MB Trading Futures - Introduction

Pay attention next time. MT4 will say no connection starting around 4:48pm est up to 5:10pm or 5:20pm est.

You could call them and ask them about it. I called them why my SL didn't triggered. They said it is risk to trade with them. They HALT the trading during the time for about 20 minutes EVERY DAY.

It is BIG lesson i learned from MBT after lossing over +1000 pips on JPY pairs vs totally SL of 100 pips in JPY pairs. I had been trading with them more than 2 years which I was very happy until this lesson learned.

That would explain it. I have never traded from MT4, and have no desire ever to do so. To each their own.


Interesting article. Barclays was offline for nearly a full 30 minutes..

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...007066134.html

I would suggest you to confirm with them if HALT trading from 4:48pm est on their regular platform. It is BIG risk that you are taking if it was the case. I learned the HARD way. I originally got impression that I can't enter the trade during the time which I'm ok...NOT halt the trading and ignore your SL...It is BIG mess up. What is point of SL????

MBT always gave me best prices and instead of earning 200+ pips from JPY trades, I made much more on the day of G7.

So yeah, I am very happy with them except that you can't hedge.

I'd like to share my experience scalping forex with MBT.

It Sucks! Now here is why:

After entering a long position, I place limit orders sell at a profit. I then watch the bars on the chart (which represent the bid) approach my profit target with great expectation and I am very happy when the bar goes through the level of my sell, sometimes by 3 pips, sometimes by 10 pips, and sometimes by .5 pips.

I then watch as the price moves back and retraces below my sell limit and to my horror, my order has not been filled. This happens all day long.

What is the problem on their end?

They are not a deal desk. They call themselves an ECN because of a very small number of clients who are providing very little liquidity can trade against eachothers orders directly.

But in reality, 90+% of resting limit orders will get filled not on the ECN but on the STP, because that is where the market makers/banks/constant liquidity is..

So when the bid hits my limit sell, 90% of the time, its not instantly executable on the ECN. They cancel the order on the ECN, and then reroute it to STP. However, if the STP quote has gone below my sell limit during this time, it is not executed. Where does it go then? Back to the ECN only to be bounced around again? Meanwhile, I am possibly missing execution on both the STP and the ECN.


More...
This happens so many times to me during the trading day that I had to make a rant about how bad this ECN/STP setup is.

I would seriously be better off with a bucketshop because at least when the bid hits my sell limit order, I am guaranteed execution.

Now I doubt this troubles non scalpers, but when you are trading the 1 min chart or 30Tick chart, this is major major issue.

Ways to fix this
Bring in some market makers on the ECN. Its not enough to have retail clients on an inside orderbook and call yourself a respectable ECN. You need to have institutional liquidity providers on the ECN. Without liquidity, an ECN is worthless. And please don't tell me that MBT's ECN has liquidity of several major banks since they are actually residing on STP and will not guarantee execute when touching or crossing MBT's "ECN" customer orders. Between the rerouting, the lag, so many limit orders don't get executed on first cross, and sometimes might not get executed on many crosses.

Other ways to alleviate the problem.

Seperate ECN quote from STP quote, it's very misleading to put them all in the same market depth and give them all the same ID's when STP quotes won't execute against resting limit orders of MBT clients without some serious rerouting and lag.

Fix the lag, if you could get the rerouting done in milliseconds instead of seconds, this would help.

Create a special setting in the platform that allows me to say limit orders that get rerouted to STP can be executed at a worse price than my limit by _____________. In this scenario, you should also show in the exeuctions which orders are getting executed where (if its not already done). I am sure that the price improvement I get on some of my orders that execute on STP can offset any major loss I get from executing my limit orders at a worse price in some cases. You might say, why don't I create a stop limit order so I can do this myself... the reason is simple, I don't want the hassle of entering 2 prices every time I place an order, which can be hundreds of times a day if you scalp. Stop limits also create lag since I could then technically get crossed by ECN orders and not get hit since my order is not actually resting on the book as an executable limit exactly when the price hits the stop, but instead must be triggered.. So you guys create this little setting and algorithm just for when orders get rerouted to STP and this would do wonders for your clients probability of execution.

Become a market maker (deal desk) on the ECN... first check if cross is client to client, if not route to STP and if no execute, you guys take the risk. Meanwhile, you can keep the rebates to help with the cost of this. You can also keep the price improvement which is sometimes quite nice, to help with the risk/cost of guaranteeing that in a crossed market, your clients get filled. (I'm not talking about the Bid and Ask being 10x10, i'm talking about actuall cross markets where the bid is 12 and the clients order is resting at 10 and he doesnt get an execution.)

Some positives...

When my sell limit gets routed to STP, if I do get filled, there is often price improvement. So not only did I collect a rebate, but I also got a better price than my limit since any price better than my limit is instantly executable. This is the other side of the rerouting/lag issue.

But personally, I would rather give up the rebate, and give up the price improvement if I could just have a guarantee than when the Bid is at 12 and my resting limit order is at 10, that I get a fill. Any bucketshop provides this.

This is out of control and I'm ranting about it.

I would like to add that if you try to buy just inside the bid or sell just below the ask, you do see your order in L2, but that is just illusory cause eventhough I am the best bid or best ask, and you see bid or ask trades at your price, your order never fills...you never get filled unless the price moves to where the ask price is your buy order or the bid is at your sell order...so all this talk about price improvement is bull ...you never get executed there on their system...on Interactive Brokers sometimes I get filled just inside the bid or ask and can actually make the market...MBT never get execution inside the bid or ask...and yes they have a big liquidity problem.

Can you trade on the MT4 platform with the iphone with MB Trading? If so what is the approx. monthly charge? thank you.

Trader KGB, do hedge funds use MetaTrader?? I am guessing not due to your comments like the one below

"I'm only familiar with Currenex and HS FXi (the top two liquidity-wise outside of the EBS world). There are many other smaller ECNs that I do not have experience with (FXAll, Baxter, LavaFX, eSpeedFX etc). "....none of these guys support MetaTarder.

"If you do the volume, a multi-ECN automated gateway:"

Thanks for your first, second, third, and fourth posts on FF. But come on, man, none of the rest of us experience these issues. I ran over 30 trades with MB on Friday with no execution issues. You can't be serious.

Same here. I made a boat load of pips on the day of G7 and thanks to MBT for that.

Thats good, but this is a real issue. There is no liquidity on the ECN, and rerouting to STP takes a good few seconds. A fast scalper doesnt have a few seconds. I ran 72 trades before I got pissed and started ranting. I can normally run over a 100 a day.

Edit: Also, my number of posts shouldn't matter as I came here specifically to post about my problems on MBT and get help, and this is my first problem. I am a real trader with them, and I have no other agenda other than to improve the situation. Unfortunately it seems as if Justin is the only person who knows the situation correctly from the inside as I have dealt directly with MBT via email, and phone, and they don't have a clue.

I can confirm that this is happening. I'm with MBT for about 18 months and there is at least one limit order every day that is not filled even though bid/ask exceeded my limit price (bid for sell limit, ask for buy limit). I've accustomed to this, but why not improve this if there is some possibility...
I've seen that my limit order is taken off L2 and then come back on L2, but I've never thought that my limit order is canceled and routed to STP (banks liquidity). That's really interesting explanation blueJ of what's going on when "hit" limit order is not executed.

Has anyone used the MBT mobile app. on an iphone and how is trade execution? thanks

Hi all,

I opened a Demo account with MB last week and started using their training videos on MBT World for Desktop Pro.

Since Friday, the videos are not working . If you could check if they work for you and let me know, that would be great.

Also, I just logged on Desktop Pro as I wanted to study some charts and they don't display any candles at all...

I would like to know if this is just an isolated incident and if real traders on MB can access their charts when the market is closed.

Thanks

bluej,

I'm also a high frequency trader that makes upwards of 100 trades per session myself(although usually in the 25-50 range) and I have been absolutely thrilled with MBT's executions in the recent past(and before that as well.)

I'm not going to say that I've *never* had a limit order that was not hit when price exceeded. It has happened a couple of times over the last few years. Sometimes it even takes market orders a bit of time to execute. In my experience, it has almost always been some sort of computer/internet issue on my end that was at fault.

I used to run MT4 in Parallels Desktop 1.0 on a 1st Gen. MacBook Pro over dialup from the middle of the pacific. If you don't know what that means, translate: a dog slow computer and lousy internet. My execution was a nightmare, like yours.

Now, running Desktop Pro in VMWare Fusion on a 2.4C2D with SSD and blazing fast, very low latency internet(Comcast). This setup responds almost faster than my fingers can move and trades are executed instantly most of the time. It is as close to perfection as I can expect.

I'm not saying you are at fault. I'm just saying that I (and most of MBT's clients) do not experience the same execution problems that you are and I'm sorry that you have not been able to fix that. I would be bummed for sure if I had the same issues.

Perhaps there are some tests that can be run on your hardware and internet connection that may reveal a problem?

On the other hand, I'm not above suspecting something is wrong at MBT. I hope you are able to clear this up....

bluej, can you tell me which broker you have used that guarantees execution 100% every time, has zero downtime at rollover, has a stable and comprehensive software platform(not MT4), has very low variable spreads(like .2-.5 for EU) and enough liquidity for any position size? I'm not being facetious, I would like to know.

I would also like MBT to clean up their routing system if it is at fault, so I'm interested to see how this pans out.

This makes no sense...latency would have no effect on a limit order that is sitting on their server for a while and that he can see in L2, as he stated.

It's not my explanation, it's official. Justin has confirmed it. It happens more depending on your style of trading. Thanks for confirming that this is happening to you to.

I'm not saying that latency is the problem. I just mentioned it as something that has caused me problems with execution. We are talking about scalping (as he stated) which is very, very short timeframe. "I don't have a couple seconds to wait" I believe was his quote.

Latency and machine speed are a HUGE component of a scalper's system. If your computer and latency aren't fast enough, your order doesn't get there in time, and you don't get the execution because price moved on a couple milliseconds before.

That apparently isn't what we are talking about if he's got orders on the system that are not getting hit.

Another explanation is that maybe nobody wanted to give him the price he wants when he wants it. Happens to me frequently. I'm not familiar with all the internals of everything, but if somebody had asked me to sell them UJ before the meeting, I would have not desired to sell them any. Maybe there is no liquidity for a reason. I could be way off base, but this is my understanding. The market doesn't HAVE to give you dick(please excuse my French).

I'm right with you guys on getting MBT to fix this if it is a real error on their part, but I'm not convinced it is entirely their fault. I can totally see how 2 different routing systems could mean different execution timing and liquidity, but whatever that may be, my experience(as a scalper) has not been affected in any real way by those differences.

RealPips,

I'm not going to compare another broker to MBT except where this issue stands out.

The problem is indeed the routing on their end. They have to check multiple liquidity pools in order to execute your market or limit order and this takes time.

Lets take Oanda deal desk for example, who I have used in the past, but whose quality of service might have changed since then. When my order hit/crossed they guarantee execution since they can see my order and they are in control of the bid/ask, and they are the liquidity pool. In the instances where there is no execution, you can call them and they will correct it since they crossed your order. They also have a relatively low spread of .9 for EU.

If I call MBT about my limit getting crossed and not filled, they say they don't guarantee execution and that my price was "LIGHTLY TOUCHED".

Really though, my price was passed by on STP but because there is no liquidity on the ECN, they had to reroute and during reroute time, the STP quote crosses back below my order.