it in the last 2 weeks without at least one requote.

And since they are now NOT fixed spread (thanks for informing) but once were, and the fact that they charge a minimum of 9 pip for GBPJPY says fixed unless IBFX want it otherwise. That's a GRADE A+++ bucket-shop. You may as well go for a tiny retail dealer who has no liquidity.

If you want to donate money give it to charity... ...they'll do something good with it instead of buying more awards for themselves.

If you look at all their awards very few of them are directly related to their forex dealing. All of them are related to profitability of business or awards that are unrelated to forex industry. The ones that are related to the forex industry could be easily manipulated by a big company like IBFX. Customer satisfaction from a magazine that can be bought over the counter. hmmmmmmm by out a couple of thousand copies and pay someone to make your company look good.

Most of their awards deal with good marketing (hmmmm), equal opportunity :-) or business growing. Sounds like there business is growing because of their profitability from good marketing and maybe highly profitable for the reasons I've described above.

MBTrading are presently 1 pip or less during this Asian session. And have been approximately this each time I've looked.

I have no time for IBFX any more,
tooo expensive,
spreads fixed unless it does not benefit them
double negative swap rates whether you buy or sell most of the pairs they offer (sounds like a commission for holding a position overnight to me)

I also checked these swap rates with Oanda's calculator, and guess what they shouldn't both be negative unless a fee / commission is being inserted. Sounds like commissioned trading without advertising that they charge a commission. This is on top of their massive spreads.

In any other industry IBFX would probably be busted for false or misleading advertising.

ALL I'm waiting to do is to get myself out of a hedge trade.