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The tests will be wasting time , because you will get all time order rejected or bad
fills on large spread widenings .
This comes from the new FSA complication rules :
FIFO that means all trades got numbers and were close in a queue , so you must close
first your first trade , before you could open a new trade , that means buying more
in the same underlyning will cause troubles .
This is the reaction from the FSA to make scalping imposible for traders .
The English spreadbetting firms dont agree to this and you could buymore with their
accounts .
Also the Hedging is forbidden now , so the will make covering imposible too .
That is the reason why I never would trade with a USA broker , that is situated in USA.
I try several accounts out and get only trouble : Complication Rules XXX makes trading
impossible , we can say thank you Mr Obama for that ......

Can you reply in English?Hedging is not forbidden in U K

New rules where ?fifo?It does not affect my trading.
 
The tests will be wasting time , because you will get all time order rejected or bad
fills on large spread widenings .
This comes from the new FSA complication rules :
FIFO that means all trades got numbers and were close in a queue , so you must close
first your first trade , before you could open a new trade , that means buying more
in the same underlyning will cause troubles .
This is the reaction from the FSA to make scalping imposible for traders .
The English spreadbetting firms dont agree to this and you could buymore with their
accounts .
Also the Hedging is forbidden now , so the will make covering imposible too .
That is the reason why I never would trade with a USA broker , that is situated in USA.
I try several accounts out and get only trouble : Complication Rules XXX makes trading
impossible , we can say thank you Mr Obama for that ......

Hi piparb,

The FIFO rules and hedging ban is the reason we are now offering MT4 only through FXCM UK. You can still use hedging and individual position management on MT4 when opening through FXCM UK.

Also, for those of you that like MT4, FXCM has developed a new automated trading platform called Strategy Trader. Since the platform was designed by FXCM and built for NDD execution, there are no bridges or synchronizations. Here are some of the highlights and new features for the platform:

- Tick Charts
- Create any time frame chart
- No bridges
- Advanced backtesting with detailed strategy/trade analysis
- Access to all fxcm order types
- Uses C# for coding, easy to hookup and debug in visual studio
- Over 150 chart indicators, one of the most powerful charting package to be offered by FXCM

35158117.png

The platform is currently in beta testing, and you're welcome to request a demo if you would like to join in on the beta testing: http://www.fxcm.com/lp-strategy-trader-beta.html

A couple things to note about Strategy Trader. The platform uses exchange based execution so hedging is not available and FIFO applies. The platform will work on hedging disabled accounts. MT4 will continue to be offered alongside the Strategy Trader platform.
 
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Platform Update:

Mobile Trading Station II: A new version of the Mobile Trading Station II was released today for iPhone and Windows Mobile. The new version will allow you to trade CFD products (if available on your account). The Blackberry and Android versions will be updated by the end of this week.

US Oil: Please be aware that the USOil CFD contract expires on Friday (June 18th). Any open positions in USOil will be closed at expiration.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Jason
 
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ODL to be Acquired by FXCM


Oh, great. Another one bites the dust. The entire retail side of the business is being infected by brokers taking the other side of your trade and then claiming "Non-Dealing Desk Status" because a fraction of the deals that flow across their platform are executed by a private "club of 10."

Folks, do yourselves a favor, get off the ranch and find yourselves a place that will give you honest access to at least a modest liquidity pool without using your position as a hedging opportunity. Do your homework, true NDD inlets to the market do exist. Not many, but they do exist. Look for those offering Currenex Classic or Viking, LavaFx or even IB. You can even go with the SAXO or MIG Bank (for goodness sakes) before FXCM [Saxo ad MIG being the last alternatives - holding your nose as you do it]. There are a couple (decent brokers) in London that have developed their own platform offering as well, so check there, too.

The retail leg in FX is really going (gone) down hill. The Bucket Shops own the retail space. If you have the capital to start your FX business the right way, then dump retail and go straight institutional with someone like HotspotFX or the best in the Prime Broker institutional business, FXall [you will need to create a stand-alone business entity]. Of course, you can take the middle ground between retail and institutional and go with Barclays, but you will need approximately $300k to get going.

For those of you trying to "break-in" with $50 and a pay-pal transfer, I don't think you are doing yourselves a service. Accounts like yours are perpetuating the Bucket Shop problem across the board. Anyone allowing you to fund your account with a personal credit card, or a pay-pal account, is not a serious forex player and will be trading against you, as they jerk around the price feed that thy promise you is untouched. If you like slippage, hung platforms, partial-fills (constantly) and doctored price feeds, then, as you were, FXCM will make a good home for you.

If you want at least a fighting chance, then open up with something like CitiFx, for goodness sakes. At least you will be trading with a real bank with a real charter. That has to account for something. CitiFx would be a good place to get your "feet wet" and afford you the time to learn how to grow your capital, without all the gamesmanship of a chronic, habitual Bucket Shop, run like a Vegas Casino. Otherwise, do exactly that - go to Las Vegas - at least you will be having more fun, as the House shakes you down, full-draw.

"ODL to be Acquired by FXCM." Sad.
 
Jason, on the platform I don't see anymore to set buy stop and sell stop limit pending order (in your parlance 'market range'). The only place I see to set this is in trading settings for 'click' orders rather than pending?
 
Oh, great. Another one bites the dust. The entire retail side of the business is being infected by brokers taking the other side of your trade and then claiming "Non-Dealing Desk Status" because a fraction of the deals that flow across their platform are executed by a private "club of 10."

Folks, do yourselves a favor, get off the ranch and find yourselves a place that will give you honest access to at least a modest liquidity pool without using your position as a hedging opportunity. Do your homework, true NDD inlets to the market do exist. Not many, but they do exist. Look for those offering Currenex Classic or Viking, LavaFx or even IB. You can even go with the SAXO or MIG Bank (for goodness sakes) before FXCM [Saxo ad MIG being the last alternatives - holding your nose as you do it]. There are a couple (decent brokers) in London that have developed their own platform offering as well, so check there, too.

Interesting that you list two dealing desk firms and yet warn about retail brokers taking the other side of your trade.

A dealing desk firm can do exactly that, trade against clients, which is why you will receive re-quotes, have order restrictions on stops and limits, or be prohibited from using high frequency trading strategies such as scalping. That's how a brokers dealing desk manages their risk when trading against clients. You're trading against a "club of 1" where that 1 (your broker) sets and controls the rules.

With No Dealing Desk execution there are no restrictions on how close you can set stops and limits to the current market price, no re-quotes, and no restrictions on strategies such as scalping. That's because you're not trading against FXCM, but anonymously against 10 other banks competing for orders from traders. You don't have the broker throwing obstacles in the way of traders in the form of re-quotes or stop/limit order restrictions.

So yes, another dealing desk bites the dust, and their traders get the benefit of forex trading without re-quotes, stop/limit restrictions,and scalping restrictions.
 
Jason, on the platform I don't see anymore to set buy stop and sell stop limit pending order (in your parlance 'market range'). The only place I see to set this is in trading settings for 'click' orders rather than pending?

Hi nunrgguy,

The platform currently has Stop Entry and Limit Entry orders available as pending order types. There is not an option for stop limit pending orders, but I will have the suggestion relayed the development for consideration.

Jason
 
Announcements for this week:

Strategy Trader:
Q&A Webinar scheduled for July 1st @ 2pm EDT (6pm GMT). Webinar can be accessed 5 minutes before the start time by clicking here .


DailyFX News Coverage:
Here's the schedule for this week's live trading webinars from DailyFX:

  • Tue (Jun 29th, 10:00 EST) – US Consumer Confidence (JUN) with David Song
  • Wed (Jun 30th, 19:50 EST) – Japanese Tankan Index (2Q) with Ilya Spivak
  • Thu (Jul 1st, 10:00 EST) – ISM Manufacturing (JUN) with David Rodriguez
  • Fri (Jul 2nd, 8:30 EST) – US Change in NFPs (JUN) with John Kicklighter


US July 4 Holiday Trading Hours:

For forex....The US July 4 holiday will not impact forex trading hours this weekend. Forex trading will close on Friday at 4:00pm EDT and open on Sunday at 5:15pm EDT. However, the holiday may impact overall trading volume and market volatility, especially considering Friday is NFP.

For CFD's...trading will be closed for the following CFD products on Monday July 5th during the following hours:
US30, SPX500, and NAS100 trading is closed from 11:30am until 6:00pm EDT. USOil and UKOil trading is closed from 1:15pm until 6:00pm EDT.

You will be able to modify stops and limits on CFD's during these periods.


Rollover
Today's rollover for CAD and HKD pairs is 5 times normal amounts. There will be no rollover for CAD and HKD pairs on Wednesday (June 30).
 
I would just like to add 2 bob's worth here since I have been looking for the smartest choice for a broker and HAD been thinking of using FXCM. I have been using Halifax and run up about 300 lots volume over the 3 months since I started trading. Halifax was selected by signing up for what was ultimately a dud signal service with their preferred broker with whom I have had no real drama bar the spreads are a bit high and all over the place, and they seem fairly disorganised - but I am yet to see any stop hunting or similar issues. I concluded I need a big broker, need the $ to be safe which means on shore in Aus. However I have been running two meta windows side by side and almost always found Halifax spread to be better than a demo FXCM I started just to check, which I found surprising as FXCM is running pip fractions which I thought would let them be a bit less as they suggest, but it seems to be a bit more routinely. Several times I hear IB mentioned by serious traders as the broker they use so need to look into this more. Whilst a dabble in the automated trading third party service from FXCM has appeal it is not where I want to go long term (unless it works!).

I am a bit gob-smacked by the depth and breadth of particularly the earlier debate leading to very little by way of progress / resolution. I guess this is because TN7 puts the q's (with support from others) and JR dodges them which kinda only leads to one conclusion. The up shot is that what JR set out to do with post 1 hasn't exactly worked! Ce la vie...
 
Hi Clovist,

Thanks for the additional details!

I do see what you mean now, and I was able to replicate this on my side as well. I have notified our technical support team asking them to review and work to correct it.

I will keep you updated on any progress towards a fix for this.

-Jason

just dropping by to say nothing has changed with this problem. different timeframes can still contradict each other. amazing really considering how huge this problem is and how relatively easy it should be to fix, then again nobody else seems to care :)
 
just dropping by to say nothing has changed with this problem. different timeframes can still contradict each other. amazing really considering how huge this problem is and how relatively easy it should be to fix, then again nobody else seems to care :)

Hi clovist,

This was fixed months ago. I double checked on my computer and the different time frames are matching up with each other. Here is an example with USD/CHF 15 min vs. 3 hour.

usdchfcharts.png

Can you please share details of the currency pairs and time frames you are viewing on the chart so I can try to replicate it? If you haven't logged into the platform for a while, I would also recommend uninstalling and reinstalling just to make sure you are running the most up to date version of the platform.

Thanks,

Jason
 
I would just like to add 2 bob's worth here since I have been looking for the smartest choice for a broker and HAD been thinking of using FXCM.....

Hi Vince,

You're welcome to post any questions, and I would be happy to help.

-Jason
 
Hey jason the right hand side fxcm website links on this page are not working, returning 404 errors .

http://www.trade2win.com/preferred-brokers/forex/fxcm-25.html

I'm looking for the webinar uk timetables just to see what you guys go into n all !

Hi spinola,

Thanks for letting me know about the links! I'll check in with T2W to get it fixed.

The webinars were recently overhauled to be included in the online trading course which is now a part of DailyFX +. DailyFX+ is accessible if you have a live account, and here is the schedule for this week's webinars:

scheduleg.png

If you don't have an account but would like to login to take a look around, you can register for a free trial http://www.fxcm.co.uk/forex-signals.jsp . Recordings for the old webinar series can be accessed Here.

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

EDIT: Thought it might be helpful to give more details on where exactly to find the webinar schedule once you're logged into DailyFX+ :) . I attached a screenshot along with arrows with what to click on. Go in order from 1 > 2 > 3 > 4.

Jason
 

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Cheers Jason, keep meaning to catch one or two of these. OK, I'll have a snoop at the archives too !


Cheers !
 
For the FXCM clients....need your feedback on this.

We're developing a way to communicate important notifications to clients in real-time for events such as holiday hours, changes in rollover, platform updates, expirations for oil contracts, stock index adjustments for dividends, etc. In short, the feed includes anything that could have an impact on your trading which you would like to receive notifications about in real time, rather than having us put together an email and blast everyone. The feed is located here http://www.twitter.com/fxcmupdate and is still in its infancy.

What other types of updates would you like to see in the feed (other than what I have listed) and where would you like to see it placed for you to keep track of it? I've heard that the next update to FX Trading Station II will have a window allowing you to add RSS feeds, and an idea is to include the FXCM Update feed as a default in the RSS window. Thoughts?

Also regarding FX Trading Station II, just found out this morning that FXCM won the 2010 Best Retail Trading Platform at the FX Week e-FX Awards. Second year in a row!
 
Hey Jason

I signed onto ODL a long while back to use the Metatrader feeds...then FXCM arrived and things seem to be going fine re feeds so I thought I might warm up a few trades to see how that performs (i've never traded on this Platform)

is there a descent idiots guide I can get access to ?

also if i am using the live feeds and a live account to view my indicators - is it possible to utilise a virtual account to trade on until i get up to speed on the processes again ?

Best regards
Neil
 
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