IC Markets Slippage Grey Hairs

Hi there,

I am getting grey hairs over IC Markets. I mean really grey.

I trade standard lots and use pending orders at levels (Udine).

I thought IC Markets was suppose to be a straight forward broker and hence I have been with them some time trading
an ECN account.

What I witness day in and day out is that 90% of the time I get slipped real bad (2-3 pips) and (strange enough) always in the
favor of IC Markets, meaning 90% of my trades I either loose more or gain less than I should have.

I am not talking about news events, high volatile trading etc. Just normal "slow" markets with pending orders waiting to be filled.

A rough calculation shows me that I loose around 30% of my pips because of IC ripping me off.

Needless to say, I am looking to change broker ASAP so if anybody can recommend a reputable ECN broker I am all ears.

Thanks

PC

[email protected] / https://www.ghostmail.com

what is your ping to IC Markets server, mind ~300ms.

Numberman

Just to clarify with an example:

Pending order sell at i.e. 179.80 with TP of 179.74 (6 pips)

Live facts : Filled short at 179.78 and TP at 179.75. (3 pips)

So instead of making 6 pips I make 3. = 50 % less.

In a normal market, no spikes, no spread widening etc. Normal conditions.

(And nothing to do with TS EA in case anybody wonders).

This happens everyday.

PC

Ping would only affect if he's trading with instant execution w/o SL TP . Because if he's doing for example pending order then the request is stored on server and has nothing to do with ping . Also if he set a SL TP it's also stored on server so Ping has nothing to do with it

Thanks for your clarification.

Numberman

Thanks - yes I agree this hsould have nothing to do with ping times etc.

PC

Well I saw a member saying dealing directly with liquidity provider is better than retail broker because you will have lower spreads and ultra fast execution . I'm not sure how exactly you can do that or if it's even possible but do some research it might be the answer.
EDIT : Found this link : http://en.tradimo.com/tradipedia/liquidity-provider/

Another example a few mins ago:

SL @ + 0.5 pips.

Stopped out at - 0.5 pips.

= Lost 0.5 pip instead of gaining 0.5 = Net loss 1 pip (IC Markets gain 1 pip?! plus their commisions)

Dont need to be a rocket scientist to start wondering....

PC

yes I face same problem all the time, I am just giving them some more time or else I have no choice but to change broker. looks like they are playing some filthy games.

Looks like Obama and I use the same broker

PC

I am also limit order trader. if you find some better broker do let me know.

LMAX and Dukascopy is on my shortlist...

PC

same here on EU, if you trade XAU/USD would be even worse...
e.g. if buy $1162 SL $1160 would hit and actually close at $1159 or $1158.8
TP $1170 may hit and acutally close at $1169.80

I email them before, and they said it was due to LP price feed

Slippage is nothing new with these brokers like IC Markets or any of those small deposits-huge leverage brokers because they are NOT real ECN brokers. They claim they are STP, DMA, agency-model, ECN or any of those terms but in reality they are still MM brokers in disguise. They stand in between you and the "liquidity providers" and don't really send your orders directly to the "liquidity providers" to be executed. I don't know exactly how they operate but I suspect that when you put in an order, you are actually trading on some sort of internal "ECN" of the broker NOT really the interbank market comprised of those "liquidity providers" with all those shiny logos that scroll across the bottom of their webpage like Citi, UBS, Deutsche (It's just NOT possible that Deutsche would be executing our 1K microlot orders no matter how much we wish for it LOL) like what they impression on you and then they turn around and hedge your trades with the "liquidity providers" so your order is executed on the interbank market "in a way" but through them and they earn a spread between the price that they filled your order and the price that they got their hedging order executed by the "liquidity provider" hence the slippage. So they are basically Oanda or FXCM in a different form. Nothing wrong with being Oanda or FXCM really because many traders trade with MM type brokers and are quite happy with them BUT they should make their true nature known instead of hiding behind the brand of "ECN", "STP", "DMA" when they are really market makers so the traders who really want to trade on TRUE ECN type brokers don't waste their time with them. And this is especially true if you trade CFD's on oil, gold and indexes when they even state that they are the issuer and hence the market makers of those instruments UNLESS you trade the REAL ones on the exchanges like the ASIX.

If you want virtually no slippage and even positive slippages many of the times, I would suggest you look to trade with more purer ECN brokers like Interactive Brokers, LMAX, LCG and etc. Despite Interactive Broker's horrible in-house trading platform and bad charting software, its execution is very decent, super fast and very little slippages. The rest of the brokers' actually offer better platforms like HotSpotFX and etc. but their min. deposit is quite steep. There is actually a very easy way to test whether a broker is a true ECN broker or not is that you post a limit order in between the bid-ask spread and if you actually see your order showing up on the quote screen and actually narrowing the spread then you know you are dealing with a true ECN because that means your order is visible to all and can actually be executed against. In other words, you have actually become a liquidity provider yourself. True ECN brokers would allow you to become liquidity providers and brokers like MB Trading even let you earn commissions if you provide liquidity to the market. But if you never see your limit order showing up there then you know you are dealing with an Oanda. My order ALWAYS showed up in the quote screen on their albeit horrible TWS.

But all those pure ECN brokers require much higher minimum deposit with at least 10K like in Interactive Broker's case which makes sense. If you want to participate in the "interbank" market directly against banks like Deutsche, a company that has $Trillion of assets, how are you going to do it with just microlots and $500 deposit even with high leverage.

How big is your order. 100 lots?
At any broker, when lots increase, slippage increase.

thanks for your words, LMAX is always on my list but they do require high deposit with lower leverage.
LMAX has very limit info available on their web, looks like I need to find out more.

BTW, is LCG=london capital group?

MT4 or C traders ?

Interactive Brokers as long as you can stand their horrible trading platform TWS and you need to find your own charting package. The MultiCharts that they offer still sucks missing a lot of important basic indicators and all.

LMAX

LCG= London Capital Group

Baxter FX

Interactive Brokers has the smallest min. required balance so if that's your primary concern, Interactive Brokers will be your best choice. Their execution is really good with almost zero slippages and many times positive slippages even during news time. I have traded with them during NFP times and they filled me 20 pips better than my TP target!! And also during news time, their spread hardly widen and when they do widen, they widen only for few seconds! And they process your deposit/withdraw fast. They are the closest to your "normal" bank or online stock broker like TD Ameritrade and etc. among all the forex brokers that I traded with. Like I said, the only problem with Interactive Broker is horrible trading platform and clueless incompetent customer service. There is very little hand-holding for new traders. They only provide you a paper trading account for 30 days to get familiar with their HORRIBLE user-unfriendly trading platform TWS and that's it. After that, you are basically on your own.

BOTH

But if you have bit more cash to spare, then you can go with LMAX, LCG and Baxter FX and try their PoP services. You get a variety of trading platforms and data feed to choose from AND they are ALL nice and you can create your own spread with the multiple data feed at your fingertips and be liquidity providers yourself. I would stay away from their MT4 platforms as both LMAX and LCG do offer it too. And their min. required balance for their MT4 accounts are of course much lower but then again you are back to square one of running the risk of not trading on the interbank market again.