Any Professionals Here ?

Hi guys,
I am new to this forum business, but I am curious about who is actually participating in this, I am a professional forex trader doing prop trading for a bank. Since I am not lucky enough to do this job in London or New York, you may believe it or not, but I have decided to open an account with an online broker in order to round up my salary.
The results are rather intriguing. I have had an account with cmc for some time, but they have deteriorated progresively, increasing slippage on stops during events and above all freezing the platform in high volatility environment, which was precisely when it was worthwhile trading, so I have decided to try other brokers.
I have opened an account with Oanda and GFX, and I find that things are not much different, with the aggravation, that these brokers do not even pretend to display market prices - they openly trade against their customers, deviating from markrt rates persistently and systematically. Last friday both of them have been many times deviating from market quotes. For example, EURUSD was 1.2060/61 on ebs, and they have been quoting 63/65 (oanda) or even 64/67 (GFX), keeping the quote on for several seconds. Basically, they try to analyse what is the net position of the scalpers at any given moment, and they push the quote against them, so that beyond the normal spread they rip you off extra. This thing goes on at times for many minutes, so paradoxically you could enter and exit your strategy all the same, but you never know when the offset from the market can flip over... It looks like there might be an arbitrage window here, but I do not have the time to play these games ...
So I wonder, if there is anyone around trading on platforms that are reflecting the market, like Hotspot, Baxter or eSpeed ? I do not want to trade futures on globex, because in this country futures are taxed, while forex spot trading is not. I am especially interested in the price efficiency issues, leverage, commissions, etc. Would welcome any serious comments.
Bibi.

The Currenex multi-bank platform is very in line with EBS. Clearing for a speculative account (w/leverage) is through Refco and they call it Refco Clear. Minimum account size of $250,000, spreads are usually 1 pip, and they charge commission like hotspot does.

http://www.currenex.com/services/fxtrades.shtml?overview&

http://www.refco.com/ps/ps.refcoclear.asp

Other multi-bank platforms are FX Connect and FXall

http://www.statestreet.com/capabilities/trading_services/products/ts_073_fx_connect.html

http://www.fxall.com/

Thanks for info. The real point seems to be, that Refco put you through on to interbank platforms for a fee. I haven't seen currenex, but I have seen fxall, and it is not a well designed platform for frequent trading. If you want to try, contact cantor - their eSpeed looks phenomenal, and I think you can start with $ 100.000. I am going to have a look at that soon. The question remains how high are the fees... They are talking about 10$ per million when aggressor and 7.5$ when passive.
Other issue is that ECN type platforms enable you to put your interest in, and maybe see occasionally 1 pip spread, but they do not give you a certainty of execution on a hit like the good streaming single bank platforms. Out of those, so far the best are Autobahn and Click and Trade (DB and Dresdner). It would be interesting to find out if there are brokers that can clear you on those platforms, and if you can access the best spread. UBS will let you trade on a margin, but they allow only 10 times leverage and show you 4 pips spread on EUR... Besides, their platform is a pain in the ass - apparently they are to roll out a streaming version in coming days...

blueingreen

I worked on the autobahn project when i was a DB (as a developer) - personally I wouldnt touch it with a barge pole - dont know about click and trade though

RE: autobahn

Pervaz said:

blueingreen

I worked on the autobahn project when i was a DB (as a developer) - personally I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole - dont know about click and trade though

Click to expand...

I disagree. I have used it for some time, and I found it to be an ideal tool for short term trading. The price engine is set up so it always follows the price - i.e. you always get a bid equal to ebs in a falling market and an offer equal to ebs in a rising market, therefore if you are a momentum trader like myself, you never pay over the best market price. The problem seems to be that they do not like to have on board customers that make money trading frequently, and so in the end they limited my liquidity so much that I quit. But before that I did have several days of 1 yard turnover on eur with them, and it was great fun.
Click and Trade is extremely simple, just a spot execution window and a trade blotter - the great thing about it is that it is almost a surefire thing. I think I've traded at least 20.000 times on it and I got no fill maybe on three occasions, mainly due to them tinkering with the size limit. And eventually this is what counts most in a market that is moving. In normal situations you can always get in or out on ebs, but when it comes to stopping yourself out or into a trade in a market that is on the go, the platforms are invaluable.

How is the autobahn platform these days?

I use BARX. Have no complaints, but then I ain't exactly high-freq. Maybe, GammaJamma, the Master of FX on this here forum, can help you.