fun with IBFX
Ving you should rethink going with another broker. There is so much enetertainment to be had with Interbank FX, you wouldnt believe it. A while back I gpt a funny memo from a friend that I forgot about till I saw your post. Feeling safe cuz I'm on somebody' else's computer, here it is. This will put a smile on your face. Enjoy!
Why I love my broker
Any situation at all is good for a 3 second delay on execution. Market turning times, data release periods, average moves, slow markets... just about any time at all. "Would you like a requote to go with the requote along with that requote, Sir?"
4 pips MINIMUM on GBP/USD. 40% of the time it's 4, 20% it's 5, and it goes to 6, 7, 8, even 13 pips and more -- at random (but opportune for the broker and liquidity providers) times.
Spikes! not just around announcements but during very quiet times as well.
Price shading (my favorite!) They hold 1-4 pips ahead of the market, very occasionally coming to true price in a motionless or turnaround area. And, when strong offers come in, they will spike high ask to take out stops but will hold the bid low; when strong bids are in, the opposite tactic is employed.
Throughout, there are occasional pauses between price move and bid/ask rate change. Yes, you guessed it: the pause works in the broker's favour.
The chart price, the Market Watch, Terminal and the execution box bid/ask have a... shall we say, "flexible" relationship.
The daily charts are useless for MA systems, since we have that Sunday mini-day to screw the averages. That's not uncommon among retails.
What is uncommon is that on Sunday they don't activate the feed until 5:30pm -- and then, they keep trading closed for another half hour. This gives them three hours to figure out how to hunt those pesky over-weekend stops; to shave the edges off; to adjust their own positions (OH but they CAN'T do that, can they?); in sum, to enlarge their profits and limit customer gains.
During that otherworldly half hour, spreads are astronomical and stops are ignored. The newest complementary wrinkle to the ignore-stops policy is that if your trade incurs a margin call due to stops being ignored, the margin call won't be ignored. Wowza, sign me up!
Now to the support staff. If an actual problem arises, it is stonewalled. These days they demand account title and number just to access the 'support' chat (you must aver you have NONE if you dislike this practice and have only a 'general' question, but best to use a proxy if you do).
Phrase things precisely. Be given a cut/paste of some script, then a canned lecture in fragmentary English. Rephrase the difficulty even more precisely. Be transferred. Be fobbed off. Receive the excited gush (from an English speaker this time) that a three-minute delayed execution works in your favour. (Three-MINUTE delay <- not a typo.) Be told to reinstall, and that they're checking on it meanwhile. Be told that their server's price didn't reach the price on your trade station, so you lose. Be told their server did reach a price your station didn't, so you lose. Be advised you should have refreshed the chart. Ask how often they recommend you refresh the charts while price evidently is ticking along just fine. Receive silence. Point out problems at all times of day & night. Be told that at all points you indicated, it was a 'fast market.' Ask when it is not a 'fast market.' Receive silence. Write a couple more extremely polite (as always) emails to round out the afternoon you spent, and get comfortable to wait for a reply... If it comes, it is an unrelated rattle-off of some official-sounding 'policy' on 'what they found.' Point out the obvious errors, ask for reconsideration, and get more comfortable because thereafter you'll hear nothing. Period. Ha Ha! Delightful!
To top it off, after disappearing their own forum some time ago, they made their custserve chat inaccessible for certain browser/firewall settings, and no one knew what those settings were, Ha Ha Ha!
Wonder if they even use their real names? IRS doesn't.... Remember that, unlike wealth perhaps, attitudes really DO develop along the 'trickle down' theory. One sees it everywhere in the world today: employees all seem to desire that black mask, auto weapon and Kevlar vest, replete with Big Man attitude. The predictive programming spewed from Hollywood for thirty years has been solidly effective in modifying human behaviour (as always).
