if you've been following the FOREX thread, you know that i've been using fxcm.com for live trading, and i've always been careful to say, "look around and choose your own broker, etc.". well, thanks to rugger, some stuff abt fxcm.com has been brought to my attention and i hope he posts his own findings too. (i think he was just being courteous to me by not posting- thanks, rugger, but the truth is money, which is why we're all here LOL).

as of now, after reading some of the info he gave me from http://forexbastards.com/Fxcm.shtml,
i still haven't formed a strong opinion one way or the other abt fxcm.com. but you might want to read some of this- good, bad, and ugly. your own broker may be listed here too at http://forexbastards.com/broker_reviews.shtml.
if you're in FOREX, you don't care abt my opinion anyway; and if you're not in FOREX, my explanation will only confuse you anyway. so check it out! and post your own opinions. so here's my "soft" opinion abt all this for now...

1. i havent had the major problems described, but i'm a small player.
2. yea, i have lost big time on trailing orders/trailing stops. but their fine print warns that trailers wont be honored in high volatilty anyway, so...???
3. it seems i was correct when i speculated months ago that FOREX brokers make a lot of money by not actually placing what they believe will be losing trades. that way they get to keep ALL the money, not just the spread.
4. so far, my only losses have been due to my own negligence or stupidity. but like i say, maybe i'm not a big enough fish for them to mess with.
5. i have noticed major differences between fxcm's price quotes and prices with other dealers at the same time.
6. there's an issue abt "manual" vs "automatic" trading. maybe somebody else can explain this better.

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

Well i'm a new forex trader, and have only been in for maybe a week. The first thing I wanted to do was dd a broker that I would be comfortable putting money in the future. I found gftforex to be my number one choice for now, and will set up a demo soon. Regarding fxcm it has alot of advertising so it is hard to miss it, and a nice demo to lure you in. I have no experience with the real account, but after reading mostly negative reviews on various sites I decided to avoid them. To summarize other people's statements (I have no personal experience), fxcm trades against its customers and if you win they will switch your account to manual (I don't know what that means exactly) or tell you to leave (they reserve the right to not be your broker). Also they are rumored to be associated with refco, which was a broker scam that claimed bankruptcy and left their customers with nothing.
I have also heard fxcm was not always a scam and do not know how recently they have changed their practices. All brokers in general have high slippage during news releases, as well as greatly fluctuating spreads. Hope this helped.

thanks again, rugger.
money follows caution. i'm still not convinced fxcm is all that bad (or any better or worse than the other brokers) but there's enough bad press to make me cautious. i also don't like the way my favorite chart (their Stratagem chart) freezes and i have to keep restarting it (i liked it for the historical data downloads for quant purposes). i'm also disturbed by the discrepancies between their prices and prices i see elsewhere.

so it looks like i'll soon be moving my stuff to interbankfx.com . been watching them tonight. their charts dont lock up, and i like their whole setup better. plus i can get raw historical data from them easily. just one catch: their hard stops and hard limits auto-convert to market orders during high volatility. so i guess i won't be playing the news anymore LOL

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

What constitutes a highly volitile moment?

__________________
Good, cheap, fast. pick any 2. -The Cap'n

most often, systemic, one of the scheduled govt news releases is enough to do it. for example, a run of 30 or 40 pips within seconds would be considered high volatility. even larger runs on pr's are quite common.

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

Indeed Orange, sometimes govt reports such as Non Farm Payroll - there
can be HUGE PIP movement in just minutes! Personally, never traded the news. Only trends. You can lose your -ss trading news. Let the charts
talk to you - TRADE TRENDS. Want to learn how to HEDGE? Contact me.

Sara - FOREX DIVA
(352) 528-7465
(877) 277-7414
forexdiva@windstream.net
www.forexonestop.com

thanks for posting, Rugger. i now understand what "automatic" vs "manual".
at interbankfx they have a tutorial on writing a program for automatic trading and for backtesting your program. probably fxcm has one too. "manual trading" is normal trading of setting stops, limits etc.; "automated trading" is using your program to work while you sleep. naturally, i'm trying to learn the auto thing for quant- maybe just use it for audio alerts at first then later for real.

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

i just posted this to a forex broker evaluation site abt interbankfx...
========================================
well, i really tried to like them. i'm a mod at another major financial forum (nice concept here, Felix- thanks), and i set up a forex thread to help us all find a good broker. IBFX finally seemed like the right one. demo setup was good, worked well. as stalking horse i went in first, applied for an acct. they sent me welcome letter with a fax number to send my i.d. copy. (not the fax number in their .pdf do***ent). AND THAT'S WHERE THINGS BEGAN TO UNRAVEL.

the fax number got me an irate elderly woman demanding to know where i got her number! she had a fax as well. she said she gets lots of these calls and faxes. (i note that someone here said they had weeks of trouble opening an acct- this may be why). okay, mistakes happen- but this is a MAJOR COMPETENCE AND SECURITY ISSUE. so i wrote them for an explanation. NO REPLY, except to my emailed i.d. file, which only said to lighten the copy. i wrote again for an explanation. AGAIN NO REPLY. a third time, to their 'info' email address this time- STILL NO REPLY. after almost a week, i give up. screw these jackasses.

their conduct reveals one or more of several toxic defects in finance: ARROGANCE, INCOMPETENCE, POOR SECURITY, and STUPIDITY.

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

Well, from what I could gather after reading all the reviews I could for awhile.. someone of the high ranked companies.. (3 stars) are pump'd up there and most likely fake testimonials..

FXCM did have a general consenses of recently using shady business practices.. and one thing that caught my eye was "By the way, FXCM's no longer list trade desk representatives names on the account activity log" which I wonder .... not be personally accountable? .. can someone comfirm why they stopped out of shear curiousity? I'm thinking this is only a problem with people who play with bigger pockets...?

GFTforex apparently has great charting but big delays and slippage...

InteractiveBrokers looked good.. but with a minimum account of $5,000, it's alittle out of my pocket range for now

Dukascopy .. looked awesome.. $50,000 minimum



I'm sure alot of the issues aren't really a problem until you start getting into bigger orders.. but my thinking there is, that shouldn't take too long to get there right? :P

__________________
"add it up, extract a lesson"

phat- i hunted and hunted and finally settled on oanda.com but still have my fxcm.com open too.

__________________
___________________________________________
[SIZE=2"No more riddles."[/size]
___________________________________________
get the cd. it's how money gets made.

Hmm, I just read the reviews on OANDA and they don't look that bad.. mainly good reviews low spreads and quick fills....then some people whinning about the spreads widening during the news and since they don't mean to trade during the news, it's not fair the lost $$ due to widened spreads. :'(.

Worst thing I saw against the platform was medicore graphing service and no trailing stops or alarms....which I can live without.

I didn't see a min startup balance.. did see "No account minimum".. not sure if this means I can start an account with $0.10 or $1000 and get it knocked down to $0.10 without any problems..

I may pick these guys up if I can't dig up enough cash from my change jar for Dukascopy.. lemme know if you find any major problems..

__________________
"add it up, extract a lesson"