FXCM Discussion

Also, watch out for FXCM's new product, the NDD option on your account. I took it for a test drive and it fails miserably. Theoratically its the propfx feed going into the trade station 2 platform. But whatever, it took about 7 attempts to close a position with market order. so sad.

Sma

7 attempts i thought there no request for qoute or price has chage, how did it take seven attempts

Yes, can you expand on that a bit more. What messages were you getting? With true STP it should only ever take one attempt with a market order - although you may get slipped. And were you testing the live or demo?

I just noticed that they only offer market orders to open a position. It would be total suicide to trade with them during economic releases - your market order would get slipped and there's no way of limiting this (unlike with IB or EFX or even OANDA).

FXCM user for 2years, Demo and Real, got to admit I can't fault them for my purposes, wouldn't move to anyone else, helpful having a UK based office aswell.

I'm getting alot of requotes recently, is my only real gripe, like 8 or something in a row earlier, wasn't after a specific price, so it's okay, but 6months back, barely got requoted, they seem to have increased there price update speed I think.

( Which ruined my News Trade Plays, but it was a cheat and fun at the time, so fair enough really LOL )

The messages where of the sort " Could not execute order #xxxxx". I very much doubt they are true STP. Am even willing to bet on it !!

Sma

Was that on a live account? Obviously it's impossible to accurately test STP with a demo account because the orders are never sent to banks.

That Will Have To Be live they don't offer demo for there no dealer option platform, only read only demo.

Yes, it was on my live account. Which explains why i am no longer with them.

Sma

Well they automatically converted my live account I haven't used in a year to the NDD account. It has £3 left in it. I can't see Bear Stearns or JP Morgan accepting a £3 order.:

I only use entry sells and buys on FXCM and they work flawlessly. I have not had a single problem with them.

Even during NFP I had no slippage on entry orders that I had set up early enough to miss their lock out. And by the way. NFP seems to be the only report they Lock out.

Just my own experience

DC

Are you certain FXCM only do their "lock out" on NFP. I am certain i have heard about it occuring on US FOMC decisions.

This is only hearsay evidence i realise but can someone else confirm this.

I have been using FXCM for last one year. What I really like is their platform. You can place an order within a couple of seconds with stop, limit and trailing stop features and this is really helpful if you want to place an order just before a news release. However, they would lock you out before a major news release. During NFP you know they wouldn't allow you to place an order less than 15 minutes before the news. For other news release you don't know whether they will allow you to enter an order just before the news or not. Sometimes they lock you out 1 minute, 2 minutes or 5 minutes before the news. I talked to them to know exactly when they are going to lock out before a particular news, but they will give a vague reply. Inspite of that I never found any slippage in all my orders even during highly volatile news releases. However, during volatile market it's almost impossible to close your trade at your will. Suppose, you are with 10 pips profit and suddenly the profit is moving fast to the negative side and you try to close the trade and you can't close it until your stops are hit! Moreover, if you place a stop just 10 pips away, during volatile markets they will surely manipulate the price to hit your stop. Couple of days earlier,
I placed my entry order (sell GBP/USD) just before a news release with 10 pips stop loss. As soon as the news came out my platform froze. I had no other option but log out and log in again. When I logged in, I found my sell order should have been executed and should be running with 15 pips profit. However, I found it was already executed and closed with 10 pips loss. I immediately looked at the tick chart (that comes alongwith their platform) and found that this shouldn't happen at all. I called them immediately, and a customer service representative listened to my problems and told me she will call me back after a few minutes. After 15 minutes she called me back and told me to open the tick chart again. And to my utter dismay I saw their tick chart is changed and just after after executing my sell order it moves back just to hit my stop (it took 17 seconds on the chart) and then immediately moved in favor of the trade!!!They changed the chart!!!

I used them for 1 year and their platform is feature poor compared to other platforms out there. Clumsy in setting orders, especially during hig volume periods, getting in or out or changing orders is not easy at all, too many clicks before getting what you want.

Hello Thebigmo,

I use FXcm for one of my live accounts and have found them to be pretty good. Their prices do not match the prices found on my trading SW nor do any prices from brokers match said SW.

When we take a trade, the prices that count are those on found on the broker's trading platform.

Just my 2 pips.

Ronny C.

The other day I got stopped out 1 point below FXCM's Low of the day, which is pretty impressive

Also, the GBPUSD Spread drops to 3pips in busy times, which is nice, BUT... I closed a trade showing +15 and there new market order on close only got me 5pips

If they did the market order on entry, rather than, " Price Moved " 10x's + recently, I gave up 15pips on which was most annoying.

Setting a variable where it's a Market order withing say 5pips would be nice, if fails auto goes to Limit order, which you can then cancel or wait for.

But hey nothing is perfect!!

From

I'm told & so far I'm led to believe that at fxcm (if you request your platform be changed) to the

( "Deal directly w/ banks") one etc, that your trades supposedly go straight thru to the banks, & they only know that the trade came from fxcm? So far I'v not determined yet whether I believe that.

Here's my most recent experience:

With the regular dealers Platform (mini-acct) I told them at sign up I was an Extreme Novice, which was true. Although I very quickly percieved that the only time that the Mkt was guaranteed to move a great amt & very quickly was at Rept Release times. I used what I;ve discovered on my own, is called Straddling the Mkt = Buying 10 pis up & Selling 10 Pips down & using 12-15 pip stops behind ea. I was putting these in aprox. 3-4 mins ahead of the respective rept. Oh by the way the 10 up & 10 down means from the outside edges of the last 5 - 6 min approach range amt.

Well any way I popped them for aprox. $220.00 real quick. Maybe got lucky, don't really know? Within a week. Then----------I was all set up again & guess what? When I tried to set up the 2-3 min out from trade time trade, the platform would only allow me the choice of entering at about 150 pips or so out either way???I tried to hold the click down to quickly cover enough pips to at least get in one side of the straddle at least & by the time the scrolling down to my desired enty point the (Rept)=(gun had already went) off & I was too late to enter. Since I'm not brain dead I quickly knew they were throwing some( --it) in the game! I called wondering why this happened & was given several speils , seems a different one from each person I spoke with. Well the bottom line is in their rules-disclaimer etc they clearly are within their rights to not allow entry orders within the time parameters of their choosing. The latest is my converting to (at their suggestion) the newly released platform that supposedly once requested by email and changed by them within 24 hrs, allows trader to trade directly w/ their banks, etc? Well my verdict is still out on this. So far the only problems have been that

the new platform froze when I was trying to move a stop after the entry order was tripped!

I lost money while trying to adjust my stop. I had (2) two computers going at that time. My desktop DSL server in my home, as well as a cutting edge Toshiba at same timethat was online at my home personal "Hotspot" of mine. . So I was told it likley was my computer hung up? When I said I had (2) pc's, the next explanation was "they were having some problems w/ the new upgreded platform & they hopefully woulg get probs fixed soon. I'm believing this "Forex" Mkt is totally rigged to the point that whoever wins is (who they want to win? Hope after further review & experimenting this prove to not be true though.

Sincerely Greg

From

I'm told & so far I'm led to believe that at fxcm (if you request your platform be changed) to the

( "Deal directly w/ banks") one etc, that your trades supposedly go straight thru to the banks, & they only know that the trade came from fxcm? So far I'v not determined yet whether I believe that.

Here's my most recent experience:

With the regular dealers Platform (mini-acct) I told them at sign up I was an Extreme Novice, which was true. Although I very quickly percieved that the only time that the Mkt was guaranteed to move a great amt & very quickly was at Rept Release times. I used what I;ve discovered on my own, is called Straddling the Mkt = Buying 10 pis up & Selling 10 Pips down & using 12-15 pip stops behind ea. I was putting these in aprox. 3-4 mins ahead of the respective rept. Oh by the way the 10 up & 10 down means from the outside edges of the last 5 - 6 min approach range amt.

Well any way I popped them for aprox. $220.00 real quick. Maybe got lucky, don't really know? Within a week. Then----------I was all set up again & guess what? When I tried to set up the 2-3 min out from trade time trade, the platform would only allow me the choice of entering at about 150 pips or so out either way???I tried to hold the click down to quickly cover enough pips to at least get in one side of the straddle at least & by the time the scrolling down to my desired enty point the (Rept)=(gun had already went) off & I was too late to enter. Since I'm not brain dead I quickly knew they were throwing some( --it) in the game! I called wondering why this happened & was given several speils , seems a different one from each person I spoke with. Well the bottom line is in their rules-disclaimer etc they clearly are within their rights to not allow entry orders within the time parameters of their choosing. The latest is my converting to (at their suggestion) the newly released platform that supposedly once requested by email and changed by them within 24 hrs, allows trader to trade directly w/ their banks, etc? Well my verdict is still out on this. So far the only problems have been that

the new platform froze when I was trying to move a stop after the entry order was tripped!

I lost money while trying to adjust my stop. I had (2) two computers going at that time. My desktop DSL server in my home, as well as a cutting edge Toshiba at same timethat was online at my home personal "Hotspot" of mine. . So I was told it likley was my computer hung up? When I said I had (2) pc's, the next explanation was "they were having some problems w/ the new upgreded platform & they hopefully woulg get probs fixed soon. I'm believing this "Forex" Mkt is totally rigged to the point that whoever wins is (who they want to win? Hope after further review & experimenting this prove to not be true though.

Sincerely Greg

11-19-06

From

I'm told & so far I'm led to believe that at fxcm (if you request your platform be changed) to the NDD = ( "Deal directly w/ banks") one etc, that your trades supposedly go straight thru to the banks, & they only know that the trade came from fxcm? So far I’ve not determined yet whether I believe that.

Here's my most recent experience:

With the regular dealers Platform (mini-acct) I told them at sign up I was an Extreme Novice, which was true. Although I very quickly perceived that the only time that the Mkt. was guaranteed to move a great amt. & very quickly was at Rept Release times. I used what I’ve discovered on my own, is called Straddling the Mkt. = Buying 10 pips up & Selling 10 Pips down & using 12-15 pip stops behind ea. I was putting these in aprox. 3-4 mins ahead of the respective rept. Oh by the way the 10 up & 10 down means from the outside edges of the last 5 - 6 min approach range amt.

Well any way I popped them for aprox. $220.00 real quick. Maybe got lucky, don't really know? Within a week. Then----------I was all set up again & guess what? When I tried to set up the 2-3 min out from trade time trade, the platform would only allow me the choice of entering at about 150 pips or so out either way???I tried to hold the click down to quickly cover enough pips to at least get in one side of the straddle at least & by the time the scrolling down to my desired entry point the (Rept)=(gun had already went) off & I was too late to enter. Since I'm not brain dead I quickly knew they were throwing some

( --it) in the game! I called wondering why this happened & was given several spiel’s , seems a different one from each person I spoke with. Well the bottom line is in their rules-disclaimer etc they clearly are within their rights to not allow entry orders within the time parameters of their choosing. The latest is my converting to (at their suggestion) the newly released platform that supposedly once requested by email and changed by them within 24 hrs, allows trader to trade directly w/ their banks, etc? Well my verdict is still out on this. So far the only problems have been that

the new platform froze when I was trying to move a stop after the entry order was tripped!

I lost money while trying to adjust my stop. I had (2) two computers going at that time. My desktop DSL server in my home, as well as a cutting edge Toshiba at same timethat was online at my home personal "Hotspot" of mine. . So I was told it likely was my computer hung up? When I said I had (2) pc's, the next explanation was "they were having some problems w/ the new upgraded platform & they hopefully would get probs fixed soon. I'm believing this "Forex" Mkt is totally rigged to the point that whoever wins is (who they want to win? Hope after further review & experimenting this prove to not be true though.

Sincerely Greg

RE: post I replied to below------------

Quote:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width=624 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=center>Originally Posted by Sma Also, watch out for FXCM's new product, the NDD option on your account. I took it for a test drive and it fails miserably. Theoretically its the propfx feed going into the trade station 2 platform. But whatever, it took about 7 attempts to close a position with market order. so sad.


Sma


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

11-19-06



I'm told & so far I'm led to believe that at fxcm (if you request your platform be changed) to the NDD = ( "Deal directly w/ banks") one etc, that your trades supposedly go straight thru to the banks, & they only know that the trade came from fxcm? So far I’ve not determined yet whether I believe that.

Here's my most recent experience:

With the regular dealers Platform (mini-acct) I told them at sign up I was an Extreme Novice, which was true. Although I very quickly perceived that the only time that the Mkt. was guaranteed to move a great amt. & very quickly was at Rept Release times. I used what I’ve discovered on my own, is called Straddling the Mkt. = Buying 10 pips up & Selling 10 Pips down & using 12-15 pip stops behind ea. I was putting these in aprox. 3-4 mins ahead of the respective rept. Oh by the way the 10 up & 10 down means from the outside edges of the last 5 - 6 min approach range amt.

Well any way I popped them for aprox. $220.00 real quick. Maybe got lucky, don't really know? Within a week. Then----------I was all set up again & guess what? When I tried to set up the 2-3 min out from trade time trade, the platform would only allow me the choice of entering at about 150 pips or so out either way???I tried to hold the click down to quickly cover enough pips to at least get in one side of the straddle at least & by the time the scrolling down to my desired entry point the (Rept)=(gun had already went) off & I was too late to enter. Since I'm not brain dead I quickly knew they were throwing some

( --it) in the game! I called wondering why this happened & was given several spiel’s , seems a different one from each person I spoke with. Well the bottom line is in their rules-disclaimer etc they clearly are within their rights to not allow entry orders within the time parameters of their choosing. The latest is my converting to (at their suggestion) the newly released platform that supposedly once requested by email and changed by them within 24 hrs, allows trader to trade directly w/ their banks, etc? Well my verdict is still out on this. So far the only problems have been that

the new platform froze when I was trying to move a stop after the entry order was tripped!

I lost money while trying to adjust my stop. I had (2) two computers going at that time. My desktop DSL server in my home, as well as a cutting edge Toshiba at same timethat was online at my home personal "Hotspot" of mine. . So I was told it likely was my computer hung up? When I said I had (2) pc's, the next explanation was "they were having some problems w/ the new upgraded platform & they hopefully would get probs fixed soon. I'm believing this "Forex" Mkt is totally rigged to the point that whoever wins is (who they want to win? Hope after further review & experimenting this prove to not be true though.

Sincerely Greg

RE: post I replied to below------------

Quote:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width=624 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=center>Originally Posted by Sma Also, watch out for FXCM's new product, the NDD option on your account. I took it for a test drive and it fails miserably. Theoretically its the propfx feed going into the trade station 2 platform. But whatever, it took about 7 attempts to close a position with market order. so sad.


Sma


</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>