MB Trading Futures - Introduction

Why should maximum deviation only work on MM platforms? This could be impemented on an ECN by sending a marketable limit order instead of a market-order. You can do this in Desktop Pro, so there is no reason it shouldn't work in MBT's mt4. Avoiding market-orders whenever possible is only prudent anyways.

Thanks for the reply,

I guess for now MT4 is my only option. I hope they create automated trading and customizable indicators in their NavPro in the near future. EAs and custom indicators are the only reason why people still use mt4 anyways...

How about Ninja Trader? Is that platform better suited to MBs trading environment?

Even more it is NFA regulated and they allow heding and has no FIFO restrictions. Their backoffice handles both... So it is technically possible too.

Pat the IT department on the back and give them a "Good job, that's the way to do it!" from me Justin, for releasing the new Desktop Pro version during the weekend when the markets are closed. New install went perfectly, with no issues, and I'm ready for another week in in trenches.

I installed the new version of Desktop Pro over the weekend.
The issues with the Navigator Managed Trading have been resolved.

Thanks for this.

Justin, if you time to respond to the other question I had, I'd greatly appreciate it.

LOL. Just say the name of the broker. In this case, trust me, Justin won't mind.

Shrike,

Let’s not confuse two points. Let me start with an explanation of how the EXECUTION piece could work with our main (Desktop) system.

Our system accepts a Limit order that you can place that is marketable. You know what that means, but for the benefit of others, let’s demonstrate.

EURUSD = 1.2810 by 1.2811. You want to buy but no higher than 1.2815. You place a Limit order to buy at 1.2815. Our system tries to buy at 1.2811 because that is the current offer. Most of the time, you just get a fill there. In moving market conditions, if you don’t get a fill there, we try the next price, etc. Once we have tried all the way up to 1.2815, your order sits as a Limit to buy on the ECN at 1.2815 if the price comes back down (or until you cancel). So yes, that’s what you are referencing, but let’s also be clear about what the execution side of that does.

We fire a Fill or Kill order to a bank at 1.2811. If they fill, it’s over. If they kill because they were already moving, then once our system gets that Kill message back, it takes another look at the EURUSD and tries to send another Fill or Kill to a bank at the current offer price (up to 1.2815). Also, if there is a seller on the ECN at the current offer, we hit there first.

But let’s be clear. Even on a marketable Limit order, which I think anyone with an account with us knows that Desktop/Desktop Pro/Nav handles very well, we’re still sending separate Fill or Kill orders. In other words, we have written the algorithm that makes that sort of order possible. The banks themselves won’t accept a limit order up to a price. They only accept the Fill or Kill request. In other words, we aren’t sending banks market orders (they don’t accept them). We send them a request for a fill at a price. That’s it. That’s all they accept and that’s all we can send. There is no way to send a bank in the Interbank system a “fill me up to this price” or even, and this will shock some people, a “fill me at whatever price.” Each order is a request for a fill at a SPECIFIC price. The other concepts don’t exist.

Now let’s go back to MetaTrader. The entire platform was written for deal desks with a model of deal desk execution (i.e. the company running the MT4 platform was the execution) behind it. You can’t place a “Limit” order to buy above the market, it won’t let you. You can only place a Stop to buy above the market. Our system is bridging, if you will, the concept of various order types that MT4’s API allows to send out. In MT4, that basically comes down to Limit and Market (because Trailing Stops are handled by the customer MT4 Client and then fired as Market orders, and regular Stops are monitored by the bridge and then fired as Market orders).

So, here’s the thing you have to ask yourself. When someone says that they have an MT4 broker where they can use the “Max Standard Deviation” setting, what is that against, knowing what I’ve just told you? What if I then told you that the Max Standard Deviation setting can’t pass through the API (it’s not a part of it). In other words, if it passed through the API, then we could do this. You could set the deviation level at 5 pips, and every time you placed a market order to buy, we could turn it into a Limit order 5 pips above the current offer and send that out for execution, which would then be handled as we described above.

But it doesn’t work like that. The only thing we have to work with is the information that MT4 can pass, and that’s Limit (below the market if you are buying, above if you are selling) or Market order with no parameters attached (which could come from Meta due to customer placing a Market order, or a Stop triggering on the bridge, or a Trailing Stop triggering from the Client software). And if you understand the backoffice end of Meta even further, you’ll understand that the term “Instant Execution” also doesn’t pass anything through the API because Instant Execution requires a response from a desk (basically a “fill or kill” and move the quote if you don’t fill). Keep in mind, if we have two banks at the same offer price on one of our pairs and you go to buy at that price, the first bank might move and reject the trade (a “kill”), but the quote doesn’t move and then we hit the second one. So again, our quotes come from our liquidity providers and not some internal desk trading against the customers. Instant execution is not possible with us or any non-desk solution.

Our team went through all of this very carefully during the year or more that it took us to design a bridge between our execution and Meta. At the end of the day, any broker that has Instant Execution turned on or the deviation setting is a desk and only a desk once you understand how Meta works with that information. There remains a lot of games being played out there by brokers using the MT4 software. I haven’t looked yet to see what this means for MT5, but on MT4, there are a lot of firms trying to sell that they are something new when the fact that they are using the old features means that isn’t possible.

Interesting. All of the sudden, the EURNOK and EURSEK charts look normal for the first time on MBT MT4. They have been useless for months. Anything change Justin?

Fxchant,

We actually pushed through a significant set up updates to the Live environment the other day. This includes a fix for the EURNOK and EURSEK data, which should be fine now. In addition, I think that split trades issues should be fixed, and I think Live traders are going to see consistent faster fills. In other words, effective this last weekend, I think our MT4 just got more stable. There’s about three months of bug fixes and updates in the build.

Hi Justin
Thanks for the effort , Will be happy if you can spot more light about my query
http://www.forexfactory.com/showpost...postcount=5646

Thanks

Hi,

Just a quick question about MT4s market orders, Does this "fill or kill" also apply to market orders? Example we request BUY@ 1.3245, but at the time of the order request that price is no longer available, will that order simply be rejected? (error price of quotes)

Or will this market order instead in effect be passed onto you system and will be filled when your system finds a 1.3245 price or better? what happens if price doesn't go back to 1.3245 but goes to 1.3270 for example, will this market order then be filled at 1.3270?

I ask because I am currently running an EA live on MB, and I am using only market orders, so far I am very happy with the execution, the live results exactly match the demo tests, but I just want to know how you process MT4's market orders so that I may optimize my EAs entry and exit process.

I am hoping this 'fill or kill' applies in MT4 I would much rather have my order rejected than get slipped...

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Justin, I have some big gaps on my Metatrader 1 minute charts. 3 months on USD/CAD and AUD/USD. Not sure why and I did contact support. I have an unfunded Metatrader acct so I can use it for charting but I use Desktop Pro for order entry. Can you post for me or email me a csv file so that I can import it and fill in that data? I'm seriously considering adding the USD/CAD to my pairs but I need more data. Actually if you could get me csvs for the last year that would be even better. Or if any MB custormers reading this could do so, also good.

Thanx

At this time, I can’t give any dates for our broad mobile product.

Mikhaildgreat,

I think you might have misread one of my earlier posts. A market order is sent as a fill or kill at the current price (let’s say the offer on a buy) to a bank at that price. If they reject the trade because they have already moved, we get a kill and then we send it to the next bank at that price. If there is no other bank at that price, then the price has moved up, so let’s say it is now a pip higher. We send an attempt to fill at that next price to whatever bank is at that level. If we get a fill, you are done.

You will always get filled on a market order. It continues to try to hit banks until it gets filled. On a buy order, that means that it will continue to hit higher prices until it fills. On a sell, that means lower prices. As you said, you are already happy with your fills. That’s because the majority of fills occur easily at the shown price. The only exception would typically be in a fast market where banks are all running away and getting hit heavily.

So, yes, market orders use fill or kill at each successive price level to get you an execution. This means that you can get slipped. And a market order on MT4 passes through a market order request to our execution ECN, so it is the same.

Now, on our own software, you can place a Limit order to buy just above the current offer and you won’t get worse than your limit price. MT4 does not allow you to place a limit like this, so there is no way on MT4 to control slippage.

Thanks for your reply Justin. I guess there is nothing left to do after sending out the market order.

will there be an automated trading feature for NavPro sometime in the near future?

does this affect us as traders
http://www.financialsense.com/print/...hreatens-forex

I can’t tell you that there will be, but, um, it might be something smart for us to be working on, right?

It will have no effect on us as traders. That article floating around the web is not correct in what it implies as the law does not apply to registered firms. As long as we remain registered with an approved Federal regulatory agency (i.e. the NFA), that section of the Bill does not apply to us. I had this confirmed by our legal department. (No, the government isn’t just going to pass a law that shuts down an entire market.) What they are looking to do is shut down unregulated trading where transactions can be harmful to someone or used as money laundering.

Right, if you had automated trading and the ability to create custom indicators in NavPro there would be no reason for anyone to use MT4 on MB.

And justin one last question regarding MT4, if I use BUYLIMIT and SELLLIMIT instead of Market orders, will that help my EA get more precise fills? Will that help me avoid slippage?

Hi Justin,

I know you've been busy answering a lot of questions so didn't get to mine.

I was wondering if there is a functionality in Navigator to set a limit price and stop price automatically based on a preset instead of having to manually set the limit price and stop price manually on each order entry?

I know Navigator has this preset functionality for trailing stop. Is there some way to set this up for limit and stops that I'm not aware of?

If not, how difficult would it be to add this functionality to the Navigator software?

It seems it would make order placement much simpler. (I have a feeling that most traders would appreciate this feature as well, since we usually know how many pips from entry we'd like to place our stops and what limit we would find reasonable when placing our trades)

Thanks,

Fudo