Disappointed in FXCM

[shliq]

Heres my story.

Its almost 2 am(est) here so I'm looking over the market waiting for the euro session to open and doing some small trades here and there while I'm at it. Low and behold a position goes against me with an engulfing candle.

I always have my stop losses set when putting in a trade but when a huge candle appears against my position i usually close it manually. So here i am right clicking on my position trying to close it and BAM nothing, error message says "you cant open a position in the opposite direction of current positions" or something along these lines, essentially completely unrelated bull****.

I try it a few more times ( as my losses mount might i add) by now I'm almost at my stop loss ( i tried closing and opening the trade station a few times now, as well as on my laptop ). So i think, **** it at least ill hit my stop loss and its gonna be over, its set on their servers not on my computer so it cant really go wrong ? or can it.....

Let me tell you how the price flies by my stop loss making a sound but not closing my position. By this point as you might imagine my asshole shrank to the size of a decimal point. I have an open position clearly against the current trend and i cant close it. And it wont close at the stop loss ( THAT IS SET AT THEIR SERVER ).

I pick up the ****ing phone and start calling while at the same time logging on to their online chat support, which usually helps pretty well but this time i got a ****ing ****(cutout):

FXCM£4: ah micro accounts
FXCM£4: cannot deal by phone unfortunately
FXCM£4: we wont be able to get this out for you
FXCM£4: we only do mini accounts
FXCM£4: you can email [email protected]
FXCM£4: for help
FXCM£4: or
FXCM£4: The global support center for FXCM Micro is accessible at FXCM Micro Lot Support
Vlad: ok wait a minute, you want me to EMAIL the support to CLOSE a position that your system wont close when i ask it to ?
FXCM£4: correct
FXCM£4: we dont service micro accounts
FXCM£4: if you want to trade by phone
FXCM£4: consdier moving up toa mini account
FXCM£4: take care now

And he/she closes the chat so i cant msg anything back to him/her.

Continued in next post

 

[shliq]

Now i don't have a big account with them and i don't want to have the inflexibility of trading 10 or 20 lots and nothing in between which is what a mini account holds so i keep a micro. Nevertheless i dont think that at any respectable firm they should have the right to keep a position open even after a stop loss is passed that is set "at best" rather than range ( this was not a crazy volatile market its the asian session). And tell me to EMAIL them to close a position they are holding hostage. I always had good experiences with them but this was just wow.... this and the spikes they force all the time. Now im having serious doubt wether or not i should open my mini account with them or another firm especially how i was rudely treated by their support team in such a situation....


Well thats my rant. Tell me what you think ? maybe im a moron or something.

 

[shliq]

im not sure how the timeframe would influence my stop losses but i was on the 1 minute when things went wrong... i checked both bid and ask charts as things were going on to see maybe the spread was just on crack but nada, it was all a ok.

 

[Rossini]

It does say on their website that there is little, if any support for micro accounts. Considering the amount of money at stake its understandable really. Regarding jumping past your stop, it can depend on the actual market conditions, the asian session can be very thin. But with a micro account your orders don't get to the market and i'm not sure what their policy is for this when trading micros.

 

[shliq]

EUR/GBP long at 1:46 am, and the candle im talking about is at the 2:12 mark, see how it engulfs the previous 3 candles. my stop loss naturally was under the previous resis. level which if im not mistaken would be .8979

 

[shliq]

I believe it should not matter whether I have 1$ on the table or 1 million, holding a position in a certain direction without allowing the trader to come out of it is not acceptable. I will switch over to the mini account now, however i do notice that the longer i am profitable the more problems in run into with them. But I'm so used to their platform it will be hard to switch, however necessary.

 

[shliq]

gammajammer:
I entered the trade at 1:46:15 am EST(16th of feb) at .89954, the engulfing candle that I'm talking about happened at 2:12 am on my charts, the candle specifications at open: .90127 close:.90060 and those are the highs and lows as well, which means that the shorts really took control. The candle itself is only 6.7 pips which is not that much however compared the previous 3 candles preceding it its an engulfing candle i.m.o. So at that point in tried closing the trade manually, and it didn't work just errors i also had a stop loss set at around the 8979 level which was suppose to be hit at 2:32 and it didnt, just flew right by it. the trade finally closed at 2:40:38, i couldn't move my stop loss during this time as well.

 

[Rossini]

lol

 

[greentrader99]

Is this the first time that you have had problems wth them? How long have you been with them?

 

[shliq]

Look buddy, do I come into your bedroom and tell you how to **** your boyfriend ? No.
So don't ****ing tell me how to trade. Moron.

I find the fact that eurgbp moved 6 points and you immediately cacked yourself and when you couldn't exit the position went straight onto the phone hilarious. I am actually laughing out loud right now.

Please mate - you got any more of these dealing war stories? These are crrrrrrraszy times we live in.

I remember this one time, I was sitting there and Boom, outta nowhere Aussie moved 8 points. Swear to god. No news out, nothing. Well I did what I was suppposed to do in such extreme circumstances. I immediately phoned the chief dealer of my bank down in Singapore to alert him. He was getting one of those special massages at the time and was none too happy with me. But at least I didn't panic. Gave myself a pat on the back for that.

 

[neil]

Look buddy, do I come into your bedroom and tell you how to **** your boyfriend ? No.
So don't ****ing tell me how to trade. Moron.

Hmmm...sh1tlick throwing his toys out of the pram then

 

[claudius2u]

Here's the Broker Point of View - (I'm Not A Broker)

Turn your attention to the broker, and his business, "shliq."

Only, rather than only see the broker view, think first how you feel about the money and assets you own, Then think how that broker sees his assets. Pretty much the same as you?

Well, for one, I am willing to bet that that broker holds his assets much, much closer than you hold yours, because, if his assets disappear, so does his business, and his ability to continue making an income.

Would you lose your ability to survive if you lost your entire account with a broker? That's something only you know, but with a micro account, used because you do not want to lose a large amount, my estimated guess is that you have another life-support means.

Yes, the real answer to the broker Not giving live support to micro-accounts is that he would spend more on providing service than your tiny support for his business. In another way to say this, if you are employed, you must do meaningful work at your employer's business that makes him over 2 1/2 times what he pays you, jusat in order for him to keep you employed.

Does your micro-account at FXCM make them 2 1/2 times what it would cost to even answer your frantic support call ONE Time?

Fact is, NO, they could never make income by giving paid employee support to micro account holders.

For your info, I opened a micro account at FXCM, but it was their money, so if I do not like it, they were kind enough to give me a live trading slice of their system for free.

Here's still another way to think about brokers, and your business with them; If you worked at FXCM, and they told you that your job was making support calls for micro-account customers, BUT, you would earn from the profit coming in ONLY from the micro account business, how much do you suppose your hourly wage would be?

I hope this helps to see why brokers are not concerned with support for micro accounts.

I happen to have two micro accounts, as that is all I can afford. To make it fair to the brokers I deal with, I do very much self-learning, so I do not need to worry about making losing trades, or need other trading assistance.

Heres my story.

Its almost 2 am(est) here so I'm looking over the market waiting for the euro session to open and doing some small trades here and there while I'm at it. Low and behold a position goes against me with an engulfing candle.

I always have my stop losses set when putting in a trade but when a huge candle appears against my position i usually close it manually. So here i am right clicking on my position trying to close it and BAM nothing, error message says "you cant open a position in the opposite direction of current positions" or something along these lines, essentially completely unrelated bull****.

I try it a few more times ( as my losses mount might i add) by now I'm almost at my stop loss ( i tried closing and opening the trade station a few times now, as well as on my laptop ). So i think, **** it at least ill hit my stop loss and its gonna be over, its set on their servers not on my computer so it cant really go wrong ? or can it.....

. . . .

And he/she closes the chat so i cant msg anything back to him/her.

Continued in next post

 

[ns1000]

Turn your attention to the broker, and his business, "shliq."

Only, rather than only see the broker view, think first how you feel about the money and assets you own, Then think how that broker sees his assets. Pretty much the same as you?

Well, for one, I am willing to bet that that broker holds his assets much, much closer than you hold yours, because, if his assets disappear, so does his business, and his ability to continue making an income.

Would you lose your ability to survive if you lost your entire account with a broker? That's something only you know, but with a micro account, used because you do not want to lose a large amount, my estimated guess is that you have another life-support means.

Yes, the real answer to the broker Not giving live support to micro-accounts is that he would spend more on providing service than your tiny support for his business. In another way to say this, if you are employed, you must do meaningful work at your employer's business that makes him over 2 1/2 times what he pays you, jusat in order for him to keep you employed.

Does your micro-account at FXCM make them 2 1/2 times what it would cost to even answer your frantic support call ONE Time?

Fact is, NO, they could never make income by giving paid employee support to micro account holders.

For your info, I opened a micro account at FXCM, but it was their money, so if I do not like it, they were kind enough to give me a live trading slice of their system for free.

Here's still another way to think about brokers, and your business with them; If you worked at FXCM, and they told you that your job was making support calls for micro-account customers, BUT, you would earn from the profit coming in ONLY from the micro account business, how much do you suppose your hourly wage would be?

I hope this helps to see why brokers are not concerned with support for micro accounts.

I happen to have two micro accounts, as that is all I can afford. To make it fair to the brokers I deal with, I do very much self-learning, so I do not need to worry about making losing trades, or need other trading assistance.

You're missing the point that the online trading system apparently did not work. There is a valid expectation that a trading platform can be relied upon, or that help is available if it doesn;t work. If you buy a car and you can reasonably expect it to have an engine even if it only cost $100.

 

[shliq]

NS: Thank you, i think your the only person here who understands me.

claudius: It's not about whether or not they can answer my phone calls or not. If i cant login into my account and i have a micro one i don't mind sending them an email and waiting days even.

However having an open position and not being able to close it is a different story.

About the cost to them, I do 200k+ worth of trades per session(u.k.) its 3:51 am (est) and I'm already at 159k. with spreads of 1-4 which is what i usually get since i go in during breakouts and those tend to have higher spreads thats 20$-80$ per night. I'm 100% positive that they can afford to spend 5 minutes and close my position once in a blue moon, which their system ****ed up and failed to close in the first place.

I understand what you mean from a saving point of view, I run my own business so keeping costs is not foreign to me. However lets say i am the head of kia and sell a car to a customer, brand new. And then tell them it has brakes, headlights and everything however when they get off the lot, press the breaks they don't work. They get into an accident should I as the manufacturer be liable for malfunctioning brakes on a new car ? Yes. Its the same story here, although kia is a cheap car, it still has to function as i specified when selling it. Otherwise its fraud.

 

[claudius2u]

Well, let's take a look at the reasoning I presentad.

So far as my FXCM micro account is concerned, they state it is hosted on a secondary server, not the 1st class servers mini and standard accounts are hosted on.

From this I would gather that the micro, micro server traffic has little priority, compared to more profitable server traffic, and in the myriad of hosting issues that go along with HTML hosting services, issues with micro, micro, micro accounts servers receive nearly no attention, especially if simultaneous disruptions occur, to both income-producing domain servers and the piggy-backed micro, micro, micro servers. It goes without saying that the tiny, unprofitable trading system receives little attention when it has issues.

Hence, without much attention, the micro account system could conceivably be down for some extended period of time, especially so if a network-wide issue occurred, and staff was minding and mending the problem. I would not say my degrees in networking IT give me any advantage to know what did happen to cause your connection issue, but having the systems knowledge does assist with the reasoning of possibilities; that's where my point of view comes from.

Of course, I do not wish to belittle any sense of emotion, lack of control, abandonment by FXCM personnel, or any personal sense of loss you had, or will have, and I sincerely apologize if my reply came across that way.

A Caveat;

If at all possible, open the Forex account with $100,000.00, minimum. If not that sum, perhaps you're like me, and must trade live with $250.00, unless some broker, or good buddy, gives you another $100.00 to attract your initial account opening!)

Seriously, the level of FX trading one can do is based solely upon the level one can place on the trader's table, and say, without faltering, "Look, if I should lose this, it's no sweat. Just give me a trading seat, and allow me to lose it any way I choose!"

"IF" the trader has $100K, then the level of trading can commence with few restrictions on price fluctuations. IF the account balance is $10K, then the trader must observe fairly minimal standard trading practices, and very good money management, or the account will be quickly swallowed by money-consuming broker employees, just doing their job, manipulating spreads, and such.

"IF" the balance is $1K, then the trader can expect, if all else remains in 'normal' order, that his account will be wiped out in a few days, Unless he uses extremely tight money management, 0.01 PIP trades, and severe curtailment of his hours of trade, optimizing his understanding of the entire Forex System, and developing astute, very sensative market awareness as a deep, continuing regimen of his daily life.

OK, we're almost where a $25.00 micro account is concerned. The $500.00 account trader has all the most dire constraints of severest money management to Master, and watch like a hawk, in light of nearly instataneous account wipeout, should any of hundreds of snafus occur. His money management is primarily fund conservation, where it is primarily best to NOT trade at all, if any market uncertainty exists.

$100.00 accounts are pretty much impossible to see any trading gains. If there is one, there will be 10 losses - it's statistics, not a mere 'luck' issue. Human minds do not have the speed, alackrity, skill, decision powers, or the stamina required to profitably, continuously trade such miniature balances in a market where funds' traffic is measures in $Multiple Ts.

OK; $25.00 micro, micro balance trade accounts. Where the real people who have no real trading money, no trading savvy, and no way to learn, but HUGE NEED to to gain a reasonable income, and Forex trading Appears SO attactive!) That's Me!

$25.00 balance accounts have so little chance of survival, even for minutes, in the ebb and flow of trillions of $$, in nano-second timed market transactions. Opening an FX account with this is just like going swimming in a 50 foot(17m) deep river channel with sttep rocky sides, and water velosity of 100 miles per hour(60+kmph), without both legs.

"IF" "ANY" profit is gained with this micro,micro,micro account, it will be pure luck, or with the most astute trading savvy imagineable. The safest way to ensure this balance stays intact is to NOT trade it! Really.

Almost as safe is to trade 0.001 lots, or 0.0005 lots, and set risk to 1% of balance per session, not each trade. Maximum expected profit per trade would be in the order of 0.1 cent, maybe less. Trading would have to be limited to exteremely quiet times, with volitility in the 5-8 PIP range, and holding. Periodicity would need to be on 30 second, or up to 2 minutes, not time enough to setup many trades, and activate them, before the market reversed, reducing the balance in the amount of expected profit.

15 minute periodicity? Forget it. 1 Hour? Never! Draw down is the factor. Brokers cannot sustain negative account balances; don't even think of trying to fool one!

Does this help?

 

[jeffsmith]

The present market conditions say that you make go for intraday trades and do not keep any open positions. The market conditions are not good and cannot say were it may go. I have seen the present market conditions and its movements.

 

[ns1000]

ok so the service is offered on second rate servers, but the service is offered nonetheless. There is an obligation to provide a fit for purpose service. If the advertised method of contracting does not work, there should be a reasonable back up. If it's not cost effective to offer this service, it shouldn't be offered.

 

[shliq]

I see your point claudius, however I'm running around 150,000 people daily through a 405$ server(and these are heavy media sites). It really cant cost them that much to have a tech stand by the micro server. But that doesn't matter. I should move to a mini account to receive better service which ill do in the next few days. I cant really ask them to change their policies because of one occurrence, no matter how unprofessional and rude it was of the agent to just cut off the conversation.

About the second part: I'm not trading a small account per say, its 5k in total 2k in cash on hand and 3k on the account . With stops that are around 40$ per trade i would need 75 losing trades in a row to wipe out my account, thats when reserve money comes in. Which is not likely in my style. The reason i keep this account is because i dont want to have the inflexibility of picking 10k or 20k lots and nothing in between. Also you can trade with a 250$ account as well just don't take on standard lots. Its all relative to how much risk you are taking on. Bah. ok. i dont want to talk about this incident anymore. I think it was unprofessional and rude of them to tell me to Email them to close a position, regardless if i have a standard, mini or super midget microbe account.

 

[arabianights]

Look buddy, do I come into your bedroom and tell you how to **** your boyfriend ? No.
So don't ****ing tell me how to trade. Moron.

 

[kurkowski]

LOL :clap:

I find the fact that eurgbp moved 6 points and you immediately cacked yourself and when you couldn't exit the position went straight onto the phone hilarious. I am actually laughing out loud right now.

Please mate - you got any more of these dealing war stories? These are crrrrrrraszy times we live in.

I remember this one time, I was sitting there and Boom, outta nowhere Aussie moved 8 points. Swear to god. No news out, nothing. Well I did what I was suppposed to do in such extreme circumstances. I immediately phoned the chief dealer of my bank down in Singapore to alert him. He was getting one of those special massages at the time and was none too happy with me. But at least I didn't panic. Gave myself a pat on the back for that.