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  • #121
  • Jun 11, 2014 12:40am Jun 11, 2014 12:40am
Quoting 10518
{quote} {quote} Guys, You make me laughing when you attempt to tell me what the ECN is ) I agree with you! Did I argue that it is not just a technology? Or that it is not simple and straightforward? Of course it is. Do you know any forex broker personally? Well, I know. The friend of mine owns one and described quite well all that process, which is different from the advertisement, lol ) Yes, there is a pool of liquidity (created from the orders within that particular broker - which is not liquid enough to maintain tiny spreads at all times)....
you probably use MetaTrader which makes you think this way.
you should swtich to cTrader feel real retail ECN.
always draw trendlines
  • #122
  • Jun 14, 2014 2:02pm Jun 14, 2014 2:02pm
Quoting tk5
{quote} you probably use MetaTrader which makes you think this way. you should swtich to cTrader feel real retail ECN.
Haha, I DO NOT trade forex mate ) US Stocks, CME futures and US stock options only!

Platforms: CQG Integrated Client and NinjaTrader.
  • #123
  • Jun 24, 2014 1:14pm Jun 24, 2014 1:14pm
Can someone publish the latest list of CTrader brokers
  • #124
  • Jun 25, 2014 5:16am Jun 25, 2014 5:16am
I had look at all the australian based ones: ThinkForex, Whichway, ICMarkets, Pepperstone, Invast.
  • #125
  • Jun 25, 2014 1:43pm Jun 25, 2014 1:43pm
Quoting reddevil
I had look at all the australian based ones: ThinkForex, Whichway, ICMarkets, Pepperstone, Invast.
www.omf.co.nz in New Zealand
  • #126
  • Dec 11, 2014 7:31am Dec 11, 2014 7:31am
Is cTrader on IC Markets better than mt4 and are the spreads cheaper for scalpers to trade? I hear that mt4 has slightly cheaper commissions through an IB compared to CTrader especially if one is scalping EUR/USD as the base currency is in EUR.. What does scalp traders have to say about this?
  • #127
  • Edited 3:21pm Feb 1, 2015 4:14am | Edited 3:21pm
Quoting 10518
Okay, if all this doesn't push you to forget this market forever and you still want to have the "ECN feature", the only way to check your broker is to place a limit order within the spread. If the spread changes accordingly at all times, it means they really have ECN system. You can do it regardless the platform.
I understand what you are saying. There seems to be a some confusion between ECN, STP and DMA. Sincemarket makers have gotten such a bad rep, everybody's branding themselves as an ECN nowadays which is understandable.

There are 2 kinds of "ECN's" it seems that exist in the market today. 1) ECN STP: Which is basically an NDD. The broker passes your order with no intervention straight to their liquidity "providers" and get them executed there. In this model, you can only be liquidity takers and never liquidity makers. And with the test suggested above, if you place a limit order within the spread, the spread does NOT change or narrow and you never see your order reflected. And since your order doesn't show up in the platform for everybody to see, nobody can hit it and hence you are only a liquidity taker. And you are still trading against a market maker, maybe not your broker since it's supposed to be a STP, so some liquidity "providers". Majority of the "ECN" brokers with those super low $200 minimum account balance ones would fall into that category, I imagine including IC Markets, Thinkforex, Pepperstone and etc. With IC Markets, I have personally noticed that when I placed a limit order within the spread even on their cTrader platform, it NEVER shows up in the platform and it doesn't really narrow the spread by my own order. So for sure IC Markets is NOT an true "ECN" in that sense.

2) True ECN that is DMA. Those would provide you the flexibility to be a liquidity taker and a liquidity maker. In other words, you would actually have some say in the spread of a pair. If you place a limit order in between the spread, the spread does narrow by your order. And since your order shows up on the platform, other traders can hit you thus making you a liquidity provider same as somebody like Deutsche Bank! The examples of those ECN with DMA would be LMAX, Baxter, LCG and definitely Interactive Brokers. With IB, your order DOES show up on their horrible TWS FXTrader screen and IB uses exactly the same liquidity "providers". BUT two caveats. a) These brokers all have lot larger minimum initial account balance that is way too rich for our blood, LMAX = $10K, LCG = $20K, Baxter = $50K and IB = $10K. b) Although you do see your limit order on the platform price screen, your order is the last in line and won't get hit until the big guys in front of you all get filled. The priority is given to price, time and size. So if your order for let's say E/U is 1.34010, and there are already $10 million size there, your $100K standard lot won't get hit before the price moves away. So you are forced to increase your price which lowers the spread but also cuts into your profitability and 3) On IB, you can only place your limit price in the increment of 0.00005 not smaller and that is NOT a feature that you can turn off. IB set that up deliberately so to give their institutional clients an edge.

So, caveats aside, you can see whether an ECN is a true ECN where you are both a liquidity taker AND a liquidity provider is really up to the broker. It has nothing to do with platforms. IC Trader uses cTrader and it's only a STP ECN and IB uses its in-house TWS and it's a true or I should say "truer" ECN. It has everything to do with what kind of business model that the broker wants to operate under, an "ECN" that offers min. account size and micro lot but with traders still trading against bigger bucket shops now called liquidity "providers" while collecting commissions instead of markups in spreads OR a true ECN that allow traders to trade against all market participants as long as orders match but would require much larger minimum account size?

That is the question.
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #128
  • Edited 1:44pm Feb 1, 2015 1:31pm | Edited 1:44pm
As far as I understand it, The "real" FX ECN's, like Traiana, Currenex, Hotspot etc, they are Hubs where the liquidity providers can connect them selves,
such as, JpMorganChase, Bank of America, CityBank, CommerxBank, UBS, Goldman Sachs etc and also the brokers, so for example, Traiana is one separate ECN, and Currenex is a different one, so if a particual bank or broker are connected to Traiana but not to Currenex they will not see the market partificians on the Currenex ECN. that is my understanding, so because there is no real exchange for the fx market, it is built by smaller ECN's or blocks like this to create a market place where well funded buyers and sellers meet. ofcourse, we as small traders have no access here.

if you are trading stocks, shares, the ECN word have a compleatly different meaning, because the exchanges are all connected to these ECN's all the time, so if you make a order anywhere in the world, it will be seen in the orderbook for pretty much all market partificicants. all they have to do is dial in to the particular ECN, and they have access, stock traders can chose any ecn they want as long as their broker provide them, usually they provide several ecns and exchanges.

what I have seen is fx brokers trying to create their own ECNs, this is what they call REAL ECN TECH, what they seem to do is create a closed enviroment and add several other brokers as liquidity providers in the pool, this would ofcourse not be as liquid as the real ECn's. but it is still a ECN, the orders will end up in their orderbook on some and on others not, this gives the broker some advantage, because he can take the other side of a trade without much risk, lets say a small trader wan't to buy EURUSD, the broker can then sell him EURUSD more expensive directly and then then buy it back from the ECN cheaper and pocket the difference. and it will all look good to the trader. and on top of that, charge the client for commision and the spread. will this be better for the small trader? Yes or no, it depends on the brokers in the liquidity pool and the broker providing this real ecn, if he is more expensive then the real ecn he offers will look cheaper, and you will allways get filled on the cheapest broker in the pool, but there is nothing that stops you for registering with the cheapest broker in the list directly, it also depends on how much difference this "real ecn broker wants to pocket. so as you can see, this is not a very good model because it creates conflict of interest, and because of peoples greed I fear it will not work out so good for the traders. ask your self why they have come up with this "real ecn technology" do you think they care if you have the ability to trade more transparent or not? no probably not, what they do think about is to make as much money as possible. from your money.
Bulls are stupid Animals!especially when Im short!
  • #129
  • Feb 1, 2015 2:10pm Feb 1, 2015 2:10pm
Traiana isnt a ECN, its a backoffice solution for post-trade processing.
  • #130
  • Feb 1, 2015 3:20pm Feb 1, 2015 3:20pm
Quoting roughtrader
As far as I understand it, The "real" FX ECN's, like Traiana, Currenex, Hotspot etc, they are Hubs where the liquidity providers can connect them selves, such as, JpMorganChase, Bank of America, CityBank, CommerxBank, UBS, Goldman Sachs etc and also the brokers, so for example, Traiana is one separate ECN, and Currenex is a different one, so if a particual bank or broker are connected to Traiana but not to Currenex they will not see the market partificians on the Currenex ECN. that is my understanding, so because there is no real exchange for the...
What about brokers who are connected to those ECN feeds like Integral which is what cTrader platform is usually offering? So what are you saying? The prices that we see on cTrader is NOT the REAL price that's on Integral? They already padded the spread before sending our order to the liquidity "providers" to execute? I am not trying to dispute what you are stating. I just want to get to the bottom of this so I can have a better understanding. According to pretty much all of the "STP" brokers' claims, your orders are directly passed onto the liquidity "providers" for them to execute; they don't intervene in anyway. They just earn a commission or a spread if they do choose to pad the spread like in CFD's. So if they display a worse price than on the real ECN like Currenex or Integral but then really don't take the other side of our transaction because they are supposed to NDD and STP, then wouldn't the liquidity "providers" be the ones who's benefitting from this and not the really the brokers since it's the liquidity "providers" who end up executing the trades with the added spread?
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #131
  • Edited 8:48am Feb 2, 2015 8:35am | Edited 8:48am
Quoting Forexia
{quote} What about brokers who are connected to those ECN feeds like Integral which is what cTrader platform is usually offering? So what are you saying? The prices that we see on cTrader is NOT the REAL price that's on Integral? They already padded the spread before sending our order to the liquidity "providers" to execute? I am not trying to dispute what you are stating. I just want to get to the bottom of this so I can have a better understanding. According to pretty much all of the "STP" brokers' claims, your orders are directly passed onto...
Intergral is one of the large ECN's but let's just face it, they are claiming something we can't prove, it's probably just a sales trick. we are not going to see the prices on Intergral, atleast not if we can't put 2 mil on the table to buy a credit line, the spread might be small and tight for us or in some rare cases untouched , but the prices are lower on the ECN, only the broker have access to it, they have pay'd millions to get access to it, somehow they are going to get their money back. to just earn by commisions and spread would take years and years to catch up and wouldn't suffice. what the broker does is market the price higher, he is a middle hand before the price reach us retail traders. it is true what they are saying, they are passing the price right through to the liquidity providers but only at a higher price, and they don't intervene (manually) ofcourse all this is done automaticly with scripts and software. so they are not really lying, there is a reason most brokers don't show off their order book, if you can't see the large liquidity providers in the dept of market and instead there are FXCM, CITY, etc, they are just other brokers (acting) as liquidity providers, what you are seeing here are much higher prices than on Intergral which are hidden from you. when you get filled you will be on the lowest price amongst these broker liquidity providers and you are happy, let's say FXCM was the cheapest this trade, your fill is now by FXCM in the pool, you think! which is much higher than Intergral, what you don't see is simultaniously the broker is making a transaction with Intergral. I am not intirely sure how this transcation is done, it is very complicated but somehow the broker is able to pocket the difference between FXCM and the real liquidity provider at Intergral

the large liquidity providers are not affected by a higher spread, because it is an intirely different line and it would be padded after the transaction, this is just a normal buisiness process, if you are a store owner, you will buy your stuff from the distributor dirt cheap and then sell it more expensive to your customers, that is how all buisiness owners make profits, I'm not saying this is wrong, and please note that this is only my theory and it's nothing I can prove in any way, but it make sense.

if a store owner first pay'd 2 millions to get acces to the distributor and his lower prices, ofcourse he would only do that to get access to the lower prices so he could profit from them, what if he would sell his products at the same price he bought them for and only profit if the customers bought some candy on their way out which he had gotten for free, (spread & commision) and even if he forced every customer to buy the candly he would be out of buisiness very quickly. everyone got to make a living, surely the brokers will exploit the lower prices on the ECN's.

do you really think by depositing 200 dollars would allow you to trade on Intergral? something the brokers have pay'd millions to get access to? keep dreaming
Bulls are stupid Animals!especially when Im short!
  • #132
  • Feb 2, 2015 8:41am Feb 2, 2015 8:41am
Its Citibank not Citybank, by the way..
  • #133
  • Feb 5, 2015 2:48pm Feb 5, 2015 2:48pm
Quoting moyes
Is cTrader on IC Markets better than mt4 and are the spreads cheaper for scalpers to trade? I hear that mt4 has slightly cheaper commissions through an IB compared to CTrader especially if one is scalping EUR/USD as the base currency is in EUR.. What does scalp traders have to say about this?
I don't understand how can you compare mt4 with cTrader? mt4 I can add EA and work with progs, cTrade misarable thing of mt4. even if we pay attention on spreads, that in mt4 I can watch them 24\7 with a help of my robot
  • #134
  • Feb 5, 2015 3:09pm Feb 5, 2015 3:09pm
Quoting Fatman33
{quote} I don't understand how can you compare mt4 with cTrader? mt4 I can add EA and work with progs, cTrade misarable thing of mt4. even if we pay attention on spreads, that in mt4 I can watch them 24\7 with a help of my robot
In my opinion, I find cTrader is WAY better than MT4. Faster execution and lot more user friendly. The only thing I don't like about it is:

1. Commission for it is too expensive

2. Not enough features included in the cAlgo C++ programming capacity. They took out a lot of useful features in cAlgo I guess to make it run faster. C++ .net with FULL features can be REALLY slow to run cuz C++ is a major memory eater.
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #135
  • Edited 7:37pm Feb 5, 2015 6:57pm | Edited 7:37pm
Quoting roughtrader
{quote} Intergral is one of the large ECN's but let's just face it, they are claiming something we can't prove, it's probably just a sales trick. we are not going to see the prices on Intergral, atleast not if we can't put 2 mil on the table to buy a credit line, the spread might be small and tight for us or in some rare cases untouched , but the prices are lower on the ECN, only the broker have access to it, they have pay'd millions to get access to it, somehow they are going to get their money back. to just earn by commisions and spread would...
I see what you are saying and it does make sense. The only ways that I can see that the broker can pocket the difference between the real Integral feed and the broker's own "ECN" is to join the pool of liquidity providers so when you trade through an ECN, they are not specifically trading against you but they could be one of the counterparties that fill your trade and that is WHY they hedge against any positions that they have taken with YOUR own money. So that way, they could be trading against while not trading against you per se. They could pass themselves off as ECN but still be a market maker to make money from commission, spread AND speculative profit. Wow!!
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #136
  • Mar 6, 2015 8:10am Mar 6, 2015 8:10am
Quoting Fatman33
{quote} I don't understand how can you compare mt4 with cTrader? mt4 I can add EA and work with progs, cTrade misarable thing of mt4. even if we pay attention on spreads, that in mt4 I can watch them 24\7 with a help of my robot
Don't forget cAlgo is part of cTrader and that beats Mt4 hands down.

It's built for backtesting, and that, I believe is the way to trade. The backtest functions as a calculator, and diagnosis. At a snap, you can check your strategy and adapt it daily.

Now with cAlgo optimization, I really don't see any challenger. MT4? Try doing a backtest on that. Then try optimizing!
  • #137
  • May 12, 2015 7:14pm May 12, 2015 7:14pm
Adding and editing cTraders bots are easy. As well as their indicators. You can search, find and install in a couple of clicks without restarting as you need to do with MT4.

It can also place profit and stop loss orders in pips instead of entering exact prices, that is a great feature and time saver. I've traded with MT4 for a lot of years but the clean and slick interface cTrader offers is very refreshing. I'm learning new shortcuts all the time.
  • #138
  • May 26, 2015 2:40am May 26, 2015 2:40am
Quoting mmaker
{quote} {quote} Can you guys mention the commission structure (per standard lot round trip) when recommending a cTrader broker? Thanks.
for roboforex it is 40$ per million full round plus spreed which in eurusd can be from 0.9 to 1.9 it is floating
i opened account with pepperstone i will give them a try and see who best pepper or robo
have a nice day sir
focus while relaxed to see better
  • #139
  • Jul 10, 2015 9:07am Jul 10, 2015 9:07am
From what I know here are the cTrader brokers.

  1. FXPro
  2. Pepperstone
  3. IC Markets
  4. MAX FX
  5. OMF
  6. RoboForex
  7. ThinkForex
  8. EQ5 Fx
  9. Octa Fx
  10. FIBO Group
  11. TradersWay

Each name has a link attached. there a few White labels also but I don't recommend going for them... these are the biggest ones (unless I missed one or two).

Happy Trading All!

He Who Lives On Hope Will Die Stavring
  • #140
  • Edited 10:31pm Jul 13, 2015 9:55pm | Edited 10:31pm
Quoting Forexia
{quote}..
1. Commission for it is too expensive
2. Not enough features included in the cAlgo C++ programming capacity. They took out a lot of useful features in cAlgo I guess to make it run faster. C++ .net with FULL features can be REALLY slow to run cuz C++ is a major memory eater.
Know this is replying to an old post of yours but just for clarification purpose to others interested in CAlgo/CTrader. Personally I've stopped using any MT4 broker for over a year now. After trying quite a handful of platforms around for the last 3 yrs, I'm with CTrader/CAlgo now.

1. The commission though not the lowest, wasn't that expensive either. I'm with IC Markets CTrader account. Commission (per side) was $3 USD per 100,000 USD traded. Instruments were also more than enough for my needs, 60 forex pairs, 4 metals & 13 indices CFDs. Big plus for the low spread as well.

2. Agree with the lack in their CAlgo api. However CAlgo is using C#, not C++. I think the most lacking part for Calgo as compared to MT4 was their inability to interact with chart objects through the API. However, coding cBot & indicator with CAlgo as compared to MQL4 just feels more reliable, at least C#/CAlgo don't seem to change / update their api that much that often.
Still finding a way to work around the charting lack with CAlgo. Probably api hooking into it's chart may offer some solution, not too sure right now as I'm still quite a newbie in programming.
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