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MB Trading Futures - Introduction

  • #7,761
  • Jul 20, 2011 3:50am Jul 20, 2011 3:50am
Quoting ForexQuant
Since you are with MBT for so many years, any advise for a new comer? Any what's to do/not to do? I just submitted my application form today.

But I must admit that the recent incident sounds scary. I hope this is an isolated case.
I think it is an isolated case they earned their reputation for a reason.

The only advise I can give is get familiar with their platform before live trading. As I mentioned before I hated it at first but, it took me a little time getting used to, but it is a good reliable platform and I like it.

I have heard they have some problems with Meta Trader or whatever it is called but from what I can tell who doesn't? Desktop Pro works just fine.

Do not waste time sending in support tickets via e-mail. Pick up the phone and talk to a real live human being if you have questions or problems.

If you need to withdraw money, it will be in your bank account on the same day. I have made many withdrawals and it has always been deposited in my bank on the same day.

Their trade desk is great. Have that number handy at all times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Other than that, it is all up to you. Trade safely and profitable.
  • #7,762
  • Jul 20, 2011 9:05am Jul 20, 2011 9:05am
Quoting Milan
You should be a press agent of MBT... Why you think we have an ask price?
I didn't say you will automatically get filled creating your own bid. You get filled if another customer sells at the same time you are the best bid. It happens plenty.
  • #7,763
  • Edited 9:17am Jul 20, 2011 9:12am | Edited 9:17am
First This-
>>
Originally Posted by IndyTrader
Incorrect in Live. I get hit on the bid all of the time.

and now-
>>
I didn't say you will automatically get filled creating your own bid. You get filled if another customer sells at the same time you are the best bid. It happens plenty.

Don't wanna start a flame war, but there is world of a difference between all the time (which is every single time) and plenty (which is a fair %)..

Also, I agree with Milan- There is a reason why there is a bid price (where you can sell) and an ask price (where you can buy)...How simple would trading be if you can buy on bid and sell on ask "All the Time" or even "plenty of time"...hell, i would make a killing whenever any broker widens the spread!

I do however agree that sometimes you get filled at prices better than "ask" (buy)...but definitely not the bid prices all the time...
  • #7,764
  • Jul 20, 2011 9:49am Jul 20, 2011 9:49am
Quoting Scalperforex
First This-
>> there is world of a difference between all the time (which is every single time) and plenty (which is a fair %)..
It's an expression dude. Sorry I didn't speak to your specific language. Obviously, I didn't mean that every single Limit order you place between the spread, which becomes the bid or ask immediately on the MB system, is filled. That would imply that there is no spread or that there is so much liquidity going through the system both ways at any moment that everyone is getting hit. I thought we were all smart enough to understand that, maybe that's a mistake. Go back to my original post...I was replying to this comment, which implies something that is 100% not true and is 100% definitive:

"you can only buy on ask, only sell on bid, mate."

It is not true at all that you can only buy on the ask or sell at the bid. Over 60% of my limit orders get filled at least partially before they reach the bid or ask, which is far more optimal and efficient of a market for me than using a desk like Oanda or Dukas or whomever and waiting for the spread to cross to me.

"All the time" is not "Every time"
  • #7,765
  • Jul 20, 2011 9:58am Jul 20, 2011 9:58am
Quoting Pr0crast
Just saw this in the MT4 alert feed:

"FX Trading is temporarily halted due to a system problem. We are working on the issue and should have it resolved shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience."

This is pretty inexcusable...
Pr0crast,

Yes, we did experience a brief execution outage yesterday. It was restored as quickly as possible. This was not a MetaTrader specific problem, it was an execution issue with the banks. Quotes and execution are two separate things, which is why quotes were still flowing. Sorry for the issue, but tech issues can happen especially with a system involving as many parties as ours. This was our first system-wide execution issue in over a year and it lasted less than an hour. While we strive to be up 100% of the time, we are still in the 99.9% range.
  • #7,766
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:00am Jul 20, 2011 10:00am
Quoting plamendp
Lol,

I can't close my position.
My Closing Market order was sitting as Pending in Open Orders for 5 minutes.
I Clicked "Cancel".
It sat as Cancel for N minutes.
Noting happened.
Trying again Close. Nope.
Initiated a chat.
Have been told to make an oversea call to close my position (?!?!)
Now I see a message "FX currently suspended due to system issue".
Ten minutes passed already.
Meanwhile, my position probably will go in negative territoy.
Thanks God I am just testing with max 2-3k positions.
17 minutes.
Almost 30 mintes...
Plamendp,

Even though you evidently removed a screenshot, do you realize that your name and account number are in the chat log that you posted? That’s an awful lot of public information to post on a forum, I would suggest not doing that. That goes along with the main reason that we only allow someone to place manual trades over the phone, not in Chat, for security purposes.
  • #7,767
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:01am Jul 20, 2011 10:01am
Quoting ForexQuant
The daily amount paidout suddenly surged in May 2011 but then it dropped back to normal 1-4k range. I believe someone or group took a huge advantage by earning commission but why suddenly they disappear after a month? Are they being kicked? or they gave up after realized that there is a catch? or I am thinking too much?

Anyone ever think of this unusual phenomena?
ForexQuant,

One thing you learn about the FX business is that even though the industry “marketing” materials say that it trades $3.2 trillion a day on average, the volume comes in waves. Different periods are far more active. In addition, it is also likely that we get institutional customers that try different strategies.
  • #7,768
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:05am Jul 20, 2011 10:05am
Quoting Brunite
MT4.....and it is still down. Connection status reads "NO CONNECTION". Internet is functioning fine....but I am dead in the water with MBT. If I am the only one.....fair enough. Just curious if that was the case.
Rcbarlow,

Demo and Live are two completely unrelated environments. The idea that we would spend more time caring about our Demo environment makes no sense. Our priority is our Live environment. Obviously, a Demo environment doesn’t even fire a real execution to a bank. It is a completely different system that is simulated to give it the same general feature set for testing purposes. It is also a place that has much heavier load from the tens of thousands of demo accounts that people use on a daily basis testing strategies, and it is also a place where we test various updates (to quotes, execution, and MT4 bridges, all of which are different components). Demo environment will never be close to a perfect Live simulation, but our Live environment has 99.9% uptime.
  • #7,769
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:07am Jul 20, 2011 10:07am
Quoting EmptyEterniT
Thats bogus, they should honor your stop...
EmptyEterniT,

We can’t just honor a stop when we have an execution issue to a bank. That would mean that if we had a massive bank disconnect out of our control and the market moved 200 pips, we could be out of business. There are technological risks to trading. Even a basic 1-to-1 connection system like a deal desk can have issues. That doesn’t mean they will honor your stops. In fact, no brokerage will do that in an unlimited sense. In some cases, we have credited customer accounts if we have a stuck order on our end that is our system’s fault. If we are responsible for an issue, we will work with you.
  • #7,770
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:08am Jul 20, 2011 10:08am
Quoting fxking
As good it may seem,i think MBT is showing us the retail traders some signs of "Dont Care" attitude,NO? alot of problems had surfaced recently and it seem that Justin fr MBT is totally ignoring our problems,or matter of fact even MBT's support team! I have lost confidence in them already,now is if i can find another REAL ECN-based platform,then BYE BYE MBT! I am not gonna keep telling them my problems with my Both LIVE MT4 & Desktop Pro acct & in e end its still NOT solved! Really a shame that i need to come to this outcome,i really like MBT but...
FXKing,

If you are talking about the charting delay issues, there appears to be a solution in the works. Is there another issue that you would like to discuss? Feel free to give me specifics including examples via private mail and I will address them.
  • #7,771
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:09am Jul 20, 2011 10:09am
Quoting plamendp
I gave up already. I feel good with my decision. I hope I'll be able to withdraw my funds without a pain. Wish me luck :-)


Plamen
Plamendp,

Sorry to hear it. I have been told that the balance issue you reported between the website and Desktop Pro is a bug that was created by an update about two weeks ago, and should be fixed with an update later this week. We are also close to resolving the charting speed issue.
  • #7,772
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:12am Jul 20, 2011 10:12am
Quoting jleblang
Rcbarlow,

Demo and Live are two completely unrelated environments. The idea that we would spend more time caring about our Demo environment makes no sense. Our priority is our Live environment. Obviously, a Demo environment doesn’t even fire a real execution to a bank. It is a completely different system that is simulated to give it the same general feature set for testing purposes. It is also a place that has much heavier load from the tens of thousands of demo accounts that people use on a daily basis testing strategies, and it is also a place...
Justin,since u mentioned that your LIVE platforms r UP 99.9% most of the time,allow me to post this question to u.Why is the quotes between my LIVE MT4 and LIVE Desktop Pro acct DIFFERS fr time to time,it happpens most of the days,care to explain? I know it cos i 'eye-ball' the quotes ALL day long...
  • #7,773
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:18am Jul 20, 2011 10:18am
Quoting ForexQuant
Since you are with MBT for so many years, any advise for a new comer? Any what's to do/not to do? I just submitted my application form today.

But I must admit that the recent incident sounds scary. I hope this is an isolated case.
I have been with them for years as well (more than 7, to be exact), and here is what you should know.

1) If your entire year's trading strategy could be destroyed if your broker went down for 30 minutes once a year, pick a new strategy. Every single broker and exchange at some point in a year has tech issues. CME has been down. NASDAQ had massive quote issues for an hour on two occasions this year. Oanda has been down. All FX brokers have issues from time to time, no matter how complex their systems (OK, let's be honest, when a "deal desk" like IBFX goes down, it's probably because they wanted to and they made some money off of you, but that's what you get when you use them).

2) I keep track of major disconnects for MB Trading, and I have both MT4 and Desktop accounts (although with stocks, futures, and options and Ninja Trader connected to MB Trading). Since the start of 2010, they have had three MT4 downtime issues (where execution on Desktop and over the phone was still working fine). One was in June 2010 and lasted three hours. One was in March of this year and lasted an hour. Another was in March of this year and lasted 30 minutes. They have had two FX execution downtimes in those 18 months, including the 45-60 minutes yesterday (I don't know the exact time of yesterday's outage, it wasn't during a time that I had anything going on). The other one was a 30 minute problem.

3) Prior to January 2010, they had maybe 1-2 issues per year. This is not including being down at rollover at 5 pm EST, which is one of my few major gripes about MB Trading. I don't typically trade then, so it doesn't bother me much. They usually keep it under 10 minutes, which is no big deal at that time of day. Occasionally, their start up on Sunday or their rollovers go extended by 10-15 minutes, and that's a pain, but not the end of the world, and I don't count them as trading disruptions like what happened yesterday. However, if your strategy is based on heavy trading around rollover, that is something to be aware of.

4) Their customer service is largely great, but over the years, I have developed key relationships with some of their reps (including Justin and Kenny), so I'm not suggesting that you might not get a bad rep on the phone if you call into the queue. I will say that this thread on ForexFactory is not a support forum (as some people try to make it out to be). Justin does a nice job of answering questions about the company and industry questions, but this isn't meant to be a public venting place for people that think their executions are 20 ms too slow. In fact, MB has a place for that (MBT Idea Exchange) on their website where you can submit issues and suggestions and people can vote on them. I want to clarify also that even that is different than "support." That's for "I'd like to see" or "This HAS to be fixed." It isn't for "why does my execution speed from the Caymans seem slow?" Bottom line, if you have something you'd like them to address, get on the phone, use their online chat, or email Justin directly and you'll get a good response most of the time. Submitting tickets into their system or posting your biggest desires here is not the way to go.

5) That's about it. If I go back 3 or 4 years ago, I had accounts at a lot of brokers. I would open an account just to try them (I never care about or trust a Demo). I had a pretty good knowledge about which brokers did what and played what games (especially on the FX side, as most of the stock and futures guys can't play the same games, but thanks to some of the US regulation, the FX guys can't as much anymore either). Over the last few years, I don't bother opening with every new broker flavor that comes along because MBT more than suits my needs and in the total picture is a superb broker. They listen, they have extremely complicated systems that they manage well, and they do all asset classes, which is nice for me. Their platform is extremely well designed for a trader that wants a lot of options (probably not as well designed for a guy that just wants to hit the buy and sell button, they need that simple place for that guy). The charts could still use some work.

Remember that if you pick a broker that "guarantees" anything, it isn't true. Can't be done. Guaranteed stops? Three years ago, several of the brokers started using that phrase in their marketing, and then started putting the "asterisk," as in "unless there's a fast market, or we have an outage and the market moves too far, or someone sneezes in China." Guaranteed uptime? Come on, we all know stuff will happen. If something as establshed as the CME goes down or has quote issues from time to time with all of their system and redundancy and (I would hope) seven-figure programmers, all entities will have issues.

What I want (your needs may vary) is a broker that doesn't screw with me and is always trying to improve their software, their executions, and lower my costs. MB Trading has been a perfect broker from that perspective and they keep going every year. I about $#()*&'d myself when they launched Pay for Limits because about half of my FX orders are Limit orders that get filled (I don't try to split the spread as an active trader, but I do post entry and exits and wait for the market to come to me. That alone has added about 6% to my profitability (of where I would have been prior to that) since January 1. My stock commissions with them are now $4.95 a trade unlimited. When I started with them, I was paying more like $22 per 5000 share block unlimited. They just keep driving it home.

I don't stop by this thread much anymore because it turned into a bunch of whiners and complainers (probably some of which work for competing brokers trying to give MBT a bad name, jumping on every 1 minute outage like it was the end of the world). But, since I came by and saw your question, I thought I would offer my five cents as I remember what it was like seven years ago when I started in this business trying to make a decision of who to go with. There are a lot of options, and a lot of what you are told to make the decision based on is not real or practical.
FXChant Singing the World of Forex
  • #7,774
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:25am Jul 20, 2011 10:25am
Quoting jleblang
We are also close to resolving the charting speed issue.
I have seen no charting speed issue on my end but I will take your word for it..

Then again my system is pretty damn impressive.
  • #7,775
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:27am Jul 20, 2011 10:27am
Quoting fxking
LIVE MT4 ..
MT4 sucks for trading.
  • #7,776
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:38am Jul 20, 2011 10:38am
Quoting fxchant
I have been with them for years as well (more than 7, to be exact), and here is what you should know.

1) If your entire year's trading strategy could be destroyed if your broker went down for 30 minutes once a year, pick a new strategy. Every single broker and exchange at some point in a year has tech issues. CME has been down. NASDAQ had massive quote issues for an hour on two occasions this year. Oanda has been down. All FX brokers have issues from time to time, no matter how complex their systems (OK, let's be honest, when a "deal desk"...
a v.lengthy explanation! btw r u working for MBT? Like i had said it before i used MBT for its ECN-based execution speed,platform but over the last few months or so,i realised that MBT has slacken in their services(email them a few times and open a few support tickets and guess what,NONE is replied!) well,i cant complain when it comes to execution but thats NOT e whole story a REAL ECN-based platform gotta be,NO? the consistency of providing LIVE quotes to MT4 & Desktop Pro's platform is important,u dont agree? If u have Both LIVE MT4 & Desktop Pro's acct,go 'eye-ball' the quotes ALL day long,if u have the time and u will see the DIFFERENCES! so,is this some glitches,power outages that we r talking abt? I think its somethink else...beat me,i dont know either! Can MBT solve this issue,i dont know too? How,Justin? Any solution?
  • #7,777
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:43am Jul 20, 2011 10:43am
Quoting fxking
Justin,since u mentioned that your LIVE platforms r UP 99.9% most of the time,allow me to post this question to u.Why is the quotes between my LIVE MT4 and LIVE Desktop Pro acct DIFFERS fr time to time,it happpens most of the days,care to explain? I know it cos i 'eye-ball' the quotes ALL day long...
Fxking,

I don’t understand what 99.9% uptime has to do with the question you are asking. Uptime has to do with execution. Quotes and execution are apples and oranges. Banks have quotes whether or not I can get an execution out of them.

MetaTrader servers and Desktop servers are totally different. Quotes are built into Desktop servers. MetaTrader pulls the quotes from our API. They are the same quotes, but they definitely route differently. To ask me that question is to basically wonder why two of the same items traveling over completely different courses can arrive at different times. To be clear, it is all based on the same information, but if there is a bottleneck at some point between our MT4 server and you, there might not be the same between our Desktop server and you. It’s pretty simple, really. We can’t control Internet traffic. Having said that, I can tell you definitively that this is not something we here from most people, and we have done a lot of testing on this and not found the same result, which implies to me that if you are seeing it frequently, it relates to your systems or where they are located. Have you tried using our VPS system and putting both Desktop and MT4 on that system (which is near us and has minimal hops between us and it)? If so, can you then give me some screenshot examples showing both and how they are “off”? The only other thing that I can think of is that some of the symbols that are a bit “thinner” may have slight variations in MT4 because MT4 has a different scheme for quote filtering to ignore bad quotes. You shouldn’t notice it on the EURUSD, but you might on the AUDCAD, for example. So if you are more referring to those types of symbols, that might be it. I would need more direct information.
  • #7,778
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:44am Jul 20, 2011 10:44am
Quoting fxking
a v.lengthy explanation! btw r u working for MBT? Like i had said it before i used MBT for its ECN-based execution speed,platform but over the last few months or so,i realised that MBT has slacken in their services(email them a few times and open a few support tickets and guess what,NONE is replied!) well,i cant complain when it comes to execution but thats NOT e whole story a REAL ECN-based platform gotta be,NO? the consistency of providing LIVE quotes to MT4 & Desktop Pro's platform is important,u dont agree? If u have Both LIVE MT4 & Desktop...
LOL...typical of this forum. I have fairly complicated systems that I run and I rarely see any differences between Desktop and MT4 in terms of quotes (I trade mostly EURUSD, GBPUSD, GBPJPY, so if those aren't the symbols that you are talking about...). And look at what you did...you entered support tickets. Stop. Use Justin directly. In terms of email, every email that I HAVE EVER sent them has been replied to.
  • #7,779
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:49am Jul 20, 2011 10:49am
Quoting IndyTrader
LOL...typical of this forum. I have fairly complicated systems that I run and I rarely see any differences between Desktop and MT4 in terms of quotes (I trade mostly EURUSD, GBPUSD, GBPJPY, so if those aren't the symbols that you are talking about...). And look at what you did...you entered support tickets. Stop. Use Justin directly. In terms of email, every email that I HAVE EVER sent them has been replied to.
Good for u if what u said is true! I personally experienced this kind of situation NOT once but many times,so i definately know what i am talking abt,NO?
  • #7,780
  • Jul 20, 2011 10:50am Jul 20, 2011 10:50am
Quoting fxchant

1) If your entire year's trading strategy could be destroyed if your broker went down for 30 minutes once a year, pick a new strategy.
Agreed. But I have never seen them go down completely. Keep the trade desk number at hand.

Quote
they have had three MT4 downtime issues (where execution on Desktop and over the phone was still working

Wait, what??? Desktop and the trade desk were fully operational? Not a problem!

So it was an MT4 issue. When are people going to learn?

Quote
3) This is not including being down at rollover at 5 pm EST, which is one of my few major gripes about MB Trading. However, if your strategy is based on heavy trading around rollover, that is something to be aware of.

Big deal. The thing goes down for a few minutes at 5:00 pm.



Please inform me of any strategy that has to take place during those 5-7 precious minutes. I do not know of any and anybody that gets uptight about not being able to trade for those few minutes.....then switch to Oanda where you can trade all through the weekend. Ever wonder why gaps get filled? Because of stupid weekend traders.

Quote
4) Their customer service is largely great Submitting tickets into their system or posting your biggest desires here is not the way to go.

Yep.

If you have problems or a question pick up the phone so you can talk to a real live person.

Quote
The charts could still use some work.

Yes they could but still they are pretty damn good.
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