NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





Interactive Brokers for Spot Forex


Discussion in Brokers

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one sasnak with 3 posts (0 thanks)
    2. looks_two wldman with 3 posts (1 thanks)
    3. looks_3 bnichols with 2 posts (0 thanks)
    4. looks_4 Traderji with 2 posts (1 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one vegasfoster with 1 thanks per post
    2. looks_two kardkovacsi with 1 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 Traderji with 0.5 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 wldman with 0.3 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 18,661 views
    2. thumb_up 4 thanks given
    3. group 8 followers
    1. forum 15 posts
    2. attach_file 1 attachments




 
Search this Thread

Interactive Brokers for Spot Forex

  #1 (permalink)
 sasnak 
Ventura, California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT7
Trading: ES
Posts: 12 since Jul 2011
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 3

I'm considering IB for spot forex trading and have a few questions for those that are trading spot with them.

1. I use range charts - do they have histoical data for backfill? If so, how many days?

2. Is their price data reliable - especially at 8:30 ET US market open and during important news? Is there any zig-zagging of price data across the chart at high volume times?

3. They state that their spreads are very tight. Is this true? If you have used other ECN-type spot forex brokers, how would you compare IBs spreads to theirs?

4. Any major issues with slippage.

Thank you.

Started this thread Reply With Quote

Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
Better Renko Gaps
The Elite Circle
The space time continuum and the dynamics of a financial …
Emini and Emicro Index
Exit Strategy
NinjaTrader
NT7 Indicator Script Troubleshooting - Camarilla Pivots
NinjaTrader
NexusFi Journal Challenge - April 2024
Feedback and Announcements
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
38 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
27 thanks
GFIs1 1 DAX trade per day journal
19 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
  #3 (permalink)
 
wldman's Avatar
 wldman 
Chicago Illinois USA
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Broker: IB, ToS
Trading: /ES, US Equities/Options
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Hours
Posts: 3,507 since Aug 2011
Thanks Given: 2,046
Thanks Received: 9,491


in hearing pro/con from current IB account holders. My current broker does more to piss me off than they do to offer answers or provide service. DB

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #4 (permalink)
 vegasfoster 
las vegas
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Velocity/IB
Trading: 6E
Posts: 1,145 since Feb 2010
Thanks Given: 304
Thanks Received: 844


sasnak View Post
I'm considering IB for spot forex trading and have a few questions for those that are trading spot with them.

1. I use range charts - do they have histoical data for backfill? If so, how many days?

2. Is their price data reliable - especially at 8:30 ET US market open and during important news? Is there any zig-zagging of price data across the chart at high volume times?

3. They state that their spreads are very tight. Is this true? If you have used other ECN-type spot forex brokers, how would you compare IBs spreads to theirs?

4. Any major issues with slippage.

Thank you.

It has been a little while since I last traded spot forex through IB, but this was my experience.

1. No, no historical tick backfill and their real time data is filtered compared to other brokers. Because spot forex data can vary wildly from source to source, my preference was to leave my computer running. If you use Sierra Chart with IB, which is what I recommend, then you will get 2 Second backfill from Sierra Chart, which is good enough for populating charts for discretionary trading, but not good for backtesting.

2. Not exactly sure what you mean by this, but if there is zig zagging of price then there will be zig zagging of price.

3. Spreads and fills are good during NY hours, spreads are good but limit fills are slightly worse during London hours, and I can't speak to Asian hours. Spreads do get bigger during off hours and news times. The biggest advantage will come if you are trading off-pairs.

4. You can get slippage with market orders, but during primary hours I never found it to be excessive. You get the occasional wtf, but obviously that's the nature of market orders.

A couple of other things. First, I had very frequent and scary order execution problems with NT and TWS, which is why I switched to Sierra Chart. Maybe someone else can speak as to whether this has improved or not over the past 18 months. While it has some nice features, basically TWS is a huge pile of Java Poo that you are going have to get use to eating. Second, If you trade non-usd pairs, when you exit the trade your money will be left in the other base currency, e.g. an aud/jpy trade will result you owning yen, so you will have to pay additional commissions and spreads to convert it back to USD or subject yourself to the fluctuations of that currency. This is really freaking annoying. Third, unless things have changes, federal tax treatment for currency transactions is different than futures contracts and there are certain elections that you may need to make, so do your homework on this before you start trading.

It essentially comes down to whether no restrictions on scalping, no restrictions on news trades, and not having to worry about getting screwed by your broker/dealer, e.g. stop hunted, outweigh the crappy data, commissions, problems with NT and TWS???, pos TWS, and the ridiculously stupid currency conversion requirements.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #5 (permalink)
 sasnak 
Ventura, California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT7
Trading: ES
Posts: 12 since Jul 2011
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 3


wldman View Post
in hearing pro/con from current IB account holders. My current broker does more to piss me off than they do to offer answers or provide service. DB

wldman,

I see that you list MB Trading as your broker. Is this your current broker that you are talking about in your post?

I am currently demoing the MB Trading/NT combination. How is it that they piss you off? Sometimes I get "phantom" zig-zag data from them and that pisses me off - see attachment.

If I could ask, what problems are you having with MBT ?

Thanks

Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Phantom Zig-Zag.jpg
Views:	302
Size:	147.2 KB
ID:	88469  
Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #6 (permalink)
 sasnak 
Ventura, California
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NT7
Trading: ES
Posts: 12 since Jul 2011
Thanks Given: 26
Thanks Received: 3


vegasfoster View Post
It has been a little while since I last traded spot forex through IB, but this was my experience.

1. No, no historical tick backfill and their real time data is filtered compared to other brokers. Because spot forex data can vary wildly from source to source, my preference was to leave my computer running. If you use Sierra Chart with IB, which is what I recommend, then you will get 2 Second backfill from Sierra Chart, which is good enough for populating charts for discretionary trading, but not good for backtesting.

2. Not exactly sure what you mean by this, but if there is zig zagging of price then there will be zig zagging of price.

3. Spreads and fills are good during NY hours, spreads are good but limit fills are slightly worse during London hours, and I can't speak to Asian hours. Spreads do get bigger during off hours and news times. The biggest advantage will come if you are trading off-pairs.

4. You can get slippage with market orders, but during primary hours I never found it to be excessive. You get the occasional wtf, but obviously that's the nature of market orders.

A couple of other things. First, I had very frequent and scary order execution problems with NT and TWS, which is why I switched to Sierra Chart. Maybe someone else can speak as to whether this has improved or not over the past 18 months. While it has some nice features, basically TWS is a huge pile of Java Poo that you are going have to get use to eating. Second, If you trade non-usd pairs, when you exit the trade your money will be left in the other base currency, e.g. an aud/jpy trade will result you owning yen, so you will have to pay additional commissions and spreads to convert it back to USD or subject yourself to the fluctuations of that currency. This is really freaking annoying. Third, unless things have changes, federal tax treatment for currency transactions is different than futures contracts and there are certain elections that you may need to make, so do your homework on this before you start trading.

It essentially comes down to whether no restrictions on scalping, no restrictions on news trades, and not having to worry about getting screwed by your broker/dealer, e.g. stop hunted, outweigh the crappy data, commissions, problems with NT and TWS???, pos TWS, and the ridiculously stupid currency conversion requirements.

Thanks for your response.

In my previous post I attached an image of the zig-zagging of price I was referring to. It has occurred a few times already with the MB Trading/NT combination I have been demoing.

If I understand you correctly, if I want to run range charts with TWS/NT, then I can only capture this data in real time? And if I didn't have my computer running for 1 hr. during the day, I could not display that hour's range data?

Regarding trading non-US pairs and paying additional spreads and commissions to convert the foreign base currency back into USD, is this just the way IB handles the conversion? How do other brokers convert the foreign base currency back into USD?

What types of frequent order execution problems were you having with TWS/NT? Have these problems been resolved using Sierra Chart?

Thank you.

Started this thread Reply With Quote
  #7 (permalink)
 
wldman's Avatar
 wldman 
Chicago Illinois USA
Legendary Market Wizard
 
Experience: Advanced
Broker: IB, ToS
Trading: /ES, US Equities/Options
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Hours
Posts: 3,507 since Aug 2011
Thanks Given: 2,046
Thanks Received: 9,491

my current broker. Loyalty is waning and I have had to open the possibility of going somewhere else. Thanks @vegasfoster

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote
  #8 (permalink)
 Traderji 
Australia
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: NinjaTrader, Multicharts
Trading: Spot Forex, Gold, Silver
Posts: 176 since Oct 2010
Thanks Given: 114
Thanks Received: 114


wldman View Post
my current broker. Loyalty is waning and I have had to open the possibility of going somewhere else. Thanks @vegasfoster


MB Trading is the absolute worst broker for providing consistent service. It's a coin toss whether their servers will fall over on daily basis or not. Last six months I don't think a week has gone past without them having some sort of technical outage - whether it is the quote servers or the order servers or logging into account management on their website or their smartphone trading app or even once when their whole phone system was out. And that's just in the last six months.

I trade during the Asia & London sessions and 95% chance that you will not get hold of their phone support during those hours. And I am not talking about staying on hold. The phones are simply not answered by anyone, they just keep ringing.

Even NY open time is not 100% for getting hold of them because they are in california and work on pacific time.

My recommendation stay the hell away. Check out LMAX if you want a good broker for forex.

Reply With Quote
Thanked by:
  #9 (permalink)
 
monpere's Avatar
 monpere 
Bala, PA, USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Mirus, IB
Trading: SPY, Oil, Euro
Posts: 1,854 since Jul 2010
Thanks Given: 300
Thanks Received: 3,371


Traderji View Post
MB Trading is the absolute worst broker for providing consistent service. It's a coin toss whether their servers will fall over on daily basis or not. Last six months I don't think a week has gone past without them having some sort of technical outage - whether it is the quote servers or the order servers or logging into account management on their website or their smartphone trading app or even once when their whole phone system was out. And that's just in the last six months.

I trade during the Asia & London sessions and 95% chance that you will not get hold of their phone support during those hours. And I am not talking about staying on hold. The phones are simply not answered by anyone, they just keep ringing.

Even NY open time is not 100% for getting hold of them because they are in california and work on pacific time.

My recommendation stay the hell away. Check out LMAX if you want a good broker for forex.

I just got an email this week from MB Trading apologizing for an outage during the week because their Telco broke a line or something. I was experimenting with Forex with a live test account with them. My problem is that sometimes it took in excess of 6 seconds to modify an order, outrageous! I would also regularly see the market surpass my profit target by 4 or 5 ticks and come back again, and I would never get a fill.

I never had these bad experiences with Interarcive Brokers. For me the only drawback to IB is that they don't do micro lots, although you can trade the EUR/USD in 1/4 lots. I also believe you can do fractional in other pairs but they will route them differently and you will get worst spreads.

Reply With Quote
  #10 (permalink)
 
bnichols's Avatar
 bnichols 
Dartmouth NS
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: MC, MC.Net, NT, TWS
Broker: IB / IQFeed / Kids
Trading: Forex, stocks
Posts: 637 since Feb 2010
Thanks Given: 64
Thanks Received: 460


I'm another IB user for spot Forex, agree with everything vegasfoster said, use them because I have a number of other accounts with them and find the quality of service for Forex acceptable. However, in my case data/order fulfillment quality is less of issue than simple spot Forex trading know-how. May rethink IB for Forex if and when I decide they're holding me back

My sons use other brokers (e.g., Gain) mainly because they cater to smaller accounts and because they interface with NinjaTrader. In general choice of a broker/data provider is dependent on your circumstances and your personal preferences. Unfortunately the Interwebz abounds with opinion and there is no real substitute for your own experience.

ETA: Also like vegasfoster I'm currently exploring other options than the NinjaTrader/IB combo.

Visit my NexusFi Trade Journal Reply With Quote




Last Updated on July 10, 2013


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts