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Hey Jason, looking at it again i can't replicate the problem anymore, just jumping the gun a bit and expecting the worst :p. Out of curiosity, do you know what the problem was with separate time frames?
 
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

Hi Neil,

Thanks for the post. Just to make sure I'm clear, are your referring to the FX Trading Station II platform, Strategy Trader platform or MT4?

We have user guides for both and you can use a virtual account to get up to speed on it. Just confirm for me which platform and I'll get all the details for you.

-Jason
 
Hey Jason, looking at it again i can't replicate the problem anymore, just jumping the gun a bit and expecting the worst :p. Out of curiosity, do you know what the problem was with separate time frames?

No worries and good to hear it's all working properly. Not sure about the exact technical details, but basically the longer period candle wasn't recording the shorter time frame information properly in real time.
 
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!



Hello Jason,

Can FXCM provide US Dollar index (realtime) or make a synthetic one based on the components of it, and also enable people to overlay a currency pair relative to the Dollar Index itself ?

I know the option exists to overlay various currencies to other various currencies but what about getting US dollar ( or FXCM DOLLAR )index setup ?

Is that doable ?


Cheers ..

Also The FXCM Speculative Sentiment Index (SSI) Any chance that can update quicker / real time and what about the option to overlay that to charts ? :)

It's quite interesting and I note it does or can jump from session to session and to see this order flow with more fluidity to it would be better ?
 
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Hello Jason,

Can FXCM provide US Dollar index (realtime) or make a synthetic one based on the components of it, and also enable people to overlay a currency pair relative to the Dollar Index itself ?

I know the option exists to overlay various currencies to other various currencies but what about getting US dollar ( or FXCM DOLLAR )index setup ?

Is that doable ?


Cheers ..

Also The FXCM Speculative Sentiment Index (SSI) Any chance that can update quicker / real time and what about the option to overlay that to charts ? :)

It's quite interesting and I note it does or can jump from session to session and to see this order flow with more fluidity to it would be better ?

Hi Spinola,

FXCodeBase.com made a dollar index out of a custom indicator http://fxcodebase.com/code/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=970&p=1796&hilit=dollar#p1796, but all of the currency pairs in their indicator are equal weight. So it will not match up with the more US Dollar Index in the futures market that everyone is familiar with. That one is weighted.

It may be more doable in the new Strategy Trader platform because there is an option to import 3rd party data feeds. I'll have to investigate this a little more to see how it would work. Until then, I use the US Dollar Index chart found on Net Dania's website http://www.netdania.com/Products/li...ates/real-time-forex-charts/FinanceChart.aspx.

There has been some discussion about adding the SSI data to the Strategy Trader platform as an indicator that would upload the information in real time. Any possible release is probably 3 months or so in the future.

-Jason
 
Ok Jason cheers for the fxcodebase custom indicators link/forum (looks very handy) and ssi details .


Ta..
 
Strategy Trader

We're happy to announce the public beta release of Strategy Trader. Here's where you can find all of the details for the platform: http://www.fxcm.co.uk/strategy-trader.jsp

We have also created a programming wiki with free open source code for strategies, indicators, and functions in C# for Strategy Trader, MQL4 for MT4, and LUA for the FX Trading Station II. Here's the site: www.forexcodesource.com .

The MT4 platform will continue to be offered in addition to Strategy Trader. Below is a table comparing some of the features in Strategy Trader with FXCM's MT4 platform. One thing you should be aware of not listed in the table is that Strategy Trader can be used with any account setup for the FX Trading Station II, but hedging has to be disabled first through MyFXCM.com.

strategytrader.jpg

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Jason
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,

The MT4 platform will continue to be offered in addition to Strategy Trader. Below is a table comparing some of the features in Strategy Trader with FXCM's MT4 platform. One thing you should be aware of not listed in the table is that Strategy Trader can be used with any account setup for the FX Trading Station II, but hedging has to be disabled first through MyFXCM.com.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-Jason

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but I do have a few questions.

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader doesn't have tick charts, when it does?

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader doesn't have ask prices, when it does?

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader can't do partial closes, when it can?

Is the "Genetic algorithm" tick box in the MT4 Strategy Tester totally non-functional?

Cheers,

Jim
 
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Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but I do have a few questions.

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader doesn't have tick charts, when it does?

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader doesn't have ask prices, when it does?

Why does your comparison table suggest that MetaTrader can't do partial closes, when it can?

Is the "Genetic algorithm" tick box in the MT4 Strategy Tester totally non-functional?

Cheers,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your questions and would be happy to touch on each one of them.

1. It's not possible to create a tick chart to analyze such as they would with minute, hour, day charts etc. Granted you can view a basic tick chart in the Market Watch window if you wish to switch back and forth between the tick view and the symbols. Performing any type of technical analysis on MT4's "tick chart" is virtually useless if trying analyze any type of indicator, EA's, or technical analysis in general. Strategy Trader allows you to do this in addition to viewing historical tick data. Here's a view of the Strategy Trader tick chart:

strategytradertickchart.png

Strategy Trader also gives you the ability to customize the tick chart as well as noted where I circled the tick chart periodicity option in the screenshot.

2. MT4 doesn't give you the ability to view the charts based on ask prices. All of the charts and historical information on the charts is based on the bid price. Strategy Trader gives you the ability to view either the bid or the ask on the chart. See the strategy trader chart screenshot below, the ask chart is on top and the bid chart is below for comparison:

bidaskchart.png

To give an example, I drew a horizontal line as the highest Ask price reached during the ISM release this morning for USD/JPY. If you had an order to buy at 86.810 your order would have attempted execution. You can access a chart to verify what the high ask price at that time was. With MT4, you don't have this ability. You're basically left to adding on a typical spread to every point to guess what the ask price at that time was. Any trader with a short position needs to know the ask price to verify whether their buy price to exit was actually reached.

This is also an important factor with backtesting because Strategy Trader takes into account the actual historical spread in the backtest; whereas, MT4 uses the same spread for every trade in the backtest. You get a much more accurate backtest on Strategy Trader because of this.

3. The comparison table is for FXCM's MT4 and Strategy Trader for traders to decide when choosing. FXCM's MT4 currently does not have the ability to partially close trades due to limitations with MT4 integration into our NDD execution. Strategy Trader does not have this limitation since there is no bridge but rather a direct connection into the server. My apologies if there was confusion, and I will give this feedback to the web team for further clarification on the website.

4. Thanks for letting me know about this. I'll have the Strategy Trader team outline the differences so we can update the website.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

-Jason
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,

1. Granted you can view a basic tick chart in the Market Watch window.

Strategy Trader also gives you the ability to customize the tick chart as well as noted where I circled the tick chart periodicity option in the screenshot.

I agree that ST is much more capable than MT4 in this area. However that doesn't actually answer my question, and misses my point. We seem to be agreed that MetaTrader does allow the user to display tick charts, albeit in a more limited way. FXCM's comparison table doesn't say "MetaTrader 4 - Limited" however. It simply says "MetaTrader 4 - NO".

That is inaccurate, wouldn't you agree?

2. MT4 doesn't give you the ability to view the charts based on ask prices. All of the charts and historical information on the charts is based on the bid price. Strategy Trader gives you the ability to view either the bid or the ask on the chart.

My answer to #1 applies here also.

If I might also correct one further slight inaccuracy. MT4 historical data saved to disk does indeed only include the bid. However an MT4 tick chart does display the recent history of both bid and ask

This is also an important factor with backtesting because Strategy Trader takes into account the actual historical spread in the backtest; whereas, MT4 uses the same spread for every trade in the backtest. You get a much more accurate backtest on Strategy Trader because of this.

I've been banging on about MT4's limitations in this regard on my blog for ages. I certainly look forward to being able to use ST for "much more accurate backtests" in the near future. Your comparison chart says "500,000 bars" of historical prices will be available. Does that apply to ticks too?

3. The comparison table is for FXCM's MT4 and Strategy Trader for traders to decide when choosing. FXCM's MT4 currently does not have the ability to partially close trades due to limitations with MT4 integration into our NDD execution. Strategy Trader does not have this limitation since there is no bridge but rather a direct connection into the server. My apologies if there was confusion, and I will give this feedback to the web team for further clarification on the website.

It seems that the bridge FXCM currently use makes your MT4 implementation less capable than some other brokers in this regard. Thanks for clearing that one up. Apology accepted.

4. Thanks for letting me know about this. I'll have the Strategy Trader team outline the differences so we can update the website.

My pleasure,

Jim
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,



I agree that ST is much more capable than MT4 in this area. However that doesn't actually answer my question, and misses my point. We seem to be agreed that MetaTrader does allow the user to display tick charts, albeit in a more limited way. FXCM's comparison table doesn't say "MetaTrader 4 - Limited" however. It simply says "MetaTrader 4 - NO".

That is inaccurate, wouldn't you agree?



My answer to #1 applies here also.

If I might also correct one further slight inaccuracy. MT4 historical data saved to disk does indeed only include the bid. However an MT4 tick chart does display the recent history of both bid and ask



I've been banging on about MT4's limitations in this regard on my blog for ages. I certainly look forward to being able to use ST for "much more accurate backtests" in the near future. Your comparison chart says "500,000 bars" of historical prices will be available. Does that apply to ticks too?



It seems that the bridge FXCM currently use makes your MT4 implementation less capable than some other brokers in this regard. Thanks for clearing that one up. Apology accepted.



My pleasure,

Jim


Hi Jim,

The historical pricing for ticks will have upwards of 5-10 million ticks for each currency pair compared to the 500,000 being released for the 1 minute bars. The files for this historical pricing will be added to the Strategy Trader help forum which can be found by navigating to the Help menu at the top of Strategy Trader.

I agree with you that MT4 has a tick chart, albeit in limited form, and I have notified the web team about this so we can see about adding further clarification.

Cheers,

Jason
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,

Hi Jim,

The historical pricing for ticks will have upwards of 5-10 million ticks for each currency pair compared to the 500,000 being released for the 1 minute bars. The files for this historical pricing will be added to the Strategy Trader help forum which can be found by navigating to the Help menu at the top of Strategy Trader.

That sounds exciting. I can't wait to get stuck into backtesting all those ticks!

I agree with you that MT4 has a tick chart, albeit in limited form, and I have notified the web team about this so we can see about adding further clarification.

Thanks for that. Maybe the web team could clarify another anomaly at the same time: It's a bit long in the tooth now I know, but my ODL MT4 demo account History Center assures me it has 3,685,242 one minute bars of GBP/USD (bid price only!) available for backtesting purposes.

Thanks,

Jim
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,



That sounds exciting. I can't wait to get stuck into backtesting all those ticks!



Thanks for that. Maybe the web team could clarify another anomaly at the same time: It's a bit long in the tooth now I know, but my ODL MT4 demo account History Center assures me it has 3,685,242 one minute bars of GBP/USD (bid price only!) available for backtesting purposes.

Thanks,

Jim


Hi Jim,

The limitation in the number of bars is a server based one, not a client based one. MT4 client stores data in txt files, and for the purposes of this conversation is basically limitless. MT4 server only hold a limited number of bars at a time. If the max server server history is 15,500 bars, then that's all you can pull down at that time. Where this may be important for you, let's look at an example. If you happen to go on a two week vacation, and for the sake of of this example log back into your terminal 15,600 minute bars later, all you will be able to get from the server is the past 15,500 bars. This means there is now a 100 bar gap in your data, and you may or may not notice this at the time. At that point, you are left with dealing with this gap, or trying to download third party data which may or may not match the actual data from the broker. It's deffinitely possible to work around this limitation, but is quite a tedious task. With Strategy Trader historical data is much more straight forward and easy to deal with, especially when considering smaller periodicity like 1 minute or tick.


- Jason
 
stops not working

Jason, as mentioned a couple of months back I opened a micro account with $500 for my eldest lad to trade with over the holidays, he started this week, had a couple of issues yesterday with his stops so I double checked the trading settings myself; he had the stops set at 20 under his settings, no trailing stop and GTC. Now on his last 4 losing trades the stops were breached and I had to manually close for him at 44, 43, 27, 26...and he had others breached up to 26 and 27...so basically through no fault of his, and it's not mine he's been robbed of 60+ pips or approx 5% of his account today.

Now if the micro is just a bit of a joke to let folk play in sandpit then you should make folk aware, but exercising good MM on short term TFs is absolutely crucial aspect of a newbies learning, put it this way the 'ickle account would be level if it wasn't for fxcm's failings over the past week...he's used IG in the past and the stops were spot on no debate, no issue

I honestly don't see how he can use the platform again, I wouldn't trust it ...shame on you you've killed his career before it's started...;) What can you do bud...anything?
 
Re: stops not working

I honestly don't see how he can use the platform again, I wouldn't trust it ...shame on you you've killed his career before it's started...;) What can you do bud...anything?

Some time ago I downloaded MetaTrader4 and prices (exchange rate) provided by them. At first I thought I was tired as their charts on a short time frame looked completely different from Alpari, Tradestation, Sharescope, IG index... Afterwards I realized that their prices are different from others. Whatever looked like a spiky candle on other charts, on their charts looked completely different (if you check 15min time frame).

He is better off to switch to a different company – no offence intended to Jason.
 
Re: stops not working

Some time ago I downloaded MetaTrader4 and prices (exchange rate) provided by them. At first I thought I was tired as their charts on a short time frame looked completely different from Alpari, Tradestation, Sharescope, IG index... Afterwards I realized that their prices are different from others. Whatever looked like a spiky candle on other charts, on their charts looked completely different (if you check 15min time frame).

He is better off to switch to a different company – no offence intended to Jason.

Hear what you're saying but the micro lot is a cracking idea, and all brokers should be spot on. The bets as low as ten cents (0.1 lot), great place to start for a newbie, good place to experiment with a few strats too...but if stops don't work it messes you up big time and that 5% loss will take a week of effort to pull back from a position of doing nothing wrong..

Now I can kinda understand a slight over-spill, perhaps 2 three pips, still unacceptable but you can live with it, just , but to have it smashed through/not recognising the stop that I double checked because of yesterday's misgivings, and having to manually close all 4 orders is bang out of order, what made it worse is then closing all the trades including the very healthy EU trade which was 35 pips up and then screached up another 100pips, the platform just caved in...

I've just totalled it up and its 77 pips taken off him in total today...listen it's only circa 25 dollars but if it's fooked and a toy of a platform we should be told..If the kid could take the account up to $1,000 with my help he's maybe onto something, wont ask me for a sub when he's off to UNI...;)

We've mailed the trade enquiry audit folk at fxcm, let's see what happens...Funny thing is I reckon fxcm could really be onto something with the micro account if marketed properly in the UK and if it *works*
 
Re: stops not working

Hear what you're saying but the micro lot is a cracking idea, and all brokers should be spot on. The bets as low as ten cents (0.1 lot), great place to start for a newbie, good place to experiment with a few strats too...but if stops don't work it messes you up big time and that 5% loss will take a week of effort to pull back from a position of doing nothing wrong..

Now I can kinda understand a slight over-spill, perhaps 2 three pips, still unacceptable but you can live with it, just , but to have it smashed through/not recognising the stop that I double checked because of yesterday's misgivings, and having to manually close all 4 orders is bang out of order, what made it worse is then closing all the trades including the very healthy EU trade which was 35 pips up and then screached up another 100pips, the platform just caved in...

I've just totalled it up and its 77 pips taken off him in total today...listen it's only circa 25 dollars but if it's fooked and a toy of a platform we should be told..If the kid could take the account up to $1,000 with my help he's maybe onto something, wont ask me for a sub when he's off to UNI...;)

We've mailed the trade enquiry audit folk at fxcm, let's see what happens...Funny thing is I reckon fxcm could really be onto something with the micro account if marketed properly in the UK and if it *works*

Hi BlackSwan,

Once a stop is triggered, it becomes an At Best market order, and there is no guarantee it will be filled at any particular given price. The order is subject to available liquidity, and during periods of volatility, such as during this mornings NFP report when the market gaps, there is a much higher likelihood that a stop loss may experience slippage. So if the price you request on the stop loss is not available, it will go through at the next best price.

All retail micro execution is now NDD, and FXCM is not making a market for those transactions. This is why you are able to trade without re-quotes, intervention, or restrictions on where you can place stops, limits, or entry orders. There are multiple banks and financial institutions providing liquidity, but if you want to execute at a certain price there has to be liquidity on the other side for it to fill at that price.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

-Jason
 
Re: stops not working

Hi BlackSwan,

Once a stop is triggered, it becomes an At Best market order, and there is no guarantee it will be filled at any particular given price. The order is subject to available liquidity, and during periods of volatility, such as during this mornings NFP report when the market gaps, there is a much higher likelihood that a stop loss may experience slippage. So if the price you request on the stop loss is not available, it will go through at the next best price.

All retail micro execution is now NDD, and FXCM is not making a market for those transactions. This is why you are able to trade without re-quotes, intervention, or restrictions on where you can place stops, limits, or entry orders. There are multiple banks and financial institutions providing liquidity, but if you want to execute at a certain price there has to be liquidity on the other side for it to fill at that price.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

-Jason

Jason, I can't tell you how disappointed I am in you to receive such a flannel response, the stops were at 20 pips, they weren't even hit at 45!! I had to manually intervene on them...that's got nothing to do with liquidity ffs, or fast moving markets...it's random? Then what's the point, at any time all your *hard work* for the day/the week can be wiped out...

We've never had that problem with, for example, simple little outfits such as IG, a stop is a stop, end of, and your changes brought about last year should not affect UK based clients.
 
Re: Strategy Trader

Hi Jason,

Hi Jim,

The limitation in the number of bars is a server based one, not a client based one. MT4 client stores data in txt files, and for the purposes of this conversation is basically limitless. MT4 server only hold a limited number of bars at a time. If the max server server history is 15,500 bars, then that's all you can pull down at that time. Where this may be important for you, let's look at an example. If you happen to go on a two week vacation, and for the sake of of this example log back into your terminal 15,600 minute bars later, all you will be able to get from the server is the past 15,500 bars. This means there is now a 100 bar gap in your data, and you may or may not notice this at the time. At that point, you are left with dealing with this gap, or trying to download third party data which may or may not match the actual data from the broker. It's deffinitely possible to work around this limitation, but is quite a tedious task. With Strategy Trader historical data is much more straight forward and easy to deal with, especially when considering smaller periodicity like 1 minute or tick.

It's possible to download over 10 years worth of one minute bars from MetaQuotes, and while MetaQuotes prices may well not be identical to your broker's, that's not necessarily a big problem. As long as you keep a completely separate installation of MT4 solely for backtesting purposes things can be pretty straightforward, barring the odd recent gap in that data!

I notice that the ST/MT4 comparison table on the FXCM website has now clarified some of the other points I raised. A welcome step in the right direction.

Thanks,

Jim
 
Re: stops not working

Hi Black Swan,

We've never had that problem with, for example, simple little outfits such as IG, a stop is a stop, end of, and your changes brought about last year should not affect UK based clients.

IG is a "simple little outfit"? Over there "a stop is a stop" and never turns into a slippery eel?

I'm not a customer because their API leaves a little bit to be desired, but I do know some clients of theirs that tell some very fishy stories!

Cheers,

Jim
 
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