Best broker for Scalping

[BILLV]

I've tried many brokers over the years and if you are scalping for a few pips, it is vital to have low transaction costs. For this reason I recommend ICMarkets, an Australian regulated broker where our money is held in AAA rated Australian banks. For EURUSD I pay $5.50 commission and usually close to 0 spread, (Maybe 0.1 or 0.2) so overall the trading cost is less than 1 pip per lot.

Recently I also had a look at FXCM because they were advertising that they have low spreads and I found out that they reduced their spreads so they are not extremely expensive any more, but they charge commissions twice, Once when you enter a trade and again when you close a trade, plus I saw in the demo that they were charging me commission for my pending trades which none else does.... And another thing, they charge fees for domestic withdraws.

So I run away fast

 

[l&c traders]

Hello has anybody used df markets for trading? Might be a bit of topic

 

[Trader333]

So who would you suggest we use ?

 

[Alessiop]

So, we the traders who are particularly scalpers have to choose in regulated trading broker which allow scalping without any limitations.

Hi all, I'm new here, what are these scalping limitations with regulated brokers?

 

[Paek]

For me, I now express my own opinion, ********** best company in this type of trade, but despite this I prefer more restrained TC

 

[Jason Rogers]

I saw in the demo that they were charging me commission for my pending trades which none else does.

Hi Bill,

There seems to be some confusion. FXCM does not charge commissions for pending orders (stops, limits, entry orders). You are charged a commission only when your order is executed, and as you noted our spreads are very competitive.

And another thing, they charge fees for domestic withdraws.

So I run away fast

While there is a fee for bank wire transfers, FXCM also offers free withdrawal methods in Australia. You can withdraw funds via EFT or back to your credit/debit card at no cost.

Furthermore, to address the main topic of this discussion thread, we welcome scalpers at FXCM.

On our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution, we offset each of your orders one-for-one with the best prices from competing liquidity providers. That means we don't profit from your losses or lose from your profits. Instead, we profit from your trading volume.

The trading volume scalpers can generate make them some of our best clients. We even have an Active Trader program that can provide discounts on commissions for the highest volume scalpers.

 

[BILLV]

what are these scalping limitations with regulated brokers?

Some of them don't allow EA's and some don't allow you to move your stop close to your entry price.
I'm suspicious of brokers who do such things because why would they do it if it wasn't in order to stop you from winning?

In Metatrader right click on any currency pair, click on symbols
then find the currency pair you want to look at, and click on properties.

See if the stop level is zero
If it's not zero the broker doesn't want you to win.

 

[BILLV]

Hi Bill,

There seems to be some confusion. FXCM does not charge commissions for pending orders (stops, limits, entry orders). You are charged a commission only when your order is executed, and as you noted our spreads are very competitive.

This is what I saw in the account history.
Furthermore, the spreads are more competitive than before, but you charge commission in both entry and exit. Isn't so?

Also, your leverage on this account type is limited to 100:1
If we want higher leverage than 100:1 then the only option is the standard account with the dealing desk.

I also read somewhere about synking issues of your metatrader server to your main server and how people are disadvantaged from this. Trades closing with x$ loss in metatrader and after synking appearing with more loss.
Why would traders bother with brokers like this when life can be easy and significantly cheaper with a smaller broker like IC Markets, Pepperstone, Global Prime etc etc.

I pay $5.50 commission per round lot with ICMarkets and nearly zero spread on EURUSD and I'm not a big volume customer.

 

[Jason Rogers]

This is what I saw in the account history.

Hi Bill,

I can confirm that FXCM does not charge commissions for pending orders. I would be happy to take a look at the information you saw in your account history that seemed to you to be commissions for pending orders. FXCM only charges commissions for executed orders.

Furthermore, the spreads are more competitive than before, but you charge commission in both entry and exit. Isn't so?

That is correct. On our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution, FXCM does not make money on the spread, since we offset each of your orders one-for-one with the best prices from competing liquidity providers without adding any markup* to these prices. Instead, we make our money by charging a commission for executing your orders on entry and exit.

Also, your leverage on this account type is limited to 100:1
If we want higher leverage than 100:1 then the only option is the standard account with the dealing desk.

The higher the leverage, the less money traders have to put up as margin for their trades. I can understand why you want to be able to trade with as little margin as possible, but on the flip side it's important to keep in mind that a lower margin requirement increases the chances that a major market move could result in a negative balance in traders' accounts.

For this reason, we limit the leverage we offer on NDD to 100:1. On Mini accounts, where we are the liquidity provider and account balances are smaller, we can offer up to 400:1 leverage. (Leverage on US accounts is limited to 50:1 to comply with CFTC regulations.)

I also read somewhere about synking issues of your metatrader server to your main server and how people are disadvantaged from this. Trades closing with x$ loss in metatrader and after synking appearing with more loss.

The information you read it out of date by several years. Ever since FXCM replaced the old MT4 bridge with a direct connection between our MT4 platform and our back office, there have been no autosyncs, and therefore no autosyncing issues.

A unique advantage of our MT4 setup is that you can use multiple platforms to place trades on a single account. MT4 (desktop and mobile) and Trading Station (desktop, mobile and web) can be accessed with the same account login details.

Why would traders bother with brokers like this when life can be easy and significantly cheaper with a smaller broker like IC Markets, Pepperstone, Global Prime etc etc.

I pay $5.50 commission per round lot with ICMarkets and nearly zero spread on EURUSD and I'm not a big volume customer.

Cheap does not necessarily mean good value.

Transaction cost is important but it is only one of many factors to consider when choosing a broker along with 24 hour customer support, trading platforms offered, education, resources and quality of execution.

FXCM published stats proving our clients receive positive slippage as often as they receive negative slippage. We also offer unique functions like Market Range and Range Entry on our Trading Station platform to help you limit your negative slippage while still receiving the full benefits of any positive slippage available in the market.

Furthermore, we are one of the only retail forex brokers in the world that's a publicly-traded company regulated on 3 continents. Our size means we can provide value added services that may not be available with smaller firms to the same degree. You mentioned yourself that you are not a big volume customer. That's all the more reason to consider the other factors that make trading with FXCM a good value.



* Note that clients of some introducing brokers may be charged a markup on the spread by their IB for value added services such as premium charts or trading signals but in all such cases any markup will be disclosed in their account opening documentation.

 

[BILLV]

Hi Bill,
That's all the more reason to consider the other factors that make trading with FXCM a good value

Jason

You've done a good job answering my concerns but FXCM is still not good value for me.

Personally I don't place many trades but my EA often places many trades so the transaction costs quickly add up.
Even the swap charges are important to me because 1 of my strategies leaves trades open for many days.

Also, why is your margin % on EURCHF so high?
You are telling us how good FXCM is but when we look closely it isn't such a good value after all.

 

[Jason Rogers]

Jason

You've done a good job answering my concerns but FXCM is still not good value for me.

Hi Bill,

My main goal was to address your concerns. I wish you the best with your trading regardless of where you trade.

Personally I don't place many trades but my EA often places many trades so the transaction costs quickly add up.

High volume traders can qualify for commission discounts through FXCM's Active Trader program. You can email activetrader AT fxcm DOT com for more details.

Even the swap charges are important to me because 1 of my strategies leaves trades open for many days.

Note you can earn swap (AKA rollover interest) if you are long the currency in the pair with the higher interest rate. FXCM's rollover rates are competitive which is another factor to consider along with execution quality (positive vs. negative slippage) if you hold positions open for extended periods.

Also, why is your margin % on EURCHF so high?

The margin requirements for certain currency pairs are set higher than average for risk management purposes. Such additional margin requirements can be reevaluated as market risks change.

You are telling us how good FXCM is but when we look closely it isn't such a good value after all.

There's no harm in us agreeing to disagree.

As of the latest publicly available data, FXCM executed an average of 584,753 retail client trades per day for a total volume of $287 billion in April 2016. Our position as an industry leader confirms the value many traders see in FXCM.

 

[vanillaman]

As most brokers will take our trades in-house they ultimately don't want us to win so they will use every trick at their disposal to make it harder for us to win and the Stop level is 1 trick they use. They don't want us to move our stop to break even quickly so many of them will have the minimum stop set to 5 pips.

Another classic trick is slippage. They don't fill our orders at the right price and don't close them at the right price either, They delay execution and give us the worst fills possible.
Of course this is done by their software.

Slippage might be harder to detect but the Stop level is an obvious sign that the broker doesn't want us to win. So don't just walk away, RUN as fast as you can

Well Bill, you are one of the few sensible people here who actually get the fact that no broker wants you to prosper unless they are highly compensated, rest assured if they give with one hand they will take with the other. The more expensive the product the less prone to manipulation it is. All these cheap spread brokers, you will all be surprised to learn that 0.5pip spread is actually a 3 pip spread when you talke into account the mark up on exit. That's just one of many ways, they are ripping you off.

 

[DT]

well the main issue is that lots of them aren't really brokers... they tend to either run a bucket shop model or a pseudo ECN model with an opaque micro-structure where the main liquidity provider is... them or some entity owned by them. Some others will make an attempt at showing they've got an ECN when again they're not transparent about the micro-structure, last look provisions offered to liquidity providers etc...

as a retail trader the two decent choices would be LMAX(though you need to be a liquidity provider for limit orders, still no last look provisions) or trading FX Futures on the CME

interactive brokers is ok-ish but it isn't a level playing field AFAIK

 

[BILLV]

no broker wants you to prosper unless they are highly compensated

Exactly but that's ok they have operating costs so they will have to make money or they will shut shop.

However the problem I have with brokers is the one I have with the banks.
Corporate greed has taken over and they are not happy with the profits from their B books so they come up with other ways to make money money.

rest assured if they give with one hand they will take with the other

Very true, and when we look closely, some of them will even charge swap when the interest rate is in our favour.

The more expensive the product the less prone to manipulation it is

Sure but when I trade using someone like GKFX and I pay 4 pips just to enter a trade, unless I'm trading the Daily or the hourly and targeting many pips, it will hurt. And why should I pay the 4 pips anyway, that's a lot of money for passing on my trade to the market (IF they do that) when others will do it for 1/4 of that.
At least someone like FXCM provide other services so some traders will benefit from those.

All these cheap spread brokers, you will all be surprised to learn that 0.5pip spread is actually a 3 pip spread when you take into account the mark up on exit

For the brokers I've used, the differences on exit are not big,
I have run 5 live accounts and 5 demo accounts (all from different brokers) and traded them simultaneously for a month and the results were similar.
However, the equity in certain accounts was significantly better
and I put that down to the lower spread or lower commission (or both) plus the swap charges.

So I kept the good old ICMarkets,:clap: Pepperstone plus the zulutrade bucket shop AAFX
Why do I have several brokers?
I get certain advantages on certain pairs.

At the end of the day, its not the broker making a trader profitable
BUT having a cheaper broker at the early stages of our trading when we learn to trade and when we experiment a lot, will help us preserve our capital.

 

[NVP]

guys .........I appreciate and share your concerns ......and agree a lot with BiLLV comments earlier

but brokers have to make a living / margin ........if they cant then we as small retail traders will cease to trade as no one will touch us ........it will be all big banks and hedges as in the past

unless we see a paradigm change somewhere this is as good as it gets from Brokers catering to retail market ?

I have used FXCM for years and they are generally ok ......jees they are better than most and Jason always stands up here and tells it as it is ..........

N

 

[progix]

Any broker providing low spreads with other facilities that can lower the trading costs are beneficial to try for scalping, more over scalping is not for every trader so whoever try it and losses money makes a complaint against the broker while the good traders trades and make money instead of complaining.

 

[GG9]

I think the market changed dramatically since this was first posted. I think you can find many decent options now. I'd suggest checking carefully the market distances, limits or any levels fully before investing. Of course, you should trade with true DMA/STP broker, otherwise you'll just have problems with a market makers.

 

[NVP]

Well Bill, you are one of the few sensible people here who actually get the fact that no broker wants you to prosper unless they are highly compensated, rest assured if they give with one hand they will take with the other. The more expensive the product the less prone to manipulation it is. All these cheap spread brokers, you will all be surprised to learn that 0.5pip spread is actually a 3 pip spread when you talke into account the mark up on exit. That's just one of many ways, they are ripping you off.

to play devils advocate if they all stop offering a book........then we cant trade :smart:

N

 

[ph_trader]

I guess another translation is "nothing comes for free/cheap" yeah its one of the things that we all end up adapting too and continue to be more flexible to find way to actually make an extra with less expense.. setting aside laws/rules with money nothing and everything is possible i guess.