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MB Trading Futures - Introduction

  • #9,241
  • Apr 3, 2012 9:26pm Apr 3, 2012 9:26pm
Quoting zznbrm
It's nice to see you are an expert in other subject areas in addition to forex. I'm sure it comes in handy for you.

I've deleted my previous OT posts, as I will with this one eventually. I suggest you do the same.
That was low ZZ! Anyways.

I don't delete because I stand for what I state.
  • #9,242
  • Apr 3, 2012 9:38pm Apr 3, 2012 9:38pm
Quoting QuadrupleX
Come on Indy we know you! As we know Bronco. You guys are the "MB BOYZZ"!

Mb should start a boy band
Another off topic post that you won't delete. Nice work.
  • #9,243
  • Apr 4, 2012 11:17am Apr 4, 2012 11:17am
Quoting QuadrupleX
Ok so now we are starting to get something constructive here.

Read around Justin and you will see that traders are after a HONEST broker. People are tired of fighting the market AND their brokers.

I had to split my account in 2 and send 40% of it to another broker just to hedge and lock profits or protect my capital when Oanda decided to play their tricks.

My account may not be that big but 10 guys like me would account for close to 2 millions and thats good money even for MB to have.

I'm not with oanda anymore but I have to keep a...
QuadrupleX,

So once again, what is it that you are asking me to recommend up the chain to change? We’ve been regulated by more US entities for a decade than most FX brokers will ever have the privilege to meet and have never been accused of being dishonest, so what exactly is it you are saying? Nothing in your email outlines anything constructive at all. You want an honest broker? We’re right here. We’ve never stolen money, held up money, anything like that. What is it that you think you need?
  • #9,244
  • Apr 4, 2012 11:57am Apr 4, 2012 11:57am
[quote=jleblang;5542669]QuadrupleX,

Quote
Nothing in your email outlines anything constructive at all.


First, just for clarification I did not "e-mail" you. I posted here in a public forum.

Second you don't have to become upset. I told you already but let me repeat it. Read around and you will find that most of the traders here are looking for a broker that let them trade. The word "honest" comes to mind because most of the brokers dont't let you trade if you are profitable.

Newbies and their 5 grand accounts are after 1 pip spread. People with more money are after stable platforms.

Now it is true that I don't trade with you guys, but based on info that I see here in this thread you guys platform has the same issues as oanda and other brokers.

Now I can't prove it but it is too similar to me that all the bucket shops out there have the same "issues" and drag their feet to correct it.

Based in all that, I personally get to the conclusion that low spreads are bait to attract newbies ( suckers ) that are just spited out (via platform instability) when they become profitable. The word honest comes to mind again.

Low spreads define your client base. And not all of us are stupid anymore Justin.

I understand that you will never agree that traders are after Honest brokers. Sub pips spread are nice but not crucial.

Let me state it again. The first broker to offer platform stability will bankrupt the rest.
  • #9,245
  • Apr 4, 2012 12:13pm Apr 4, 2012 12:13pm
Afaik MBT's TOS states they have no conflict of interest with clients and therefore don't really give a shit if you win or lose. If anything they will be happy with winning traders because those will pay more spread due to growing accounts instead of busting them.

Not to hop on the MBT Boyzzzz Band bus, but I think you should look more closely at what caused whatever issues you had with MBT and wheter they are truly a deal-breaker. I honestly know nothing because I only demo trade (I think it's my fault this whole shit storm got started, actually...).
  • #9,246
  • Apr 4, 2012 12:44pm Apr 4, 2012 12:44pm
Quoting jleblang
QuadrupleX,

So once again, what is it that you are asking me to recommend up the chain to change? We’ve been regulated by more US entities for a decade than most FX brokers will ever have the privilege to meet and have never been accused of being dishonest, so what exactly is it you are saying? Nothing in your email outlines anything constructive at all. You want an honest broker? We’re right here. We’ve never stolen money, held up money, anything like that. What is it that you think you need?
  • #9,247
  • Apr 4, 2012 12:51pm Apr 4, 2012 12:51pm
[quote=QuadrupleX;5542778]
Quoting jleblang
QuadrupleX,

Now it is true that I don't trade with you guys, but based on info that I see here in this thread you guys platform has the same issues as oanda and other brokers.
Maybe this should become my signature as it would save myself from having to repeat it again and again...it's the only TRUE way to gauge a broker...Forums are crap, friends are crap, pros are crap for advice...live and die by your own choices, not the biases of others.

"here is the only response ever needed--TRY IT FOR YOURSELF AND DECIDE. Forums are biased, friends are biased, companies are biased. If you are unwilling to put $400USD in an MBT live acct and trade a micro lot for a month or two, you won't make it in this business...ever."

Now, to change up the conversation a bit...I would like to ask Justin about the pros and cons of dividing their in-house liquidity between two differing systems. I must say, I am not a fan of the PFL and No-Commish systems running side-by-side as all those market orders that used to fill my resting limits in PFL seem to have vanished. Now the deeper liquidity must hit my bid/ask 80% of the time whereas it was closer to 20-30% before. Before, stray, in-house small markets would hit me...and I liked it!

Quad, I get your POV, but you need to just test it out for yourself rather than assuming. There is a reason I am an MBT fan boy, it's because they provide me with the best service, best platform, and best costs that I've found to date. If they fail, will I leave, heck yes...but for now, I'm staying...

Bronco aka "1 of da boyz"
  • #9,248
  • Apr 4, 2012 4:12pm Apr 4, 2012 4:12pm
Quoting QuadrupleX
Come on Indy we know you! As we know Bronco. You guys are the "MB BOYZZ"!

Mb should start a boy band
  • #9,249
  • Apr 4, 2012 7:52pm Apr 4, 2012 7:52pm
[quote=BroncoCap;5542897]
Quoting QuadrupleX
Quad, I get your POV, but you need to just test it out for yourself rather than assuming. There is a reason I am an MBT fan boy, it's because they provide me with the best service, best platform, and best costs that I've found to date. If they fail, will I leave, heck yes...but for now, I'm staying...

Bronco aka "1 of da boyz"
Honestly Bronco I'm not gonna bother myself right now and waste more time with MB.

My first contact with them was right befor I dumped Oanda. I called their costumer service number to check their fees. The guy seemed so bored and gave me such a lame overview on their fees structure that I just went somewhere else.

Than recently I tried their demo. Besides being stuck with metatrader their demo takes 24 hours to activate, two not funny jokes.

Add to that the stories about platform instability and I'm not touching them with a 10 foot pole.

I will wait until they "mature".
  • #9,250
  • Apr 4, 2012 10:59pm Apr 4, 2012 10:59pm
[quote=QuadrupleX;5542778]
Quoting jleblang
QuadrupleX,




First, just for clarification I did not "e-mail" you. I posted here in a public forum.

Second you don't have to become upset. I told you already but let me repeat it. Read around and you will find that most of the traders here are looking for a broker that let them trade. The word "honest" comes to mind because most of the brokers dont't let you trade if you are profitable.

Newbies and their 5 grand accounts are after 1 pip spread. People with more money are after stable platforms.

Now...
Quadruplex-

Once again, nothing offered. Please SHOW ME examples of how our platform is unstable. That’s all I’m asking. You say you want to be constructive (even though you don’t use us, so I don’t think you know anything about our products). Show me what is unstable that you need fixed.
  • #9,251
  • Apr 4, 2012 11:36pm Apr 4, 2012 11:36pm
[quote=BroncoCap;5542897]
Quoting QuadrupleX

Maybe this should become my signature as it would save myself from having to repeat it again and again...it's the only TRUE way to gauge a broker...Forums are crap, friends are crap, pros are crap for advice...live and die by your own choices, not the biases of others.

"here is the only response ever needed--TRY IT FOR YOURSELF AND DECIDE. Forums are biased, friends are biased, companies are biased. If you are unwilling to put $400USD in an MBT live acct and trade a micro lot for a month or two, you won't make...
BroncoCap,

Thanks for the question. The answer is very simple. If both sets of liquidity interacted, you could post a bid on a pair with a wider spread just above the bid in your PFL account, and hit it with a market order on your Free EXN account. Your free account would get charged nothing and your PFL account would be paid. We have so many computerized black box traders on our system already, that would be an easy exploit for them. No risk, just manipulating the concept to get paid. Remember, after that transaction, one account would gain $2.95 per 100,000 in size, one account would be charged nothing, and one would be long and the other short at the same price, so no net risk. They could reverse the trade at ANY price, as long as they waited until it was easy to hit each other, and never be at risk, just taking money.

Remember that the TECHNOLOGY is the cool piece here. Other brokers can say what they want, but most don’t actually do what we say we do, and we actually do it. The idea is simply that the EXN technology is used to keep internal customer orders in house for faster executions. In one system, we offer no commissions and the spread-based world that forex traders have known forever, but still with the EXN. In the other, we offer different direct liquidity and offer you to get paid for posting your Limits to benefit the others (through the EXN technology).

By the way, it makes no sense that the extra liquidity of PFL limit orders has dropped since we launched FREE EXN (it hasn’t). There is no incentive for someone that trades with more limit orders to move to the platform that doesn’t pay him for offering those up.
  • #9,252
  • Apr 5, 2012 2:18am Apr 5, 2012 2:18am
[quote=QuadrupleX;5543590]
Quoting BroncoCap

Honestly Bronco I'm not gonna bother myself right now and waste more time with MB.

My first contact with them was right befor I dumped Oanda. I called their costumer service number to check their fees. The guy seemed so bored and gave me such a lame overview on their fees structure that I just went somewhere else.

Than recently I tried their demo. Besides being stuck with metatrader their demo takes 24 hours to activate, two not funny jokes.

Add to that the stories about platform instability and I'm not touching...
So your issue with their platform being "unstable" is that their rep seemed bored? Because I haven't seen you point out a single issue with platform stability. I've been with them for four months, not a glitch, perfect platform, show me your problem.
  • #9,253
  • Apr 5, 2012 2:21am Apr 5, 2012 2:21am
[quote=BroncoCap;5542897]
Quoting QuadrupleX

Maybe this should become my signature as it would save myself from having to repeat it again and again...it's the only TRUE way to gauge a broker...Forums are crap, friends are crap, pros are crap for advice...live and die by your own choices, not the biases of others.

"here is the only response ever needed--TRY IT FOR YOURSELF AND DECIDE. Forums are biased, friends are biased, companies are biased. If you are unwilling to put $400USD in an MBT live acct and trade a micro lot for a month or two, you won't make it...
Sorry, not you, the other guy. Anmswered wronmg post. Tire.d
  • #9,254
  • Apr 5, 2012 3:54am Apr 5, 2012 3:54am
Really it is a little unstable compared to other brokers mt4 clients, it seems like, But I havnt been trading my live MB account that long to demonstrate its instability, but if it becomes more unstable, I am going to call up michael and pitch a bitch.

We all know brokers who have buttons in their deal desk like, "lag client", "nuke customer", and so on, but trading was especially unstable at 430's GBP news and I had trouble getting my orders filled which were hanging, your mt4 client has issues, I will find all the bugs for you, it frequently disconnects ( MB mt4 client) and reconnects, slippage isnt a big issue BUT you should do like others brokers using mt4, if you are going to slip me significant pips > 1.0 then you NEED to requote me, dont fill my order though!
  • #9,255
  • Apr 5, 2012 3:59am Apr 5, 2012 3:59am
Quoting jleblang
Show me what is unstable that you need fixed.
I did on informed trades and you ignored me for days, I called several times, and although my trailing stop was functionality was added back, eventually, it is something you guys turned off or was a configuration error.

No matter, I have had literally dozens of forex brokers, and so far MB hasnt pulled any tricks that cost me any significant money.

The client is unstable is my opinion after 10 days of live trading mt4 @ MB PFL (pay for limits).

so far MB is honest, I only got one ignorant employee one time that told me a load of crap (that wasnt true to fact) and I am pretty sure he was just ignorant, not telling me something untrue on purpose.

And do I need to hold a webinar on how to properly quote and double quote on the ff forum?
  • #9,256
  • Apr 5, 2012 4:14am Apr 5, 2012 4:14am
Quoting jleblang
We have so many computerized black box traders on our system already
Define black box traders

and how does it affect my scalping @ MB PFL
  • #9,257
  • Apr 5, 2012 4:16am Apr 5, 2012 4:16am
Quoting BroncoCap

Now, to change up the conversation a bit...I would like to ask Justin about the pros and cons of dividing their in-house liquidity between two differing systems. I must say, I am not a fan of the PFL and No-Commish systems running side-by-side as all those market orders that used to fill my resting limits in PFL seem to have vanished. Now the deeper liquidity must hit my bid/ask 80% of the time whereas it was closer to 20-30% before. Before, stray, in-house small markets would hit me...and I liked it!
Quoting jleblang

BroncoCap,

Thanks for the question. The answer is very simple. If both sets of liquidity interacted, you could post a bid on a pair with a wider spread just above the bid in your PFL account, and hit it with a market order on your Free EXN account. Your free account would get charged nothing and your PFL account would be paid. We have so many computerized black box traders on our system already, that would be an easy exploit for them. No risk, just manipulating the concept to get paid. Remember, after that transaction,...
Justin, I'm a demo account user who's very impressed with your company's offering (and grateful for your involvement in this forum) and planning to open a live account soon. Over the last several weeks I've been following discussions in this thread closely, especially relating to the changes regarding introduction of the FREE EXN plan. I, too, had the exact same question and concern that BroncoCap raised. At first, I accepted the explanation previously given on this thread, re-iterated by you here, that the need to prevent unfair arbitrage exploits served as a valid reason to separate the two price feeds and not let the sets of liquidity interact.

However, upon reading your explanation above, I'm struck by some thoughts. I do agree that you need to prevent such unfair arbitrage exploits, but I see another way to do so that doesn't involve dividing into two separate marketplaces whose orders can't interact with each other....

The marketing materials for the FREE EXN plan state that MB Trading has built their costs into the spread so that anyone placing a market order enjoys "what you see is what you get" pricing. (That's my rewording off the top of my head.) So if I place a limit buy order on the PFL plan, why couldn't that order appear 3 ticks lower on the FREE EXN price feed? (This would essentially mean that the market order that fills it is paying a 3 ticks commission, as opposed to the 2.95 ticks commission that order would incur on the PFL plan - almost exactly equal, and maybe we can say the FREE EXN trader pays ever so slightly more for the service of getting commission-free pricing.)

That way, MB Trading could still pay the trader who posted the limit order that was filled by a market order on the FREE EXN plan - the feeds could interact in this way. And the arbitrage exploit would no longer exist, because although the PFL account would get paid 1.95 ticks, the FREE EXN account would've sold at 3 ticks lower than the PFL account bought, making the arbitrage unprofitable.

(This solution would bring up other issues, such as the need to compensate in EAs for the fact that your limit buys would only appear in the DOM at 3 ticks below where you placed them, but the added complication might be worth it, and would probably not apply to most people in any case.) I'm not saying that you should necessarily pursue this option, but that this is the option that would best reflect how the marketing materials describe the FREE EXN as working.

I bring this up because I am struck by BroncoCap's observation of how the filling of limit orders has changed on the (live account) PFL plan: from 80% filled by opposite market orders to only 20-30%??? That's a huge difference. Justin, I don't think you've understood his concern when you said:
Quote
"it makes no sense that the extra liquidity of PFL limit orders has dropped since we launched FREE EXN (it hasn’t). There is no incentive for someone that trades with more limit orders to move to the platform that doesn’t pay him for offering those up."
He's not necessarily saying that the liquidity (the limit orders) have moved (although I am actually saying that there is a good reason for precisely that to happen). He's saying that the MARKET orders have moved there, because they're commission-free, and the spreads are often lower there to boot.

What follows, though, is that there is definitely an incentive to move limit order liquidity to the FREE EXN plan: because there are more market orders being placed there, which is what limit orders are hoping to get filled by! So even if you don't make a change to allow the plans/platforms/marketplaces to interact, a potential response from a trader's perspective would be to move liquidity to the FREE EXN plan and forgo the pay-for-limits bonus - even if that also meant you'd have to place your limit order initially at a worse price - because you'd have an expectation of a more likely/quick fill at that price (vs. having to move the order with the market in order to keep it at the top of the order book and thereby potentially ending up with a worse price, the longer the order takes to fill, even though you started out thinking you would get a better one).

I don't even necessarily see this as a bad thing - the free market will decide, and clever EAs/bots will make real-time calculations that take all of these factors into account in deciding where to place orders - but I thought I'd bring it to your attention as something to be aware of as a demonstrably, already manifested (and unintended?) consequence of the introduction of the FREE EXN plan. In other words, if this trend goes too far, and too many limit orders move to the FREE EXN plan, the spreads on the PFL plan will blow out enough that even if a limit order there is less likely to be filled by an opposite market order, the times that it does get filled that way are compensated for by the much better price and the pay-for-limits rebate. The two marketplaces then constantly compete with each other for liquidity.

This type of complexity/competition can be dealt with, but on the other hand, wouldn't it be easier (at least from a certain perspective) to just let the two marketplaces interact (and essentially be one, more efficient marketplace)? (Like I said, that approach does introduce its own added complexities, so it's a tradeoff, but I think the pros outweigh the cons).

As it stands, someone like me is going to have to open two different accounts, one on the PFL plan and one on the FREE EXN plan, in order to post limit orders to both marketplaces in the hopes of one of them getting filled quickly by an opposite market order (presumably canceling the other order in that case, or taking a half-size position in each). (And actually, in practice, due to the hedging restriction, someone like me would have to open 4 accounts - one for long trades and one for short on each platform, to be able to have the option to reverse your position using limit orders, such as placing a takeprofit exit on your long position and a sell limit for a new short position at the same time.)
  • #9,258
  • Apr 5, 2012 6:43am Apr 5, 2012 6:43am
Well I guess other posters did the job for me about platform instability and other issues Justin, just read the last posts.

Until MB matures and decide to hire real professionals to their IT team and drop the argument that " everything is too hard to do" I will stay away.

Believe me others are staying away too.
  • #9,259
  • Apr 5, 2012 9:08am Apr 5, 2012 9:08am
Quoting jleblang
BroncoCap,

Thanks for the question. The answer is very simple. If both sets of liquidity interacted, you could post a bid on a pair with a wider spread just above the bid in your PFL account, and hit it with a market order on your Free EXN account...

Yes, you mentioned this before. I am not as interested in combining feeds, only the effects of creating two feeds, namely division of liquidity...

...Remember that the TECHNOLOGY is the cool piece here...

AGREED!!!...
Quoting jleblang

By the way, it makes no sense that the extra liquidity of PFL limit orders has dropped since we launched FREE EXN (it hasn’t). There is no incentive for someone that trades with more limit orders to move to the platform that doesn’t pay him for offering those up.
Yes, but as mentioned later by brisully and myself, it is the market orders that have moved, as I have qualitatively determined. MBT and you have the hard numbers, if you could do a bit of data mining and calculate the number of market orders per X (day, 1000, some normalizing term) today relative to the same last year or pre-No Commish. That would determine the effect of the new system on PFL system. Just a thought.

As we can all agree, market orders make the market move (coupled w/ your deep LP provider's price change). Before I expected market orders to hit my limits, now I expect LP liquidity...net-net, I see far more no-fills when I am best bid/ask and now also wait until deep liquidity hits my bid/ask. On the plus side--I am seeing demonstrabably better positive slippage now. Which makes sense...before when I was best bid/ask, a small market order could hit me w/ no price improvement during calmer markets, whereas now, the deep LP liquidity approaches the market is moving and usually blows through my limit. To summarize, fast markets = deep liquidity fills, slow markets = no-fills, where I used to get in-house market fills during slow markets (or so I hypothesize...)

Again, you have the hard numbers on how No-Commish moved (or didn't move) market orders to that system vs. PFL. I would be curious to know.

Great post brisully--you nailed my issued and furthered the convo nicely!
  • #9,260
  • Apr 5, 2012 9:11am Apr 5, 2012 9:11am
Quoting QuadrupleX
Well I guess other posters did the job for me about platform instability and other issues Justin, just read the last posts.

Until MB matures and decide to hire real professionals to their IT team and drop the argument that " everything is too hard to do" I will stay away.

Believe me others are staying away too.
By the way, today I had stuck bids in the market depth and slow chart updates--MBT is not perfect nor do I declare them to be--But relative to other brokers--they get my seal of approval...
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