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FXCM Micro Account Trading Environment Test

  • #61
  • Nov 23, 2009 9:05am Nov 23, 2009 9:05am
Quoting mofuniverse
FXCM Ltd (UK) Micro – FAQ

1) What are the new margin requirements?

To view a full list of margin requirements visit the MARGIN TABLE.

2) When will the NEW margin requirements take effect?

At trading open on Sunday, November, 22nd.

3) Will my account be affected by this change?

[color=red]All Micro accounts held with Forex...
Hi mofuniverse,

The margin requirement of 0.25% (400:1 leverage) will stay the same for micro FXCM UK accounts, but the margin calculation will be based off of the notional amount traded. Here's the text from the FAQ:

After November 22nd, the default margin levels for FX products will be 0.25% of the notional trade size plus a small cushion to prevent daily or even weekly fluctuations in margin requirements. In most cases, the cushion we have added means that margin levels should not change more than once a month. Additionally, to further keep things simplified, margin levels will only go up or down in increments of $1.

So for pairs such as the USD/JPY and USD/CHF the margin will remain at $2.50 per 1k micro lot traded since 0.25% X $1,000 = $2.50. Whereas for a pair like EUR/USD, the notional USD amount traded is roughly $1,498 which would mean the margin posted is higher. Here's the webpage with the margin table http://forexforums.dailyfx.com/new-f...gin-table.html
  • #62
  • Nov 23, 2009 9:45am Nov 23, 2009 9:45am
I see my mistake now... Thanks! .... Trying to adapt to hitler government

Quoting Jason Rogers
Hi mofuniverse,

The margin requirement of 0.25% (400:1 leverage) will stay the same for micro FXCM UK accounts, but the margin calculation will be based off of the notional amount traded....
  • #63
  • Nov 25, 2009 10:56pm Nov 25, 2009 10:56pm
I have a fxcm normal account. And it always seems to have slippage for my SL.

I got a SL @86.90 for my usd/jpy. Even it spike down at 22:30 (time provided my fxcm) it only closed my trade 3 mins later with a slippage for 23.1 pips (closed at 86.669). This is not acceptable to me for a big forex broker like fxcm. And if u look at the tick chart from fxcm, it hovers for 20-30 secs around 86.90 before moving down again. There is plenty of time for them to close my trade.

I have complained to the customer service and now have to wait to see if i got a refund. And hopefully, I won't be waiting for 5 working days as stated by their email replied.
  • #64
  • Nov 26, 2009 2:08am Nov 26, 2009 2:08am
Quoting zobo
I have a fxcm normal account. And it always seems to have slippage for my SL.

I got a SL @86.90 for my usd/jpy. Even it spike down at 22:30 (time provided my fxcm) it only closed my trade 3 mins later with a slippage for 23.1 pips (closed at 86.669). This is not acceptable to me for a big forex broker like fxcm. And if u look at the tick chart from fxcm, it hovers for 20-30 secs around 86.90 before moving down again. There is plenty of time for them to close my trade.

I have complained to the customer service and now have to wait to see if i got...
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:

Market Makers & ECN’s, Is the grass greener?

Specifically the part regarding ECNs and trading news. I have highlighted the relevant portion below:

You see in real interbank networks, a market order is just that, a request for a euro at the market price. And the market price is not static. It is moving all of the time. Sometimes it is moving very fast. In those conditions, you may request a euro at 1.2750 but in the time it takes for you to push the button, route the order and match a buyer the price could be 1.2752 or in a really volatile market as during economic releases, the next seller might not be available until 1.2780.

How many stupid people do you think are out there that want to sell a euro after the Federal Reserve just released a U. S. dollar negative statement? This is the reality of the real market. Sometimes there just isn’t a buyer at the price you want. Because we have been lied to, and some of us flat out cheated in the past, we immediately go into combat mode. “I can’t believe it! These guys are just as bad as the lousy market making broker I just got rid of!”. Well, no, probably not. They are just giving us what we asked for. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t really know what we were asking for.
  • #65
  • Nov 26, 2009 4:55am Nov 26, 2009 4:55am
Quoting DodgeV83
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:

[url="http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=8046"][b]Market Makers & ECN’s, Is the grass greener?...

It is a limit order. And even if it takes some time to do my order, it shouldn't take 3 mins. And I was in front of my screen while that happens. There is quite some time before my order is excuted when there is not much movement.

I can understand if there is a spike and causes slippage. But watching it moves down slowly from 86.80 to 86.669 before my order is closed is another thing. And please don't say there isn't any buyer for that 3 mins.
  • #66
  • Nov 26, 2009 4:28pm Nov 26, 2009 4:28pm
Quoting DodgeV83
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:

[url="http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=8046"][b]Market Makers & ECN’s, Is the grass greener?...
This is true to some extent.

If you had a large pending order and there was no one to lap it up, then you wouldn't get your price.

But on a 100k lot even a 1 mio lot, the liquidity providers and brokers have an agreement to fill all orders to a certain level. I.E the liquidity provider is using its cash to fill your order. Taking the spread as the profit they make then either holding notes, or trying to find a buyer/seller in their network to cover their position. Or essentially proxy hedging, but having their own liquidity provider cover an order the same size as yours in the opposite direction and getting rid of all exposure (banks will often do this especially during news time).

The markets generaly don't spike during news because of major banks etc. Major banks start trends, they dont spike the market. Hedge funds etc, are the spike traders and they generally are in and out quicker than you can take profit. If you watch any major news announcement where a trend starts afterwards, you will find the market goes against the news release say 20 pips (this is approximate) then jumps 100-300 pips without retrace depending on pair. This is a bank getting in. But they dont just do 1 trade.. They are probably trading up all liquidity for 80 pips of the move in order to cover 1 position. They do this, by finding buyers/sellers who purchase notes for requirement. I.E Importers/exporters who are using spot prices rather than Forward contracts. The banks have control of this liquidity because the deal is done directly through them. If that liquidity was offered to the general market, then you could expect to always be filled at price X.xxx no matter the market conditions

/end rant.
  • #67
  • Nov 26, 2009 6:27pm Nov 26, 2009 6:27pm
Quoting DodgeV83
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:
No they're not......

Active trader is with slightly wider spreads.
  • #68
  • Nov 26, 2009 10:59pm Nov 26, 2009 10:59pm
I have a standard demo of the fxcm platform.

Please the spreads are bloody average. I would have loved to see them early this morning. after all the crap from J.R spin king I expected a lot more.

As always the truth is all that counts e/$ 2.7 $/J 2.8 cable 3 $/CHF 3.6 E/GBP 3.8

Inter is half of all the that.

Seriously, if that's the STP spreads and if they don't really pick up form Europe open then, IMO FXCM is full of shit.

Cheers
  • #69
  • Nov 26, 2009 11:15pm Nov 26, 2009 11:15pm
Originally Posted by DodgeV83 http://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:

Quoting >Apocalypto<
No, they're not......

Active trader is with slightly wider spreads.
I agree with you that they ARE NOT an ECN. Anyone who indicates they are either doesn not know what constitutes an ECN or is lying to you.

And, if that information came from FXCM themselves, don't believe them! In my humble opinion, FXCM is one of the most dishonest and cheating companies in the world!
  • #70
  • Nov 30, 2009 2:59am Nov 30, 2009 2:59am
I'm not technically adept at the science of how orders are filled and at what price, all i can do is give you an experience I had with fxcm this morning.

Had a sell order on usjpy at 89.120. It was filled at 86.106. It was opened at 6.57am London time-no fast market, no news coming out, no spike on the price charts on fxcm charts on my ODL live acct charts. So price essentially gapped for no reason at a slow/average time of day, where neither price action nor an increase in the spread can explain why my order was filled at a disadvantageous price.
Yet even in these condidtions, I was well over a pip away from my open price. This also occured to me last week on gbp/usd.
While I like the platform, that sort of execution is extremely poor IMO
  • #71
  • Nov 30, 2009 3:43am Nov 30, 2009 3:43am
Quoting Jason Rogers
A fast moving market is an indication of illiquidity. Sending a market order with market range = 0 during a fast moving market will naturally increase the chances that the order is rejected. How the market order is setup (market range vs. at best) will make a difference in whether the order is filled or rejected.
If the ping time from my terminal computer to your live trading servers is at or under 1ms and my orders are submitted via an Expert Advisor (i.e. within microseconds of seeing a price quote), can I expect my order to be executed with no slippage on any of your platforms in a fast moving market?
  • #72
  • Nov 30, 2009 12:20pm Nov 30, 2009 12:20pm
Quoting enewbold
Originally Posted by DodgeV83 http://cdn.forexfactory.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
FXCM Standard accounts are ECNs, you should read the sticky on this board:



I agree with you that they ARE NOT an ECN. Anyone who indicates they are either doesn not know what constitutes an ECN or is lying to you.

And, if that information came from FXCM themselves, don't believe them! In my humble opinion, FXCM is one of the most dishonest and...
Hi enewbold,

The execution for each account type (standard vs. micro) is listed on our website.

The standard 10k accounts are executed via No Dealing Desk (STP) execution. Explained here http://www.fxcm.co.uk/execution-advantage.jsp

And micro accounts are executed through the FXCM dealing desk since only 2 of the 10 banks we deal with will take micro lots via NDD execution. Explained here http://www.forexmicrolot.com/mission-statement.jsp

-Jason
  • #73
  • Nov 30, 2009 9:26pm Nov 30, 2009 9:26pm
What I can say the service from FXCM is slow. It takes 2 days to investigate a simple complain and takes days (can't confirm how many days as today is the third day it says it is going to credit back my money.) to close the complain completely.

And like bootsyjam says, the order may not be filled at your price.
  • #74
  • Nov 30, 2009 10:35pm Nov 30, 2009 10:35pm
It's been 7 days since i was told I would receive a email in 2 days.......

FXCM yeh right
  • #75
  • Dec 1, 2009 3:59am Dec 1, 2009 3:59am
Jason Rogers, please answer the question:
Quoting Hyper
If the ping time from my terminal computer to your live trading servers is at or under 1ms and my orders are submitted via an Expert Advisor (i.e. within microseconds of seeing a price quote), can I expect my order to be executed with no slippage on any of your platforms in a fast moving market?
  • #76
  • Dec 1, 2009 6:37am Dec 1, 2009 6:37am
I wouldn't normally post in this section of the forum, but since I've been trading fxcm micro uk for 6 months I want to share a few key points.
First of all I'm not going to comment on slippage or requotes, it happens with all brokers.
I'm not going to comment on stop hunting either or rate manipulation.

Tradestation 2 is amazing, it has never crashed on a decent computer, no lag with a dsl line, nice graphics, nice zoom in and zoom out. Ifact I like tradestation better than mt4!

My two points of concern are the following:

first of all the roll over rates. By following the formula that fxcm micro has provided me with, the roll over rates of fxcm micro have nothing to do with reality. Simply put fxcm is not paying us, me or you the roll over they should!
Positive roll over on eurusd is zero, in fact all positive roll over rates on a micro lot are smaller than they should be, while when going short, the roll over charges are greater than they should be. I am sorry, but this in my book is called stealing, no matter how small the amount is.

Second questionable point is fees for withrawing money. Sure you can open an account for $25 but have to pay $15 to withdraw money?!

All in all, being a very modest critic, I would have to say that fxcm's ethics on conducting business are questionable. The term "bucket shop" suits them great.

Am I going to keep trading with them? Yes, I like their platform, but I won't be adding any more capital. All they managed to do with their practises is lose a client who was planning on opening a standard account with them...

I am open an debating this, and i can show, using their formula, how they use incorrect roll overs, unless "special conditions" apply for their micro accounts...
  • #77
  • Dec 1, 2009 12:01pm Dec 1, 2009 12:01pm
Quoting Hyper
Jason Rogers, please answer the question:
Hi Hyper,

Thanks for the question (to re-post for everyone):

If the ping time from my terminal computer to your live trading servers is at or under 1ms and my orders are submitted via an Expert Advisor (i.e. within microseconds of seeing a price quote), can I expect my order to be executed with no slippage on any of your platforms in a fast moving market?

Having minimal latency can reduce the slippage. Slippage is dependent on the amount of liquidity available at each price. Market orders are competing with waiting entry orders, stops, and limits waiting at each price point. If you send a market order and another order is there before you which wipes out liquidity at that price, then slippage is going to occur. In a fast moving market, if the market price gaps 5 pips for example from 1.5000 to 1.5005, that means all orders waiting in between those prices are competing for the next best price at 1.5005 in addition to any market orders traders are sending in. Liquidity is key here which is why we have 10 banks providing pricing and are in continuous discussion to add more liquidity providers.

If you're using an expert advisor, there's a way we can help you reduce latency. We now have free VPS for all of our MT4 live accounts, and the VPS servers are housed in the same data center as our trade servers. This hasn't been announced on the website yet, but I can get a login setup for you for the first wave of logins being created this Friday. Just send me a message or email if you want one setup (Only available for live account holders). This is the best way to reduce latency if you're using an expert advisor. Especially if you're located in areas of the world such as Australia, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, China, etc.

Jason
  • #78
  • Dec 1, 2009 12:44pm Dec 1, 2009 12:44pm
Jason, thank you for the detailed reply.

The reality is that even in a fast moving market, price rarely changes within a time span of a single millisecond. Price changes in discrete steps over time.

So if my Expert Advisor sees 1.5000 and, within microseconds, sends an order (which would also take microseconds if we assume that my terminal is in your data center), would the probability of being filled at 1.5000 be close to 100%?

Or would slippage also be dependent on the speed of execution on your server? Can you tell me your average order execution duration? How does it compare with Interbank FX's claim of 972 microseconds average execution duration for the week of November 15 to November 20 2009:
Attached Image
  • #79
  • Dec 1, 2009 2:21pm Dec 1, 2009 2:21pm
Quoting Hyper
Jason, thank you for the detailed reply.

The reality is that even in a fast moving market, price rarely changes within a time span of a single millisecond. Price changes in discrete steps over time.

So if my Expert Advisor sees 1.5000 and, within microseconds, sends an order (which would also take microseconds if we assume that my terminal is in your data center), would the probability of being filled at 1.5000 be close to 100%?

Or would slippage also be dependent on the speed of execution on your server? Can you tell me your average order...
Hi Hyper,

It's like shopping on Black Friday after Thanksgiving. If you have a good spot in line and you're a fast runner you have a better chance of getting the item on sale before it runs out . When supply runs out, you have to pay another price.

Cutting down on latency certainly helps but I don't have details on a percentage probability.

I checked with our tech department for details on execution time. From the time an order is sent to the bank to when confirmation is received back can take as little as 30 milliseconds on the very low end upwards of 800 milliseconds on the high end. These are estimates only. If the order is sent to one bank and liquidity dries up before the order is executed, then it has to be sent to the bank with the next best available price. This impacts the execution time as well. Our servers are located in or near the same data centers as the other major banks to cut down on latency in transmitting orders from one bank to another. We don't have hard statistics available for averaging processing time, but I will pass your suggestion to our developers as an improvement for www.FXStatus.com

To give you an idea of how quickly prices are being hit during volatile markets, take a look at tick data from November NFP. From this table showing tick data, there were 15 separate quotes from 8:30:27 to 8:30:31 during a 5 second period on EUR/USD.

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/332/tickchart.jpg


Historical tick charts are available through the Marketscope chart in the FX Trading Station II.

-Jason
  • #80
  • Edited 4:34pm Dec 1, 2009 2:54pm | Edited 4:34pm
Quoting Jason Rogers
From the time an order is sent to the bank to when confirmation is received back can take as little as 30 milliseconds on the very low end upwards of 800 milliseconds on the high end.
Thank you for providing these numbers. So that means it's the order execution on your servers that is the big bottleneck.

Quoting Jason Rogers
If the order is sent to one bank and liquidity dries up before the order is executed, then it has to be sent to the bank with the next best available price. This impacts the execution time as well. Our servers are located in or near the same data centers as the other major banks to cut down on latency in transmitting orders from one bank to another.
Ok that is reasonable. So this would be the main difference with a Market Maker broker execution. Since they don't need to send off orders to banks, their executions would be faster.

Quoting Jason Rogers
To give you an idea of how quickly prices are being hit during volatile markets, take a look at tick data from November NFP.
Thank you for digging that up, however the times that you show are lacking millisecond precision, so it is not clear how far apart each tick are within a single second. There are 1000 milliseconds in a second, so I doubt that two of those ticks occurred within a time span of 1 or 2 milliseconds. I can see that there were 8 ticks within a second, so if those ticks were equally spaced there would be 125ms between them. I can also see that the price changes from one tick to another are still only 1 to 3 pips. So would 1 to 3 pips of slippage be a worst case scenario if trading at such a moment?
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