Considering moving from MT4 broker to Dukascopy to run my EA

Hi
I am currently running a number of EA's on my Pepperstone standard account, and am not dissatisfied with their service, but wondering whether I would be better off with an ECN?

All my backtesting is performed against Dukascopy data on an MT4 platform to give me 99% modeling quality. The results are obviously much more impressive in test than in live. I appreciate some of this is curve fitting to the data, but can't help wondering whether I would still be better off with an ECn account like Dukascopy where the live data would be more similar to the data i backtest with.

I am not sure my EA's are that spread sensitive. My trades are short term, but I am not scalping, so until I run an ECn in parallel with my live account I can't be sure. There is also the trade off with the commissions, and whether I make enough improvement in trading with an ECN to offset these. I also have rebates on my standard account, and because the EA's are profitable, this is just an added bonus each month.

Have any of you gone through a similar process? Was/is the ECN inc commissions more profitable to your EA's?

I mention Dukascopy as I use their data for backtesting and they seem like they have a good reputation and good commissions, but they don't have MT4, so I would need to convert my indicators and EA's to Jforex. Is this easy, have any of you had experience of this? Just wondering if it is worth it just to find out if it is worth moving to an ECN.

I am just a little wary of brokers that have both accounts ECN and retail. But happy to listen to other opinions on this.
I might add that I would like to have if possible...
leverage upto 400
lotsizes 0.01 - though this is less important.


thanks

Simon

Obviously Pepperstone does have a commission based account type, therefore you can test your robots on such a demo account; in principle the profitability of your strategy should not depend on the slight differences between demo vs real account, or between brokers, since they are sufficiently similar.

You can use fix api bridge from this site ::
http://dukascopy-mt4.fairtradingtech.com
and use mt4 client with Dukascopy backend

@rockit - yes you're right i should probably initially try Pepperstones Razor account as that is also MT4
@tipsfx - thanks, i had come across fairtrading, but as they also have a cost, it pushes the commissions up higher.

would still like to hear from people who have been through this process, and whether they have seen improvements?

One issue with ECN borkers is slippage. If you trade at less than 1 lot per trade then you will experience slippage on an ecn borker. I have tried a lot of them and have always experienced slippage with trades under 1 lot. This is because they pass your trades on to the market unlike so called "STP" borkers. As soon as you start making any serious money with an STP borker they will start to slip you as well. Up to then they have just been taking the other side of your trades without telling you. I don't think it is malicious in that they are actively trading against you rather than they just want to put the profitable traders "straight through" and keep the money of the non profitable traders (of which, let's face it, there are a lot more).

With an ecn borker they have to aggregate all of their clients trades into full lots before they can pass them on and that is why slippage will nearly always occur, especially in a fast moving market.

thanks dannyrose - good point.

my order size is always above 1 lot. I just like to have the precision of smaller lots for money management. The lotsize is calculated as a percentage of Accountequity. IMO the more precise you can be the better off you are. It all adds up in the end!

One reason to switch to Dukascopy is if you are seeking liquidity. Dukascopy has the best liquidity in the world, about 50 MM per click. Keep in mind that they are connected to EBS, one of the Major Fx Networks.

However, if liquidity is not an issue then there is no point in switching. The orderexectution at Pepperstone is very precise, and you get a very high leverage 400:1 with no restrictions.

Pepperstone is connected to Integral, a respected, solid FX Network. www.integral.com

Dukascopy has a better commission rate though I think 2.5USD vs 3.5AUD.

I have set up a demo with FxOpen and will run my EA's in parallel for a couple of weeks. depending on the results I will consider the options.