FXCM Discussion

It's my pleasure, FT

No, the liquidity providers on our NDD model cannot see your resting orders (entry orders, stops and limits).

What Do Liquidity Providers See?

When a trader places an order through FXCM's Straight-Through Processing system, an exact matching order is sent from FXCM to the liquidity provider that is providing the best price. For example, a buy order in the example below would go to liquidity provider #2.


To the liquidity provider, all orders appear as Market Orders from FXCM and contain no information about the trader. Since your stops, limits, and your entry orders are invisible to these price providers, we create an environment free of price manipulation. When we combine this with no re-quote trading you have the opportunity to confidently trade all market conditions, even during key news events.

Each liquidity provider must decide for themselves how best to quote prices, but regardless of the strategies they use, they must compete with each other to fill your order. For example, if your stop order on a long (buy) position is triggered, then it's because the best available price (the highest bid or sell price) from among all the competing providers was still low enough to trigger your stop order. Even in that case, your stop order to close your long position will be filled at the best available price (the highest sell price) from those competing providers.

You can find this phenomenon occurring in other markets. It's not specific to FXCM or even the forex market as a whole. That's because market tops and bottoms are often formed as the result of an exhaustion of buy orders or sell orders respectively.

An influx of buy orders near a market top can eat into the liquidity available in the market at a given ask price. This in turn results in the best ask price in the market rising to a higher level. When the ask price rises faster than the bid price, you see this on your chart as a widening spread.

When the demand from buy orders coming into the market is exhausted, you may see liquidity return on the sell side. This results in the best ask price in the market dropping. The ask price then comes back down to be closer to the bid, and you see this on your chart as a tightening spread.

As a result of the SNB event on January 15, 2015, FXCM ended with a regulatory capital shortfall. Accordingly, we needed to get a loan to cover this balance, which we did. Since that time, our plan has always been to repay the loan through the sale of non-core assets: https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...77#post9172377

Since FXCM US has not been a contributor to overall profits for the firm over the past few years, FXCM will target significant cost cutting by closing the US entity. Specifically, withdrawing from this business will free approximately $52 million in capital. We will use any proceeds from the sale of the US accounts, as well as the large amount of regulatory capital currently tied up, to reduce the balance of our loan from Leucadia. With the reduction of this loan balance, along with sales of non-core assets that were previously announced, FXCM could be in a position to fully pay off the Leucadia loan before the end of this year.

With this exit, FXCM will be in a better position to service our international customers and focus on our profitable subsidiaries. Our full financials can be found here and we will announce our Q4 and full year 2016 financials in the next few weeks.

We try to give as much advance notice regarding margin changes as we can. Given what happened with the SNB, the forex industry is now looking very hard at any potentially similar issues, especially with the increased geopolitical and economic risks that contribute to volatility such as occurred during with Brexit and the US elections.

The primary change FXCM made was to remove some currency pairs from our platform that carried significant risk due to over-active manipulation by their respective governments either by a floor, ceiling, peg or band. We also raised the margin requirements for other currency pairs which reduces the maximum leverage. Sometimes these margin changes are temporary such as with Brexit, and other times these changes are mandated by the regulators themselves: https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...99#post9236899

Whether a Broker is Market Maker Or ECN, if you know the trading and have decent money management, you can always come out as a winner.

One can not cheat that much as several platforms indicating the price of that particular time if you want to check.

What about the liquidity provider owned by FXCM? Conflict of interest there, maybe? lol. What a joke. to come on here and continue with the bullshit that FXCM is a reputable broker is a complete insult to everyone's intelligence.

...

1 min ago..Left FXCM BS Tick chart vs my ECN Broker (MT4 Market watch)

Amazing isn't it. I've been with my offshore ECN for almost three years now. Yet the most ridiculusly regulated country in the world allows their brokers to get away with whatever they want. They have no idea what they are even regulating. Their answer to everything is decrease leverage, don't worry about the stop hunting, the freezing platforms, just decrease the leverage and stop the hedging and make sure we close trades in the order they are opened.... that'll fix everything.lmfao.

..........Blessings in disguise....Much happier now.
Goodnight pipmaster77

agree. pathetic Forex Trading regulations in US.

Very true. Same goes for Binary Options.

I wish I had that option.

Excellent video for scalpers

Summaries: The hidden FXCM ethos - a culture of non transparency, deceptions and fraud.

Ethos:

1. A Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology.
2. In modern usage, ethos denotes the disposition, character, or fundamental values particular to a specific person, people, corporation, culture, or movement. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos

Source: http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/pr7528-17
FXCMs Undisclosed Interest
Contrary to these representations, the Order finds, FXCM had an undisclosed interest in the market maker that consistently won the largest share of FXCMs trading volume and thus was taking positions opposite FXCMs retail customers. FXCM, the Order finds, formulated a plan in 2009 to create an algorithmic trading system, using an FXCM computer program that could make markets to FXCMs customers, and thereby either replace or compete with the independent market makers on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform. Although FXCM eventually spun off the algorithmic trading system as a new company, in actuality the company remained closely aligned with FXCM, according to the Order. This market maker received special trading privileges, benefitted from a no-interest loan provided by FXCM, worked out of FXCMs offices, and used FXCM employees to conduct its business, the Order further finds.
The Order finds that FXCM and the market maker agreed that the market maker would rebate to FXCM approximately 70 percent of its revenue from trading on FXCMs retail forex platform. In total, through monthly payments from 2010 through 2014, the company rebated to FXCM approximately $77 million of the revenue it achieved. However, FXCM did not disclose to customers, among other things, that this company FXCMs principal market maker was a startup firm spun off from FXCM, the Order further finds.
False Statements to the NFA
The Order also finds that FXCM willfully made false statements to NFA in order to conceal FXCMs role in the creation of its principal market maker as well as the fact that the market makers owner had been an FXCM employee and managing director. The Order finds that during a meeting between NFA compliance staff and FXCM executives, Niv omitted to mention to NFA the details of FXCMs relationship with the market maker.
The Order holds Niv and Ahdout liable for FXCMs fraud violations as controlling persons who were responsible, directly or indirectly, for FXCMs violations. Niv is also held liable for FXCMs false statements to NFA as a controlling person who was responsible directly or indirectly for those violations. FXCM Holdings is held liable for FXCMs fraud and false statement violations as principal of FXCM, the Order also finds.
The CFTC thanks NFA for its assistance in this matter.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this action are Christopher Giglio, Patrick Daly, David C. Newman, Xavier Romeu-Matta, K. Brent Tomer, Lenel Hickson, Jr., and Manal M. Sultan.

Source: http://financefeeds.com/fxcm-and-ceo...nst-customers/
Trading against customers, whilst all the while maintaining that the firm used a no dealing desk model
From September 4, 2009 through at least 2014, FXCM and FXCM Holdings, by and through their officers, employees, and agents, including Respondents Niv and Ahdout, engaged in false and misleading solicitations of FXCM s retail foreign exchange customers.
FXCM represented to its retail customers that when they traded forex on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform, FXCM would have no conflict of interest. According to these representations, retail customers profits or losses would be irrelevant to FXCMs bottom line, because FXCMs role in the customers trades was merely as a credit intermediary. According to FXCM, the risk would be borne by banks and other independent market makers that provided liquidity to the platform.
Contrary to these representations, FXCM had an undisclosed interest in the market maker that consistently won the largest share of FXCM s trading volume and thus was taking positions opposite FXCMs retail customers. That market maker was an FXCM-backed startup firm that was founded by a former FXCM executive while he was working at FXCM, that operated for the first year of its existence out of FXCM s offices, and that shared most of its trading profits with FXCM.
FXCM also made false statements to NFA staff to conceal its role in the creation of its principal market maker as well as the market makers owners previous role as an FXCM executive.
Mssrs Niv and Ahdout directed and controlled FXCM s operations throughout the relevant period and were responsible, directly or indirectly, for violations described herein. Niv was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the false statements made to NFA.
FXCM, which was founded in 1999 and became a registered FCM in 2001, provides retail a FX trading environment and acts as counterparty in transactions with its retail customers in which customers can buy one currency and simultaneously sell another, and as of July 31, 2016, FXCM had over 20,000 active retail customer accounts representing more than $170 million in liabilities.
Until approximately 2007, FXCM provided liquidity to its retail forex customers primarily through an internal dealing desk a division of FXCM that determined the prices offered to customers and held positions opposite customers.
In or around 2007, FXCM transitioned from utilizing a dealing desk to transact with customers to using what it termed an agency model for the majority of its retail forex customers, which it described to customers as providing No Dealing Desk forex trading. (FXCM using its dealing desk to trade with retail customers, by contrast, was referred to as the principal model.)
Whereas a dealing desk broker acts as a market maker and may be trading against your position, FXCM claimed that its agency model eliminated that major conflict of interest between broker and retail customer.
In FXCMs agency model, price quotations were provided not by FXCMs internal dealing desk but by banks and other third-party market makers sometimes also referred to as liquidity providers or LPs.
FXCM explained its agency model to its customers as follows: When our customer executes a trade on the best price quotation offered by our FX market makers, we act as a credit intermediary, or riskless principal, simultaneously entering into offsetting trades with both the customer and the FX market maker.
FXCM claimed that trading on its agency model was different from a dealing desk broker because: We earn trading fees and commissions by adding a markup to the price provided by the FX market makers and generate our trading revenues based on the volume of transactions, not trading profits or losses.
FXCM Creates an Algorithmic Trading System to Trade Opposite Customers
In 2009, Niv, Ahdout, and others at FXCM formulated a plan to create an algorithmic trading system an FXCM computer program that could make markets to FXCMs customers and thereby either replace or compete with the independent market makers on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform.
Mssrs Niv and Ahdout hired a high-frequency trader to a Managing Director position at FXCM. HF Traders employment agreement, signed by the HFT trader and Mr Ahdout, provided that FXCM would pay the HFT Trader a base salary plus a bonus of 30 percent of trading profits generated by the HFT Traders algorithmic trading system, with FXCM keeping the remaining 70 percent. The HFT Trader began working for FXCM on October 5, 2009 and ultimately developed the algorithmic trading system for FXCM.
FXCM Spun Off Its Algorithmic Trading System As a New Company Owned by the high frequency trader
In early 2010, when HF Trader was finalizing his trading algorithm, FXCMs Compliance department raised concerns that trading against FXCM retail customers might contradict FXCMs marketing statements about its No Dealing Desk model.
FXCM determined that HF Trader would form his own company and operate as an external liquidity provider for FXCM. On March 23, 2010, The HFT Trader formed his new company (hereinafter, HFT Co). FXCM intended that HF Trader, under the auspices of HFT Co, would use his trading algorithm to trade on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform.
On April 14, 2010, the HFT Trader resigned from FXCM. HF Trader and FXCM agreed that HF Traders resignation would not change the economic relationship between FXCM and HF Trader, including, as stated in his employment contract, HF Traders retention of 30 percent of his algorithmic trading profits, with FXCM capturing the residual 70 percent.
To that end, a March 1, 2010 services agreement between HFT Co and FXCM, and a superseding May 1, 2010 services agreement between HFT Co and FXCM Holdings, provided that HFT Co would make monthly payments to FXCM in the amount of $21 per million dollars of trading volume executed by HFT Co. HF Trader and FXCM believed that this amount approximated 70 percent of HFT Cos profits from trading on FXCMs retail forex platform.
HFT Co Maintained a Close Relationship With FXCM
To help launch HFT Cos operations, FXCM gave HFT Co a $2 million interest-free loan, and allowed HFT Co to use FXCMs prime broker through a prime of prime account. When HF Trader resigned from FXCM, he continued working from FXCMs offices, rent free. HFT Co was located in FXCMs offices in New York City until approximately April 2011, when the company finally moved into its own office space, in Jersey City, New Jersey.
HFT Co also used the HFT Traders trading algorithm, which was FXCMs intellectual property, to conduct its trading. For a period of time, HFT Co used FXCMs servers and other technology, including FXCMs email systems. HF Trader actively used his FXCM email address until at least September 2011, and his FXCM email account was still receiving emails in 2014.
Two FXCM employees who assisted HFT Co received supplemental bonuses from FXCM, reimbursed by HFT Co, on account of their work. One of these employees spent approximately 80 percent of the work week at HFT Cos offices from 2011 until 2014.
FXCM Received Nearly $80 Million in Revenue from HFT Cos Trading
Pursuant to the May 1, 2010 services agreement, FXCM sent HFT Co monthly invoices, which were to be paid by HFT Co to FXCM Holdings. Through August 2011, HFT Co. paid to FXCM Holdings $21 per million notional volume transacted by HFT Co on the FXCM retail forex platform and paid $16 per million from September 2011 through July 2014. From 2010 to 2014, no market maker besides HFT Co paid FXCM for order flow.
Notwithstanding the formal documentation of the monthly payments from HFT Co as reflecting a fixed $21 fee per aggregated volume of Transactions executed, in reality the payments represented HFT Co and FXCMs agreement to share profits derived from HFT Cos trading against FXCMs retail customers.
FXCM viewed HFT Cos profits and losses (P&L) from HFT Cos trading as essentially belonging to FXCM, less the 30 percent HFT Co was permitted to keep. For instance, FXCM calculated its monthly preliminary P&L statement, in part, by taking HFT Cos monthly P&L and simply subtracting 30 percent. When spreads tightened and HFT Cos profits dropped to considerably less than $30 per million trading, FXCM and HFT Co amended the services agreement to lower the payments per million dollars.
HFT Co reported its P&L to FXCM on a weekly basis for a period of time following its formation. The invoices FXCM sent HFT Co seeking Rebate for FX Trades described the amounts billed as P&L. In exchange for these payments from HFT Co, FXCM agreed that it would favor HFT Co over other market makers in routing retail customer orders.
FXCM permitted HFT Co to win all ties with other market makers; provided HFT Co with a real-time view of price quotations offered by other market makers; and added smaller markups to HFT Co prices than to prices provided by other market makers.
On the day of HF Traders resignation from FXCM, HF Traders trading algorithm was used in a full-scale trading session for the very first time. Based on the trading that day, FXCM anticipated that HFT Co would capture approximately 25-30% of overall trade volume on FXCMs No Dealing Desk Platform.
In addition to favoring HFT Co over other market makers, HFT Co made use of, and FXCM allowed HFT Co to use, a hold timer that enabled HFT Co to execute a trade at the start or end of a hold timer period, whichever was better for HFT Co. In late 2011 and 2012, HFT Co continued to make use of a hold timer but would accept or reject the trade based on the price at the end of the hold timer period. HFT Co also made use of a previous quote practice whereby HFT Co submitted a quote to FXCM and FXCM would respond with an execution request based on the trading limits contained in a customer limit order and not the previous quote provided by FXCM.
In total, through HFT Cos monthly payments from 2010 through 2014, HFT Co rebated to FXCM approximately $77 million of the trading revenue HFT Co achieved.
FXCM Concealed Its Relationship with HFT Co from Its Customers
As of October 2010, FXCMs website promised No conflict of interest between broker and trader and No dealer intervention in trades, stating thatevery trade is executed back to back with one of the worlds premier banks or financial institutions, which compete to provide FXCM with bid and ask prices. FXCM did not disclose that its principal market maker, HFT Co, was a startup firm spun off of FXCM.
For example, FXCMs website implied that its market makers were institutions independent of FXCM: We have obtained close banking relationships with some of the worlds largest and most aggressive price providers. The website continued: FXCM does not take a market position eliminating a major conflict of interest. A dealing desk broker, which acts as a market maker, may be trading against your position. However, with our No Dealing Desk execution, we fill your orders from the best prices available to us from the banks.
As another example, in 2011, FXCM published a diagram showing banks that acted as market makers for FXCM and showing the percentage of volume to each liquidity provider: BNP (13.5%), Citi (8.0%), Deutsche Bank (3.5%), Dresdner (13.3%), Goldman (14.4%), JP Morgan (3.6%), Morgan Stanley (8.0), and Citi-Prime Broker (All Others) (35.8%). HFT Co the liquidity provider with by far the largest volume was not specifically identified but instead listed under Citi-Prime Broker (All Others).
Good catch says employee
When a list of FXCM s top liquidity providers for the first half of 2010 was circulated internally, showing HFT Co with over 17 percent of the companys volume, an FXCM employee asked whether that reference should be blacked out. Another employee responded: Good catch, put them as HFT 1 .
In September 2011, an FXCM executive raised Compliance Concerns with members of FXCMs Compliance department, noting a problem with HFT Co hanging orders that arose from the fact that the [HFT Co] adapter is different technology than the rest of the bank adapters. An FXCM compliance officer responded: Given the sensitivity of the counter party involved we would prefer the events dont happen so that we do not draw unwanted attention.
FXCM did not disclose HFT Co as a market maker to the retail public until late 2012. Even then, at that time, in response to an individual posting about HFT Co on an online bulletin board called Forex Factory, FXCM obfuscated HFT Cos relationship to FXCM.
The Forex Factory post [https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...97#post6079497], anonymously written by fx insider, stated: So I just heard something interesting from a friend about FXCM s no dealing desk. Apparently their largest liquidity provider by far is a small firm named [HFT Co], which is owned by FXCM itself and was set up solely to act as counterparty to FXCM clients. They sit on top of FXCM s liquidity pool with last look so that for every FXCM trade, they can choose whether to take it or pass it on to normal liquidity providers. Can anyone confirm this? It would be interesting to know how much information is shared.
Two days later, FXCM posted its response on Forex Factory[https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...60#post6085060], stating: While FXCM does own a liquidity provider, the name of that company is Lucid Markets. Its an institutional level liquidity provider in the forex market and to date had provided no liquidity to FXCMs retail no dealing desk execution. FXCM then implied that it was restricted from identifying HFT Co to the public as one of its market makers, stating: Non-disclosure agreements mean that we dont normally name the 17 liquidity providers that stream prices on our No Dealing Desk feed. In fact, there was no non-disclosure agreement between FXCM and HFT Co, and, as noted above, FXCM had disclosed ten of its other market makers to the public.
FXCMs response also implied that HFT Co did not, as fx insider put it, have a unique ability to choose whether to take FXCM trades, and that FXCM lacked an ownership interest in HFT Co: While the majority of liquidity providers in this list are banks, there are also some hedge funds and other financial institutions, one of which is HFT Co. However FXCM does not own them, nor do they have control over what orders can go to other liquidity providers. To the contrary, because HFT Co did have both real-time read of book of FXCMs other market makers and the ability to win all ties, fx insider was correct in stating that HFT Co had the power to choose to take whatever trades it wished.
FXCM Made False Statements to NFA About HFT Co
In connection with NF As 2013 examination ofFXCM, NFA compliance staff met with FXCM executives in Chicago on October 24, 2013. In response to NF As questions about FXCMs relationship with HFT Co, Niv omitted to mention any of the details described above concerning FXCMs relationship with HFT Co and its principal, HF Trader. Instead, Niv misrepresented that he had a prior working relationship with HF Trader from when HF Trader was a trader employed by other liquidity providers.
Members ofFXCMs Compliance department also made a series of misstatements to NFA. On October 22, 2013, two days before FXCMs meeting with NFA, an FXCM compliance officer told NF A in an email: FXCM LLC does not have any direct or indirect ownership, interest, or affiliation with entities that provide liquidity to retail clients.
Given, among other things, FXCM s interest in HFT Co, this statement was false. After NF A sought clarification of this statement, asking FXCM to provide representation as it relates to owners, principals, APs [associated persons], employees, and affiliates of FXCM, another compliance officer compounded FXCMs previous misrepresentation in a March 24, 2014 email:
To my knowledge, there are no present or past owners, principals, APs, or employees of affiliates of FXCM LLC that have direct or indirect ownership, interest, or affiliation with entities that provide liquidity to retail clients on our No Dealing Desk Model.
This was not true, as the compliance officer knew, because HF Trader, a former employee (and, indeed, an executive) of FXCM, was the principal and 100 percent owner of HFT Co, which was the primary provider of liquidity to retail clients on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform.
On April 4, 2014, in response to further attempts by NF A to clarify the relationship between FXCM and HFT Co, an FXCM compliance officer stated in an email: The HFT trader served as a consultant for FXCM from October 2009 through April 2010. The HFT trader worked primarily on software coding.
Once again, the compliance officers representation to NF A was false and misleading. HF Trader was not an FXCM consultant but an executive of FXCM with an employment agreement, and in light of NF As obvious interest in FXCMs relationship with HFT Co it was deceptive to characterize HF Traders work at FXCM i.e., creating the trading algorithm that HFT Co used to trade opposite FXCMs customers generically as software coding. Mr Niv generally participated in and approved of responses to NFA.
As a result of all of this, the settlement accepted by the CFTC has resulted in an order that FXCM must pay $7 million within ten days of the order which was set in force yesterday, and that Drew Niv and FXCM shall desist from further violating section 9a (4) of the Commodity Act.
Additionally, and perhaps more gravely, FXCM has been ordered not to accept new customer accounts following the entry of the order, on yesterdays date and Mssrs Niv and Ahdout will within 30 days from now withdraw from registration to the CFTC in all capacities and never apply for registration again, meaning that is the end of the road for FXCM in the US market.
FXCM share prices collapsed this morning, and it is very likely that they will continue to do so as the company will very likely not make a recovery from this fundamental operational breach of trust over such a long period of time.
GAIN Capital will purchase the entire US client book from FXCM, making it the largest brokerage in the US by a massive margin.
http://15993-presscdn-0-55.pagely.ne...1-1000x454.png
Source Google Finance

Source: 1. https://www.forexfactory.com/showthr...26#post8054326 2. https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-re...s%E2%80%99-and
The Financial Conduct Authority fines FXCM UK 4 million for making ‘unfair profits’ and not being open with the FCA

Re source ref 1. FXCM's ambassador front of transparency and openness, alias Jason Rogers, chose not to answer.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/fxcm-forex-idUSL1N1G60YY
FXCM changes company name; appoints interim CEO
By Reuters
PUBLISHED: 17:29, 21 February 2017 | UPDATED: 17:29, 21 February 2017

By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | NEW YORK

NEW YORK, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Embattled U.S. currency broker FXCM Inc said on Tuesday it has changed its company name to Global Brokerage Inc, two weeks after it had been ordered by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to cease operations in the United States for fraud.

In a statement, FXCM said it will also change its ticker symbol to GLBR. The change in the company name and ticker is effective Feb. 27.

The company ...................................

Sources also told Reuters that FXCM employees say staff in London have been told to seek new employment and that the company plans to move out of its current location in the heart of the City of London.

In ............................

Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/glbr-...160500024.html
GLBR/FXCM SHAREHOLDER ALERT: The Law Offices of Vincent Wong Notifies Investors of a Class Action Involving Global Brokerage, Inc. (formerly FXCM, Inc.) and a Lead Plaintiff Deadline of April 10, 2017

If you suffered a loss in FXCM you have until April 10, 2017 to request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn’t require that you serve as a lead plaintiff. To obtain additional information, contact Vincent Wong, Esq. either via email [email protected], by telephone at 212.425.1140, or visit http://www.wongesq.com/pslra/fxcm-inc.

Is there a book version or something we can take to the beach for the weekend

Still made $5 off these thieves. HA! take that FXCM...

FXCM Spun Off Its Algorithmic Trading System As a New Company Owned by the high frequency trader
In early 2010, when HF Trader was finalizing his trading algorithm, FXCMs Compliance department raised concerns that trading against FXCM retail customers might contradict FXCMs marketing statements about its No Dealing Desk model.
FXCM determined that HF Trader would form his own company and operate as an external liquidity provider for FXCM. On March 23, 2010, The HFT Trader formed his new company (hereinafter, HFT Co). FXCM intended that HF Trader, under the auspices of HFT Co, would use his trading algorithm to trade on FXCMs No Dealing Desk platform

I'm very keen to explore the inner workings of this algorithm . I wonder if it was released under the court case . Once we know how it works it can be defeated. I presume this practice is also happening at fxcm Australia and other countries, probably still happening now.

ROFL
Not again this stupid fake and false orderflow BS.

Those who can't trade, teach.
He should rename his channel and website to what it really is: BS-Day-Trading

Whatever works for you...

What the hell is a FXCM consultant doing here trying to defend FXCM. You guys are scum , hope lots of business is lost and you go broke.

Don't listen to that moron. No BS Day Trading is about trading futures. Since the collapse of FXCM US, I've moved to trading futures and use the tools in that video. Thing is, it's not applicable in it's purest form in spot Forex for two big reasons.

(1) Tick sizes and values in futures are different than tick sizes and values in Forex.
(2) The orderbook is for the futures market, not the Forex market.

While it CAN help provide insight into directionality with regards to the spot price, the numerical data (limit order/execution quantities, etc.) doesn't translate over to the spot market. I subscribed to a futures feed a while before FXCM US went *boom* and was using it to give me a sense of the market environment in the spot market but not to scalp it. I experimented with using the data to scalp and it doesn't work very well. But in terms of giving you a big picture for the day? Absolutely useful if you understand it. Most of the idiots around here know little to nothing about market microstructure and order flow so, take the idiots who just want their egos stroked with a grain of salt. The tools provided in trading futures (aside from my broker exploding) is the big reason I switched markets. It's shocking what you can accomplish in trading when the data and tools are actually useful.