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Best Broker for Canadians from Alberta

  • #41
  • Apr 7, 2015 9:53pm Apr 7, 2015 9:53pm
Quoting Ian_Lavoie
{quote} I don't know, Forexia, we had a pretty nice winter in Calgary this year compared to the rest of the country.
You mean like -22 F (-30 C) in March and -13F (-25 C) in November of 2014?
Attached Image
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  • #42
  • Apr 7, 2015 10:01pm Apr 7, 2015 10:01pm
Quoting Forexia
{quote} Maybe you opened your account BEFORE the change in regulations that now forbids trading of forex for Albertans.
Yes, that is a possible explanation. It seems like weak business controls on the part of Interactive Brokers, though they have been fined by the NFA in the past for inadequate monitoring of their customers. With that in mind, other possible explanations is that I originally opened my account in another province, and the account I opened was a trust account rather than a normal individual account.
  • #43
  • Apr 7, 2015 10:04pm Apr 7, 2015 10:04pm
Quoting Forexia
{quote} You mean like -22 F (-30 C) in March and -13F (-25 C) in November of 2014? {image}
Ah, but what does the chart look like for January - March 2015?
  • #44
  • Apr 7, 2015 10:30pm Apr 7, 2015 10:30pm
Quoting Ian_Lavoie
{quote} Ah, but what does the chart look like for January - March 2015?
Hmmn I did post the wrong chart, didn't I since you did mention this year. Ok let's see:

"Windchills of -40 C were forecast Monday morning, and the weather service says it's possible those temperatures could return Monday evening and into Tuesday."

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/05/cold-weather-alberta_n_6418200.html

"Edmonton reached a daytime high of -24C on Sunday.
The hot spot in Alberta on Sunday was Crowsnest, which reached a high of -17C. Dapp, a hamlet in northern Alberta, was the coldest place in the province at -41.9C."

http://globalnews.ca/news/1753947/extreme-cold-warning-issued-for-edmonton-much-of-central-alberta/

"And in Montreal the mean temperature these past few days have been almost 10 C warmer than 2014 when it was -15.3 C."

http://globalnews.ca/news/1760010/think-january-2015-has-been-colder-than-january-2014-you-may-be-right/

Woooo the hot spot in Alberta!
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #45
  • Edited 7:17am Apr 8, 2015 6:05am | Edited 7:17am
Ian, I don't want to fight my way through with IB even if I could. What is the point? I can talk to a different person and possibly get a different answer, I understand that. Most likely I won't be able to trade with them my way because of their minimum position requirements and margin anyway. I also cannot trade with FIFO rule which they are probably implementing.

If they don't want me then I don't want them. I want my broker to love me.

So far all that I discussed with Dukas sounds very encouraging.
  • #46
  • Apr 8, 2015 8:23am Apr 8, 2015 8:23am
Quoting aa1
Ian, I don't want to fight my way through with IB even if I could. What is the point? I can talk to a different person and possibly get a different answer, I understand that. Most likely I won't be able to trade with them my way because of their minimum position requirements and margin anyway. I also cannot trade with FIFO rule which they are probably implementing. If they don't want me then I don't want them. I want my broker to love me. So far all that I discussed with Dukas sounds very encouraging.
I think Dukascopy is a fine choice. The only real reason for Interactive Brokers is to get your account balance protected by Canadian regulation. However, I checked Dukascopy, and your deposit up to 100,000 CHF is protected by the Swiss Banking Act if Dukascopy goes bankrupt. This protection applies equally regardless of whether you live in Switzerland or not. Note that this protection only applies if you sign up with Dukascopy Bank. See details (http://www.einlagensicherung.ch/en).

If you instead sign up with Dukascopy Europe, you only get EUR 20,000 of protection through EU regulation (http://www.fktk.lv/en/customer_protection/operation_of_guarantee_funds/protection_of_financial_instru/). And the wording of this EUR 20,000 protection is not as strong and does not explicitly mention bankruptcy, but instead references contractual obligations. As many of us know, forex brokers bury a lot of crap in their contracts, so don't assume you get that EUR 20,000 back unless you have carefully read the contract.

Additionally, it is a virtual certainty that the overall EU forex regulation that governs Dukascopy Europe is not as strict as what FINMA imposes on Dukascopy Bank. Dukascopy has an ECN, but it is their own ECN. Dukascopy will be the counterparty to all your trades regardless of whether it is Dukascopy Bank or Dukascopy Europe. So for the highest level of protection against this conflict of interest, you will likely be better of with FINMA's regulatory protection, and you should sign up with Dukascopy Bank if you can handle the higher minimum deposit.
  • #47
  • Edited 9:45am Apr 8, 2015 9:31am | Edited 9:45am
Yes, the Swiss protection is the main reason why I want to open an account with them, Switzerland based branch not European or any other.

Although, now it looks like they are using one leverage during the week and for the weekend they are shrinking it down to 60 or even 1:30. I might not be able to trade with them because of that, still discussing as their weekend margin requirements can generate a margin call for me.

If not them - I don't know who. Probably another Australian broker, likely Pepperstone, will see. As always, when you start looking the choice is seemingly huge, hundreds of brokers on the list. Once you look at details the picture is totally different... as with everything else in life though.
  • #48
  • Apr 8, 2015 2:47pm Apr 8, 2015 2:47pm
Quoting aa1
Yes, the Swiss protection is the main reason why I want to open an account with them, Switzerland based branch not European or any other. Although, now it looks like they are using one leverage during the week and for the weekend they are shrinking it down to 60 or even 1:30. I might not be able to trade with them because of that, still discussing as their weekend margin requirements can generate a margin call for me. If not them - I don't know who. Probably another Australian broker, likely Pepperstone, will see. As always, when you start looking...
Well here is the thing:

If Dukascopy is only operating an internal ECN and not really an ECN and is the counterparty to all your trades (which is really a market maker) like Ian said , then you might as well trade with one of those Australian brokers because Dukascopy is offering exactly the same thing as those Australian brokers but at least you can trade in smaller size and high leverage with the Australian ones which will fit your trading style better. Australia does have FOS which provides some protection to investment funds should anything happens to the broker or they refuse to let you withdraw provided the broker is a member of FOS which a majority of them are. If you DO want to start with an Australian broker however, I strongly suggest you go through an IB to get lower commission and even lower startup capital. And these IB's are pretty good. You get realtime reduction of commission every time you trade so there is no payment of rebates later after paying for the regular commission first. AND go with a broker that offers cTrader and open an cTrader ECN account if you really want to trade with an Australian broker.

The only superiority of Interactive Brokers is 1) your money will be in Canada and is guaranteed under CIPF should anything happen and you don't incur extra fees depositing AND withdrawing to/from those foreign brokers. These cost is EXPENSIVE and can really add up. 2) Interactive Brokers is a REAL ECN broker and if Dukascopy is reducing leverage to 1:30 anyway, the same as Interactive Broker, then you might as well trade with Interactive Brokers where your money is in Canada and you are trading with a real ECN.

All in all, there is no point trading with Dukascopy. If you don't mind trading with a foreign market maker broker, then you go with the Australian brokers. If you do want to trade with an ECN broker then you go with Interactive Broker. Once you put in higher startup capital, even with low leverage, trading in higher size is just like trading in microlots. It's like driving on the highway, once you drive at the same speed as everyone else on the highway, it doesn't become fast anymore and highway pretty much becomes local roads to you.

This is how I see it. Good luck!
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #49
  • Apr 8, 2015 3:51pm Apr 8, 2015 3:51pm
Interactivebrokers is for trading stocks, options, etc, not for trading forex. It is true that u can see orders stacks on level 2, but the leverage is only like 10:1. At that king of leverage, there is no point to trade forex because u will be lucky to make 20% annual return. With Interactivebrokers, you can trade stocks all over the world. If found a good stock that goes up 10000% in a year, then u do not need anything else.
  • #50
  • Apr 8, 2015 3:59pm Apr 8, 2015 3:59pm
Quoting mry2001
Interactivebrokers is for trading stocks, options, etc, not for trading forex. It is true that u can see orders on level 2, but the leverage is only like 10:1. At that king of leverage, there is no point to trade forex because u will be lucky to make 20% annual return. With Interactivebrokers, you can trade stocks all over the world. If found a good stock that goes up 10000% in a year, then u do not need anything else.
No leverage for trading forex at Interactive Brokers varies depending on the risk and liquidity of the currency pair. It's 33 - 40:1 for majors and as low as 5:1 for exotic pairs like the Russian Rubles. The 10:1 you mentioned is for South Korean Won if you want to trade it. LOL https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=margin&p=forex

So at 33:1 leverage, you can still profit as long as you have a good strategy. But then again if your strategy is not profitable, even if you have 1 million :1 leverage, you will still lose money and at that leverage, you will lose it pretty fast. LOL
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #51
  • Apr 8, 2015 6:41pm Apr 8, 2015 6:41pm
Agree. Well, as I posted, so far Interactive Brokers offered me a leverage of 1:1 so they are out of question already because of that. And this is just because I am from Alberta.

I am trading a system with a lot of small trades, so I may have, say, up to a 100 trades open at the same time. So I do need microlots even if I deposit a 100,000 as an example. Also that is why I care about leverage and margin so much as with this number of trades it may take a lot of margin to sustain them plus to the actual trades going into negative for some time.

Also, I need a broker without FIFO rule which removes all US and Canadian brokers out of my list too. I will run some math for Dukas if they can offer me 1:60 and if it does not work I will go with Australians again.

Forexia, I read about ECNs but not really sure it is that important for me or doable for the way I trade. So far I am nicely profitable with Vantage which is not ECN. As far as I understand ECN broker automatically requires bigger trading size to go out in the interbank space and as I just explained, I need to deposit millions to go full lots.

As they say, don't fix it if it ain't broken so I will keep doing what I am doing until it works...

My whole exercise was to find a second broker to split the risk of loosing everything if Vantage does what Alpari did.

Forexia, as you know everything, who out of regular Australians would you recommend? I talked to Pepperstone and I liked them. I talked to DMM and I did not like them. There is also AxiTrader and others. What do you think?
  • #52
  • Apr 8, 2015 7:12pm Apr 8, 2015 7:12pm
Quoting aa1
Agree. Well, as I posted, so far Interactive Brokers offered me a leverage of 1:1 so they are out of question already because of that. And this is just because I am from Alberta. I am trading a system with a lot of small trades, so I may have, say, up to a 100 trades open at the same time. So I do need microlots even if I deposit a 100,000 as an example. Also that is why I care about leverage and margin so much as with this number of trades it may take a lot of margin to sustain them plus to the actual trades going into negative for some time. Also,...
Ok if frequent trading in small lots is essential to your trading, then go with Australian brokers since you already trade with one and are profitable with them then like what you said, why fix it if it aint broken and especially they are able to offer you the leverage and accommodate the trade size you need. Out of all of the Australian brokers, I would recommend Pepperstone. They are really all the same but Pepperstone is the biggest and the best capitalized so I would go with them, through an introducing broker.
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #53
  • Apr 8, 2015 7:34pm Apr 8, 2015 7:34pm
Quoting Forexia
Try Interactive Brokers if you have $10K. They are regulated by IIROC and is a member of CIPF so your investment funds with them are protected in case anything happen to the broker. Below is the pro's and con's of this broker: Pros: Fast execution with very little slippage, rarely widening of spread even during news time, fast and reliable deposit AND withdraws, one of the cheapest commission and TRUE ECN Cons: Horrible trading platform (slow and user-unfriendly AND error-prone), absolutely out of market rollover interest rate, higher required margin...
Im from Alberta and use Oanda…
  • #54
  • Apr 8, 2015 9:33pm Apr 8, 2015 9:33pm
Oanda is answering that they do not open accounts for Albertans period. I used to have an account with them but back, I think, in 2012 they asked to confirm that I am an accredited investor and forced me to close the account. I don't know how you can trade with them. Good for you if you can.

I am sure there are ways, for example you can open an offshore company and trade through it, probably, but I don't think it is all worth it. I would trade with them if I could.
  • #55
  • Apr 10, 2015 5:06pm Apr 10, 2015 5:06pm
Quoting Forexia
{quote} No leverage for trading forex at Interactive Brokers varies depending on the risk and liquidity of the currency pair. It's 33 - 40:1 for majors and as low as 5:1 for exotic pairs like the Russian Rubles. The 10:1 you mentioned is for South Korean Won if you want to trade it. LOL https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=margin&p=forex So at 33:1 leverage, you can still profit as long as you have a good strategy. But then again if...
sadly getting killed slowly is more painful. is that why u like low leverage? lol. it doesnot prevent margin call but it does prevent rapid gain.
  • #56
  • Apr 10, 2015 7:32pm Apr 10, 2015 7:32pm
Quoting mry2001
{quote} sadly getting killed slowly is more painful. is that why u like low leverage? lol. it doesnot prevent margin call but it does prevent rapid gain.
I am just simply presenting the fact that it's NOT true that Interactive Brokers' leverage for forex is at 10:1 as what you have stated; that leverage only applies to ONE forex pair which is South Korean Won. Low leverage does have its benefit and its benefits varies according to the riskiness and liquidity of the forex pair being traded so it makes sense that Interactive Brokers applies different leverage rate to different forex pairs. It does not make sense to impose a low leverage to relatively less risky and highly liquid USD-based majors pairs for example but it is prudent to impose a relatively lower leverage to a highly illiquid and potentially risky currency pair such as South Korean Won which has the leverage of 10:1 or even lower leverage of 5:1 to even riskier currency pair like the Russian Rubles. .
Make your losses in demo. Earn your profits live.
  • #57
  • Apr 10, 2015 8:52pm Apr 10, 2015 8:52pm
I'm from BC. I have used a number of Aussie brokers, including Vantage and GOMarkets, and have landed on Pepperstone and IC Markets for the last couple if years. Happy with them.

I have an Interactive Brokers account, but honestly I found them really tough to deal with. As indicated, their platform is horrible and the login process is just not worth the effort. I don't use the account for forex at all.

I have always held Dukascopy in high regard, but kept bumping into the leverage issues and platform issues for meta trader as drawbacks. Haven't looked at them much recently, so there may have been changes.

I tried a couple of times to get an LMAX account but they invoke the nasty net worth rules for Canadians which is too bad. I hear good things about them.

You may want to use an out of Alberta address to register your account. Just a thought.
  • #58
  • Edited 6:12am Apr 11, 2015 5:47am | Edited 6:12am
thanks. I am talking to Dukas too. A strange thing to me is that they increase their weekend margin 3 times and the way I trade it can generate a margin call for me. So far they are unable to explain to me how it works providing conflicting answers, I will probably ask this question on Dukas thread.

They don't mind opening an account knowing that I am from Alberta. Their spread is high but I will go via an introducing broker which presumably will cut it down.

Also, I think all North America brokers are automatically following US restrictions on leverage and using FIFO rule which will not allow me to do what I do so I have to go overseas. I thought UK was a good option but after Alpari I am not sure any more. That's why I looked at Dukas in Switzerland. If not then, to me, Australia is the only decent place left. As I mentioned I am with Vantage currently and are happy with them. What I am doing now is just trying to spread the risk in finding another one or two decent brokers.

I have now Pepperstone, Global Prime and Dukas on my short list. Will take a look at LMAX since you mentioned it.

... just checked them out - a minimum trade size is 0.1 lot. I need microlots available so they are out for me.
  • #59
  • Apr 11, 2015 6:25am Apr 11, 2015 6:25am
Have you noticed - Ducascopy was founded by Russians, still runs by Russians. I have read about horrible slippage at Ducas.
Interactive Brokers are terrible for Forex. Leverage 1:50 at best and reports are stuffed with rounding errors you cannot delete. Charts are obsolete. They stop trading forex for one hour every day.
Is it worth protection?

If you had good trading with Alpari UK, which was my broker as well, until they decided to get rid of US and Canadian clients at the end of 2014, why don't you dive all the way down to Russian Alpari. No protection, but leverage up to1:1000 and tiny lots. Just withdraw your money on regular basis - it is the best protection.
  • #60
  • Apr 11, 2015 8:25am Apr 11, 2015 8:25am
I did not know that Dukas was founded by Russians. Can you post the link?

I would not open any account with any broker in Russia.

They stocked a lot of money in Europe so I know that Alpari UK was run by them and that is why it crashed, I believe. There is a lot of Russian money in Switzerland so maybe that is why you are saying Dukas is run by them?

I don't want to withdraw money on a regular basis, I want to grow my accounts as the position size gets bigger as I have bigger balance. It is an important factor in my overall strategy. Once I reach a certain size then I will be withdrawing it, I am not there yet.
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