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MB Trading Futures - Introduction

  • #9,641
  • Jun 25, 2012 10:04am Jun 25, 2012 10:04am
The Pay For Limits Program has taught me to use Limit orders much more often than I thought possible.

In aggregate this pricing change raises my costs.

As I only trade EURUSD during European Market hours with a spread so tiny materially improving it would be marginal, and I still pay much less than when I opened my account, I am not too upset with this change.

With fees this low, trade costs are not inhibiting profit.

Rather than lower costs, at this point I would like to see improvement in service. It has always seemed to me that MB tries to do too many things at once and as the saying goes, ends up being a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Development of DeskTop has undoubtably been delayed by the foray into MT4. I can't imagine what the investment must be to date but it must be huge -- what a waste on a extremely limited, long in the tooth platform. What MT4 people want for the most part is automated trading capability in a free platform. How much better would MB's market position be if they had invested all those IT resources wasted, IMHO, on Mt4 into fully developing Desktop building out the scripting language and auto trading capability?

How much does supporting MT4 -- whose users have clearly demonstrated on this forum are higher maintanence by nature -- stretch resources at MB.... lowering overall customer satisfaction?

I submitted a ticket 26 days ago to delete a demo account that is causing me problems interfering with other software... 15 days later I followed that up with a phone call to Tech Services that promised to look into it... nearly a week ago I PM'ed Justin for help resolving the issue.... and still that damn demo account hasn't been deleted.... after nearly a month! Its existence is still causing me problems.

Overall I remain happy with MB, if I weren't I would simply move my account, but sometimes they do try my patience... and its the little things.... the details.... that are often lacking. MB does a lot for me...but often in a haphazard way.

I can live with the slightly higher, but still competitive fee structure, but if I'm paying more, I demand better service.
  • #9,642
  • Jun 25, 2012 10:12am Jun 25, 2012 10:12am
Quoting hamlet
What kind of person would complain about lowered commissions?
He is not complaining about lowered commissions, he is complaining about 'pay for limit' amount going from 1.95 to 0.50.
This 'improvement' helps only the people that almost exclusively trade using market orders only. If you are also using limit orders than this is probably going to cost you more.
This is a pretty typical scenario: Enter with market order, set your S/L and T/P and let the trade take it's course. Now let's assume that your win/loss ratio is 50% and do some math:
Old PFL: pay 2.95 for entry with market, on exit receive either 1.95 with T/P or pay 2.95 with S/L with 50% probability each. 2.95 + 2.95*0.5 - 1.95*05 = pay 3,45
New PFL: pay 2.5 for entry with market, on exit receive either 0.5 with T/P or pay 2.5 with S/L with 50% probability each. 2.5 + 2.5*0.5 - 0.5*05 = pay 3,5

That is just an example showing how the old plan was actually cheaper. Of coarse all depends on how much you use market orders versus limit orders. This really sucks for those traders that predominantly use limit orders...
Now try to guess what type of order makes the spread tighter...

It remains to be seen by how much the spread widens as a consequence of the lowered PFL commissions.
I'm not insane; my mother had me tested.
  • #9,643
  • Jun 25, 2012 10:21am Jun 25, 2012 10:21am
I traded 'Pay for Limits' actively, scalping from June 2011 to June 2012.

The beginning of the decline of Navigator Pro 'Pay for Limits' was the exodus of MT4 clients
to the Free EXN (MetaTrader only) after October 2011.

In recent months, the high-frequency customer base has increased substantially.
They have first look at HotSpot, Currenex, etc. and make up a large portion of the current "quoted" market.
Getting a limit order executed WITH the short-term trend when needed (from a scalping perspective)
is much more difficult than it was 6 months ago.

Reducing the Pay for Limits credit by 75% (lol!)
and only reducing the Commission charged by 15% is ridiculous.

You've destroyed the model.
Your costs are too high.

If you come up with a Free EXN model for your far superior platform (Nav Pro)
and it is 0.9 pips or less spread, I would consider coming back.
  • #9,644
  • Jun 25, 2012 10:56am Jun 25, 2012 10:56am
They explain in their email that the lowered by 15% the price of market orders, but I mainly observe that they increase their revenue by 100% : each market order is executed against a limit order. So for 100k, before they earned 2.95-1.95=$1. With the new fees, they earn 2.5-0.5=$2 !!
And some of you think that they lowered their commission ???
I understand that in some cases (for people using a large majority of mkt orders), you can be happy. But if you consider all the PFL traders, the average of commissions doubled.
I am not saying that the new fees are disproportionate, but I can't be happy to see my commissions doubled overnight !!!
What irritate me even more is that they could inform us a couple of days before, so we could adjust our trading strategies. It is a basic of a good business relationship ...
  • #9,645
  • Jun 25, 2012 11:54am Jun 25, 2012 11:54am
Quoting Elsejul
They explain in their email that the lowered by 15% the price of market orders, but I mainly observe that they increase their revenue by 100% : each market order is executed against a limit order. So for 100k, before they earned 2.95-1.95=$1. With the new fees, they earn 2.5-0.5=$2 !!
And some of you think that they lowered their commission ???
I understand that in some cases (for people using a large majority of mkt orders), you can be happy. But if you consider all the PFL traders, the average of commissions doubled.
I am not saying that...
You clearly don't get how MBT works. You said all orders are a market order hitting a limit order. That simply isn't the case. MBT is an STP broker FIRST. You can see it by size on the Level 2. Most market orders from their customers go out and hit a bank, not another customer, so MB isn't just netting the difference in the commission versus what they pay on a Limit order. This is a big help for me as about 90% of my trades are market orders under their system, so my commissions just dropped a lot over the course of a year, to the tune of a couple thousand dollars.
  • #9,646
  • Jun 25, 2012 1:52pm Jun 25, 2012 1:52pm
Quoting Crassius
... nearly a week ago I PM'ed Justin for help resolving the issue.... and still that damn demo account hasn't been deleted.... after nearly a month! Its existence is still causing me problems.
Hi Crassius,

I didn't see your PM until this FF post, sorry about that. We were able to unlink the account for you, please log out and back in to confirm it has been removed.
  • #9,647
  • Jun 25, 2012 2:18pm Jun 25, 2012 2:18pm
Quoting jleblang
Hi Crassius,

I didn't see your PM until this FF post, sorry about that. We were able to unlink the account for you, please log out and back in to confirm it has been removed.

Thank you very much. It is gone.
  • #9,648
  • Jun 25, 2012 3:10pm Jun 25, 2012 3:10pm
Quoting Elsejul
They explain in their email that the lowered by 15% the price of market orders, but I mainly observe that they increase their revenue by 100% : each market order is executed against a limit order. So for 100k, before they earned 2.95-1.95=$1. With the new fees, they earn 2.5-0.5=$2 !!
And some of you think that they lowered their commission ???
I understand that in some cases (for people using a large majority of mkt orders), you can be happy. But if you consider all the PFL traders, the average of commissions doubled.
I am not saying that...
MBT paid out ONE MILLION DOLLARS with Pay For Limits, Lets celebrate by not doing that again........ at least not as quickly.

We'll give you .50 on markets and take almost 3x as much $1.45 from your limits, oh oh

AND your STILL Getting SPREAD like Plaistow Patricia OH OH OH
  • #9,649
  • Jun 25, 2012 3:30pm Jun 25, 2012 3:30pm
Quoting jmerk
You clearly don't get how MBT works. You said all orders are a market order hitting a limit order. That simply isn't the case. MBT is an STP broker FIRST. You can see it by size on the Level 2. Most market orders from their customers go out and hit a bank, not another customer, so MB isn't just netting the difference in the commission versus what they pay on a Limit order. This is a big help for me as about 90% of my trades are market orders under their system, so my commissions just dropped a lot over the course of a year, to the tune of a couple...
STP...you're WRONG.

LeveL 2? from whom?,

Thats MBTs L2 which SPREAD is WIDER

than the Banks that provide THE tighter Spread and Liquidity...

Oh they STP right thru and pocket the difference between their L2 and the Interbanks L2.

In other words your getting spun on the spread
  • #9,650
  • Jun 25, 2012 7:13pm Jun 25, 2012 7:13pm
I have no problem with the new transaction cost structure at all. MB needs to make money, and provide decent service to all of their customers. And market orders still dominate the bulk of the trades, so to the majority of its customers, will benefit from the lowered commissions instead of payout from limit orders.

I do have a complaint. The demo on MB is very inconsistent. I've had multiple problems with my demo. In the past, I have problems closing an open trade on the demo. This week, I can't open any positions in my demo with "server is busy" response when I try to open a trade. I have 5 demos running different strategies, and everyone one of them gets stuck on opening a trade.

I've already emailed the service desk to see if they can resolve it.
  • #9,651
  • Jun 26, 2012 12:18pm Jun 26, 2012 12:18pm
has anybody found a substitute charting sftw. for dtp. i have several wndws. open with dtp.the sftw. is very sluggish after a while ...having to restart and clean cache very often during trading times and rescale charts after reopen ...also using mt4 but this charting sftw. has its limitations.... wrong opening/closing times, grid on uneven pricelevels etc. thx. p
  • #9,652
  • Jun 26, 2012 12:35pm Jun 26, 2012 12:35pm
Quoting Crosslock
STP...you're WRONG.

LeveL 2? from whom?,

Thats MBTs L2 which SPREAD is WIDER

than the Banks that provide THE tighter Spread and Liquidity...

Oh they STP right thru and pocket the difference between their L2 and the Interbanks L2.

In other words your getting spun on the spread
  • #9,653
  • Jun 26, 2012 1:48pm Jun 26, 2012 1:48pm
my mbtdtp order entry platform has been down since thursday june 21. unable to place orders charting works order platform keeps reloading every 5 minutes or so....but to no go.....anybody else having problems?
  • #9,654
  • Jun 26, 2012 5:03pm Jun 26, 2012 5:03pm
Quoting TraderPablo
my mbtdtp order entry platform has been down since thursday june 21. unable to place orders charting works order platform keeps reloading every 5 minutes or so....but to no go.....anybody else having problems?
Sounds more like a network connectivity/firewall issue to me but I'll let someone else chime in.
  • #9,655
  • Jun 26, 2012 6:27pm Jun 26, 2012 6:27pm
Quoting TraderPablo
has anybody found a substitute charting sftw. for dtp. i have several wndws. open with dtp.the sftw. is very sluggish after a while ...having to restart and clean cache very often during trading times and rescale charts after reopen ...also using mt4 but this charting sftw. has its limitations.... wrong opening/closing times, grid on uneven pricelevels etc. thx. p

Have a look at the Charting and Analytics page under the partner button on MB's site. There you will find a list of alternative charting packages that connect to MB's data feed.

http://www.forexfactory.com/%3Ca%20h...%22%3E%3C/a%3Ehttp://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...MBPartners.png



http://www.mbtrading.com/partnerprogram.aspx

At least two have free versions for charting... MultiCharts and NinjaTrader.

I use NinjaTrader's free version which allows you unlimited use for charting and system development. If you want order entry and/or automated trading you need to buy NinjaTrader. You can chart with NinjaTrader and manually enter orders into Desktop... order entry and management are where DeskTop excels so this works well for me...

Using NinjaTrader does require you to maintain your own database of historical data... It is built in, but there is daily work required to keep it up to date. MB now provides downloadable historical tick data files to back up/restore/ patch your database.

I have not used MultiCharts, but some here do.... maybe they will chime in...

There are also paid license only solutions listed.

If you want to give NinjaTrader Free a try you will find the MB Trading Connection Guide with download links here:

http://www.ninjatrader.com/Connectio...tion-Guide.php

NinjaTrader gets its data from a special version of Desktop.... you'll need to uninstall the one you have now, and install NT's version 11.8.0.45 located on the Connection Guide page. NinjaTraders version of 11.8.0.45 is NOT the same as available on MB's site. Be sure you do not allow an automatic upgrade of the version you install from NinjaTrader.... it will be replaced with the incorrect MB version...

If you try these solutions you need to be a bit more self sufficient as you are using third party software out of MB's control or ability to support. NinjaTrader has excellent customer service and a forum where you can get any needed support.
  • #9,656
  • Jun 26, 2012 10:37pm Jun 26, 2012 10:37pm
Quoting cts022
Sounds more like a network connectivity/firewall issue to me but I'll let someone else chime in.

No connection issues on my end ...getting mt4 and others no problem...i think it is a server/firewall/order-entry problem on mbt.....
  • #9,657
  • Jun 26, 2012 10:43pm Jun 26, 2012 10:43pm
Quoting Crassius
Have a look at the Charting and Analytics page under the partner button on MB's site. There you will find a list of alternative charting packages that connect to MB's data feed.

http://www.forexfactory.com/%3Ca%20h...%22%3E%3C/a%3Ehttp://i731.photobucket.com/albums/w...MBPartners.png



http://www.mbtrading.com/partnerprogram.aspx...
TYVM for the info....do u have issues with OCO orders placed on Ninja going through MBT? I believe I read some line on Ninja about this issue...could be another sticking problem.....
  • #9,658
  • Jun 26, 2012 10:54pm Jun 26, 2012 10:54pm
Quoting TraderPablo
TYVM for the info....do u have issues with OCO orders placed on Ninja going through MBT? I believe I read some line on Ninja about this issue...could be another sticking problem.....
Sorry i just realized that u use the desktop for order entry which makes my prev. Q abt OCO's on Ninja a mute point.. do u trade the forex? I guess I better learn hw to use the DT order entry platform for oco's etc.
  • #9,659
  • Jun 26, 2012 11:31pm Jun 26, 2012 11:31pm
Quoting TraderPablo
Sorry i just realized that u use the desktop for order entry which makes my prev. Q abt OCO's on Ninja a mute point.. do u trade the forex? I guess I better learn hw to use the DT order entry platform for oco's etc.
wish they had a dome....
  • #9,660
  • Jun 27, 2012 12:44am Jun 27, 2012 12:44am
Quoting TraderPablo
.. do u trade the forex?
Yes... I trade FX.
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