ATC Brokers

There are a few firms with a true ECN MT4 out there that have better execution than FXCM.

They don't advertise them, because they'd rather the masses go to their proprietary platforms.

What's a "whitelabel" shop?

Thanks.

Which firms, pray tell, might these be, please?

Thanks.

Pretty sure I'm not supposed to get into specific firms as per the forum rules.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=white+label+forex

Answer: It's an interface that ACM provides for subscribing banks and/or brokers.

"Forex White Label partnership with ACM enables banks and brokers to satisfy their customers´ demand for online trading tools. Our trading solutions enable you to harness and develop already existing customer trading relationships and extract greater returns from them whilst streamlining internal trading operations and rendering them as efficient as possible. The complete implementation of a White Label platform takes about 2 weeks, from application to launch."

There... was that so hard! Sheesh!

Then, what the heck good is this forum if a free exchange of information is prohibited??? This is precisely the kind of information thousands of people seek, but are prevented from seeing!

I bet he's only trying to find people who open an account with his referral program or something like this.

Rules don't prohibit this.
The forum is full of details about broker services.

I just signed up, and when reading the terms of service, it said in the beginning to not post comments on specific firms. Forgive me for trying to follow the rules of the forum.

LOL Mate just look at the brokers section..... you still carrying on about this rule?

It's great it's not enforced so people like u and me can see what is the basic overview on a specific broker!

cheers,

Here's the latest information I've just gleaned from the Forum section on the ATC site:
http://www.atcbrokers.com/forums/vie....php?f=12&t=61

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New post by Admin on Wed Jun 10, 2009 11:23 am

As ATC looks to compare demo with live, it would be nice to say that the pricing is sure to be identical. We hope in every case that the current Demo and Live feeds are the same as was the intention ATC holds with any provider. However, we intentionally source the Live and Demo from two different Prime servers in order to protect that we don't face loss of both feeds in the event of a network outage. Those servers are "supposed" to run matching price provisions from the Prime, as a rule and by any measure of 3 standard deviations of a moving average, they certainly do.

However, the raw truth is that any Prime Broker or FCM, has the right to mark up their product for resale. Just the same as the farmer has a right to mark up Corn over his cost to produce and the store-front merchant again marks up that Corn beyond HIS cost, to produce to the end consumer.

ATC does not affect nor adulterate the price feeds on it's live or demo feeds, but this does not assure that the Prime Broker providing the feeds isn't allowed to move the spread as part of his mark-up. Sooooo many traders don't understand this. It is perfectly permissible for a Prime to move the spreads on demand at peaks and valleys or even horse-whip the spreads, as long as both bid and ask are moved proportionally, at the same time. We're not saying any Prime DOES THIS, only that there is no reason they can't.

On an ECN which does not have a dealing desk and is not taking the other side, the benefit is nearly zero requotes, good anonymity and great potential for deep liquidity. The down side is that the trader faces a much more volatile spread due to permitted dynamic mark ups on spread as well as other local traders on that network affecting the "Best Price" if liquidity to support trading becomes thin, as in high volume moves or 16:00 EST as some banks go offline for the night.

Every ECN and every Prime Broker has it's own "character" of network behaviors and when there is no dealing desk, there is no alternative to finding fills until available price offers fill that need at the volume demanded, from one or more banks posting quotes to them. Depending on how a prime negotiates connectivity and offer-acceptance with any given bank, a "no fill" state of delay is always very much a possibility this kind of ECN fights with. We understand this and give considerable room to the fact that this is a true issue for a Prime, especially one the size of FXCM creating a stand-alone ECN.

Traders should NOT be surprised to learn that Banks or Primes would struggle with supporting tons of small moves on Asian scalping for example, as the cost of every order is the same for them, but the commission on small scalps is far less valuable on smaller scalping lots and can actually run a brokerage into loss, if their overall orders become too heavily biased on small lot sizes. So, why would we not expect brokerages to whip the spread a little more during heavier times of less-income-per-trade sessions, if they cannot take the other side or make markup on dealing desk? It's part of doing business, staying profitable and remaining competitive. Don't think one FCM or another doesn't have a tool kit of methods to remain solvent. They must, or they go out of business. Unless one can find a prime that "Certifies" their spread and markup by CPA audit, then nobody can say for sure what all tools are in use for this need. Good luck finding that, as privately held corporations have no obligation to provide markup or sales-strategic information in the open.

So, in the end, what do we learn if the Demo pricing is not staying matched 100% to the Live pricing? We learn that no matter what, simply due to differences in "Quality of Fill", that final testing has to happen on a live account at lot sizes comparable to normal trading, if our testing of EAs and automation are to give us meaningful results. It is a "Cost of Business" for the trader to make these real testing assessments and part of the REAL cost of automated trading. No experienced and conservative trader would ever bank his investment simply against a Demo operation for several reasons. Demo provides us a "rule of thumb", a rough proving grounds for general automation operation testing, a place to learn and practice, but should NEVER be relied upon as giving us the real picture of profitability. This is why so many younger traders are taken by surprise to learn that live trading does not return the net values seen on Demo testing; the one exception being those who do longer-term trading and are less prone to spreads because they are long-term and so for them, Demo is quite realistic. This is also why we advise that traders NEVER rely simply on automated scalping as their only source of income, but rather use a mix of long and short term methods.

ATC hopes always to provide as realistic of a Demo as it can. But, from a standpoint of conservative investing, one should never expect or demand that a demo account will be proof-positive of Live expectations or you're subject to "The Emperor's new clothes" syndrome on ANY network you would test on. This is also one of the best reasons to NEVER invest in a commercial EA based on Demo graphs of supposed performance. "Trust only that which is proven to be trustworthy". Where conservative trading is concerned, that means even Live trading results on ANY broker will vary broker to broker, as no two brokers trading results Live will EVER be the same either, especially on ECNs and so the relative comparison from broker to broker is also a huge fallacy, if that's the only tool of comparison being used.

There's nothing said here, that's giving up any secrets that any trader could not rationalize on their own, if they only stop to think about it some and do a little Google research. Don't let the promise of quick money and "Appearance" of shiny results impress, beyond the reality of "seeing is believing" in each and every real case to be tested. Surely don't think the broker will be at fault, if you do, or most will find otherwise, that learning comes the hard way for not having done due diligence first.

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lancehibner wrote:ATC had gone to encouraging lengths to evaluate the FXCM connection and FXCM’s commitment to operations reliability. We understand the concerns of traders in relation to FXCM and its past place in the industry; however ATC will only connect to true ECN model and nothing less. ATC is beginning sampling market data and preparing to test real execution to confirm spreads, fills and other practicality at FXCM.

While it is true that ATC is looking at statistical monitoring of FXCM Live versus Demo data, traders should read the prior post concerning the fact that ATC does not and cannot fully control the reliability of Demo versus Live operation. Traders need to understand that at least three modes of operation in "Quality of fill" affect this comparison on every broker, including the demand levels and events of data corruption that can occur on far more densely populated demo servers.

For this reason, traders will NEVER successfully find Live execution action to match Demo on any broker as Fill delays, multiple-fill averaging, propagation time and slippage are all independent values from Live versus Demo on ALL brokerages.

There is no exception to this imperfect rule.

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Shrike wrote: Hello Admin, Is the companion and the hooks for mql4 to access market depth already available? Just a small update on the current status would be nice, so i can assess if its viable for me to put in an account application.

Market-Range slip control has not completed implementation at FXCM as yet. The problem appears is quite heavily dependent on the method and communications involved in how their current ECN connects to the banking providers on this network. We're not privileged to all the exact details, but it has to do with how they integrate with banking side back office methods. This makes the integration of a market range process a VERY complicated matter, demanding on either back office code authors or a substantial revamp of their current back office / provider connection semantics. It also may open the door to some delay in price re-sampling, which can contribute to increased slip, before the order is finally satisfied.

FXCM has been working on implementing a new strategy on a new ECN network, we believe is intended to take these concerns into account. They continue to move forward as they can, but events like the SEC's recent decision to stick a government finger into brokerage hedging, put a tremendous strain on Prime Brokers, having to make HUGE back office retooling in some cases, under a ridiculous calendar expectation the SEC permitted.

ATC is not pressing FXCM on this issue momentarily, understanding what this recent change meant for a firm the size of FXCM. It does look like this week finally shakes out most of the changes thrust on FXCM so in the weeks to follow, we hope to return to some momentum on seeing this new network come to life, itself we're sure must first be modified now to meet the hedging changes as well.

Beyond this, we can only say we're as eager as all the rest and that FXCM continues to hold good response with us on the few issues that arise.

After I downloaded the JadeFX demo, I wanted to compare them to ATC.

I was surprised to notice that JadeFX and ATC had exactly the same prices. ATC is a white label for FXCM.

That leads me to believe that JadeFX could be another white label of FXCM.

JadeFX, PrimeBanks and IamFX are all IB's for GallantFX (SunSpot Capital)

Thanks for the reply Aja,

thats even more interesting as may make FXCM one of GallantFX IBs or data users. If this is the case I would to hear what FXCM have to say about it. Check it out get a ATC demo and run it next to Jadefx, same prices. if I am wrong please let me know. ATC JAde on EUR/USd USD/JPY moved tick by tick with the same quotes.

It was just after that Reefco went down FXCM relaunched themselves as this new STP 10 bank liquidity transparent provider.

cheers

So what's the bottom line is ATC trustworthy? I was going to open a $8,000 account with them but now I am hesitant. Does anyone have first hand experience with this broker? An if yes, please give us a review.

It's more likely that both ATC and Jade use FXCM as their Prime Broker.

ATC is hands down the best ECN right now IMHO. No Freezes, Spread Widening (except naturally and briefly during news releases), No requotes and Better spreads and conditions than MBTrading - Better spreads than Dukascopy MT4 (even though Duka will be my backup once MT4 comes out of Beta). I trade Live with them and its great having a broker that I dont have to worry about since they NEVER trade against you.

http://www.fxintel.com/live/

I really wish their feed didn't shut down an hour early on Friday, and open a few hours late on Sunday. They should change this.

that's what i think.