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FXCM's Suhail Afzal and Brad Gleason - Ask Me Anything (AMA)


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FXCM's Suhail Afzal and Brad Gleason - Ask Me Anything (AMA)

  #1 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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Suhail Afzal is a Brand Ambassador at FXCM and Brad Gleason is a Senior Automated Trading Tech at FXCM, and both gentlemen will be monitoring this thread so that they may answer any questions that you post here relating to the products and services offered by FXCM.

Please keep in mind that some customer service/technical support issues are best handled through proper channels at FXCM.

FXCM (Forex Capital Markets, NYSE: FXCM) is an industry leading Forex Dealer, registered with the NFA and CFTC. FXCM offers several different account types so that you can choose the best one for your trading situation. They offer a NDD (no dealing desk) with STP (straight through processing) and 10+ liquidity providers on all major currency pairs.

One of the advantages of Forex is the ability to control risk in a very gradual manner. For those newer traders that want to put some skin in the game so they can start mastering the discipline necessary to be a good trader, you can open an account with FXCM for as little as $50 and trade a product where each pip is approximately 10 cents. A better example is perhaps to fund with $500 and size your position so that with each trade you are risking only 1-2% or roughly $5-10. This is a great way to learn without risking much. Forex is not simply for beginners, in fact Currency Trading is far bigger than any other type of trading worldwide.

FXCM supports major trading platforms including NinjaTrader and MetaTrader.

In addition to this thread, I will also be asking Suhail and Brad to stop by on occasion for a casual webinar where they can answer questions via audio while also sharing their screen to visually demonstrate any points as needed. The date/time of those sessions will be announced here in this thread. These sessions will be limited to questions only, there is no prepared presentation. After the session ends, the recording will be posted in this thread.

You can find more on their website:
Forex, Foreign Exchange, FX, and Currency Trading Online 24/5 @ FXCM

Feel free to ask any questions below and we'll do our best to get them answered.

The futures.io (formerly BMT) "AMA" (Ask Me Anything) series is by invitation only. It is part of a new program we are launching shortly called "Certified Trustworthy", something that has been months in the making. I will provide all the details of this new program as soon as it is ready for launch.

Mike

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  #3 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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I also want to let everyone know that FXCM will be presenting a webinar on nexusfi.com (formerly BMT), Thursday, March 14th @ 4:30 PM ET:



The presentation is a joint FXCM + NinjaTrader presentation where they will cover the differences of trading spot forex vs other markets, advantages/disadvantages, as well as the new connectivity with NinjaTrader.

Mike

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  #4 (permalink)
 
Big Mike's Avatar
 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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I wanted to ask a few questions off the bat.

About 50% of users on futures.io (formerly BMT) are outside of the USA. I regularly see some of these members having trouble opening futures accounts due to country restrictions (the US-based institution won't agree to open an account for a resident of country xyz). Are there similar restrictions for a forex account at FXCM? And if yes, is there a list that people can reference?

FXCM recently added support for NinjaTrader. This is a big deal for futures.io (formerly BMT) because most of the users here are using NinjaTrader. Is everything fully implemented now? I know you'll go into more detail next week during the webinar but one particular question was the historical data element. Can you expand on what is available in terms of historical data for charts or backtesting, and if that process is working smoothly now? How far back does the data go? Daily bars, minute bars, what about tick data?

FXCM is offering to pay for NinjaTrader when you fund an account with FXCM. Can you give the specifics? Is there a minimum funding amount? Is there a minimum number of trades per month? What version of NinjaTrader is it (is it the full version with support for custom NinjaScript?).

NinjaTrader has a 32-bit and 64-bit application. Not all brokerage API's support the 64-bit interface. Is there a 64-bit API for FXCM for NinjaTrader? Running in 64-bit mode is useful for systems developers wanting to test on years of tick data and exceed the 1.5GB .NET 32-bit memory limit.

Thank you,

Mike

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  #5 (permalink)
 
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 FXCM Brad 
New York, NY
 
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Thank you for the post Mike! Let me see what I can do to answer these questions.

We do get a ton of inquiries from non-US clients as well, and we do our best to direct them to the appropriate location.

Here’s the easiest thing to do. Go to this site and select your country of residence: Click here

It will either:
1. Offer to connect you with the appropriate website based on your country selection
2. Provide instructions for opening an account

If you are unsure of what to click on, you can always contact us and we will be happy to help.

Additional sites:
FXCM US homepage
FXCM UK homepage
FXCM AU homepage
FXCM International Offices

Regarding NinjaTrader – I’m excited to hear that many futures.io (formerly BMT) users are trading with NinjaTrader! We have implemented the platform and, to the best of my knowledge, it offers the same orders that are available on the FXCM Trading Station II platform.

I’ve confirmed that all historical data is available to NinjaTrader – meaning that every historical price FXCM has is available for you to use (tick, minute, hour, day, etc.).

FXCM does have a great offer for traders who currently lease or anyone interested in NinjaTrader! For details, please click here: NinjaTrader

The requirements are:
1. Open an FXCM account (or increase net deposits) to total at least $5,000
2. Trade at least 500K round trip (open and close) in trading volume per month

Keep in mind that the balance requirement is a one-time check. The volume requirement will be checked beginning the first calendar month following the account opening, and any currency pair traded counts toward the requirement. There will be a fee if the requirements are not met, click here for details: NinjaTrader

This is for traders who are leasing the NinjaTrader platform and pay a monthly fee for its use. There’s no restriction on what version of the platform is used, and it does support the full version with NinjaScript! Finally, I’ve talked to the API team and FXCM supports the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the platform.

Thanks again for the post Mike! If anyone has questions, feel free to message me or email me at: [email protected]

Thanks!

Brad

If you have any questions about the products or services provided by FXCM, please send me a Private Message or use the BMT " Ask Me Anything" thread
The following user says Thank You to FXCM Brad for this post:
  #6 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
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FXCM Brad View Post
I’ve confirmed that all historical data is available to NinjaTrader – meaning that every historical price FXCM has is available for you to use (tick, minute, hour, day, etc.).

How much historical data is available for each category (day, minute, tick)? Using the EURUSD as an example.

Mike

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  #7 (permalink)
 
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 FXCM Brad 
New York, NY
 
Experience: Advanced
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Thanks for the question Mike!

I should have been clearer about that. So, the amount of historical data depends on the currency pair and timeframe. Typically, the more popular currency pairs have more data available. Taking EUR/USD for example, there are about 3-4 years of tick data available, and roughly 8-10 years of minute data. The same is likely true for GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CAD, etc. If you are looking at a more exotic pair, such as NZD/JPY or AUD/CAD, there’s likely less data, probably a year of tick data and 3-4 years of 1 minute data. Again, it all depends on the currency pair and timeframe.

When testing myself, I have found that this data is extremely dense; meaning a year of tick data on EUR/USD takes about 250Mb of space, and a very long time to download! When I do backtesting, I typically use minute data to test with. I find that the balance between backtesting quality and time required to download/backtest a strategy on is perfect. Also, there’s usually no need to use tick data to backtest with, unless someone is using a trailing stop. Nearly every automated strategy I’ve seen is based on the close of a bar: 1 minute, 5 minute, 1 hour, etc., so tick data will not impact the results. But if someone wants to use that intense of data, its available at FXCM!

Thank you and if there are any questions, feel free to email me: [email protected]

Brad

If you have any questions about the products or services provided by FXCM, please send me a Private Message or use the BMT " Ask Me Anything" thread
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  #8 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
Manta, Ecuador
Site Administrator
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Swing Trader
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Custom solution
Broker: IBKR
Trading: Stocks & Futures
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Posts: 50,322 since Jun 2009
Thanks Given: 33,143
Thanks Received: 101,476

One more question for now... does FXCM offer indices such as SP500 or commodities such as Gold or Oil that trade like their counterparts (ES, GC, CL) on the futures market, but on a spot market? CFD's?

Are these available to US customers?

Mike

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  #9 (permalink)
 
FXCM Brad's Avatar
 FXCM Brad 
New York, NY
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Trade Station, MT4
Trading: FX, CFD's
Posts: 56 since Mar 2013
Thanks Given: 75
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Great question, Mike!

FXCM does offer trading of other financial instruments. Unfortunately they are not available to US based clients.

For residents outside of the US, please click here to see a list of CFD’s available through FXCM. These are available to trade on the FXCM Trading Station II, Trading Station Web, Trading Station Mobile and MT4 platforms.

FAQ’s on the CFD functionality, please click here.

CFD product guide (PDF) please click here.

Thank you and if there are any questions, feel free to email me: [email protected]

Brad

If you have any questions about the products or services provided by FXCM, please send me a Private Message or use the BMT " Ask Me Anything" thread
The following 3 users say Thank You to FXCM Brad for this post:
  #10 (permalink)
 raefon72 
brisbane australia
 
Experience: Advanced
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Hi Brad,

I have registered to attend. Given that I am in Australia I am unsure if I can get in due to other commitments but will make every effort.

I am looking to open an account with FXCM and have listed with their beta group but no response as yet.


My big question and a huge problem I have had with other brokers is.

1) Can I trade past roll over. I require to be connected and stay connected if I want to carry a trade for a day or 2.
I use automated strategies that move my stops etc and I need that connection. If they can do this simple yet seemingly impossible task I will gladly open a FX account.

2) Instructions on how to open account for Ninja on their website its confusing.

Thanks Pnut.

I can't move faster than the markets.
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Last Updated on April 21, 2015


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