Well I'm back briefly to discuss my current position and my risk aversion.
Right now I trade with three brokers, GFT UK, Alpari Pro UK and Oanda.
You might be looking at the screen puzzled as to why I've spread across three different broker and platform, well its a simple case of risk aversion.
I had an incident a while back where I placed a market order and lost my platform connectivity, the market moved over three times the distance of my normal stop size which I didn't have time to place because of the issue. When you're trading 50-100 contracts, that's a serious hit.
My resolution to this problem is trading across three platforms, over two broadband connections, one satellite connection, with three separate computers, three separate screens and three separate battery backups. I've insulated each platform from the other so if anything goes wrong on one I can counter with the other i.e. a hedge for safety. It also allows me to trade price across three planes making sure I'm seeing the real/right data.
In summary I'd like to add each of the brokers I use, one bucket (GFT), one ECN (Oanda) and one STP (Alpari Pro), are all pretty reliable and credible. I rarely see discrepancies between them and to be honest I'm generally impressed by the reliability of them all, if you can fund it the Alpari Pro is up there for speed and spread - it's great but lacks charts.
I actually signed up for a fourth platform on Sunday because I wanted to test the hype surrounding the new 'LMAX' exchange, no DD, no market making, no taking the other side of your trade, fully FSA regulated exchange with L2 FX data.
It's a UK only operation and thus far it seems pretty good, quick execution and very competitive spreads at ~1pip for the majors. Charting is poor but that means nothing to me, I just use a naked 5m.
I'll keep those interested (and UK residents) updated on how I get on with LMAX.
Margin calls are you friend - quite an odd heading you might think? I've made it bold for a reason.
Another technique I now use is to trade/operate on low capital levels, I literally keep a couple of trades worth of cash in my accounts which means in the event of a disaster a margin call will close out my positions and whilst bigger than my stop, it won't be my entire capital.
Because of my accuracy I have only once had to inject cash, that aside it's withdrawals every few days, tedious to some but safety and risk averse to me.
Oh and the final piece of risk aversion, I ditched the woman that was causing me head and heartache.
Happy trading.
Right now I trade with three brokers, GFT UK, Alpari Pro UK and Oanda.
You might be looking at the screen puzzled as to why I've spread across three different broker and platform, well its a simple case of risk aversion.
I had an incident a while back where I placed a market order and lost my platform connectivity, the market moved over three times the distance of my normal stop size which I didn't have time to place because of the issue. When you're trading 50-100 contracts, that's a serious hit.
My resolution to this problem is trading across three platforms, over two broadband connections, one satellite connection, with three separate computers, three separate screens and three separate battery backups. I've insulated each platform from the other so if anything goes wrong on one I can counter with the other i.e. a hedge for safety. It also allows me to trade price across three planes making sure I'm seeing the real/right data.
In summary I'd like to add each of the brokers I use, one bucket (GFT), one ECN (Oanda) and one STP (Alpari Pro), are all pretty reliable and credible. I rarely see discrepancies between them and to be honest I'm generally impressed by the reliability of them all, if you can fund it the Alpari Pro is up there for speed and spread - it's great but lacks charts.
I actually signed up for a fourth platform on Sunday because I wanted to test the hype surrounding the new 'LMAX' exchange, no DD, no market making, no taking the other side of your trade, fully FSA regulated exchange with L2 FX data.
It's a UK only operation and thus far it seems pretty good, quick execution and very competitive spreads at ~1pip for the majors. Charting is poor but that means nothing to me, I just use a naked 5m.
I'll keep those interested (and UK residents) updated on how I get on with LMAX.
Margin calls are you friend - quite an odd heading you might think? I've made it bold for a reason.
Another technique I now use is to trade/operate on low capital levels, I literally keep a couple of trades worth of cash in my accounts which means in the event of a disaster a margin call will close out my positions and whilst bigger than my stop, it won't be my entire capital.
Because of my accuracy I have only once had to inject cash, that aside it's withdrawals every few days, tedious to some but safety and risk averse to me.
Oh and the final piece of risk aversion, I ditched the woman that was causing me head and heartache.
Happy trading.
"I made all my money by selling too soon"
