GBP 2 pip spread!!!!

So Johnny,
Can you splain it to me easy? To trade one contract, ($100,000 EURUSD), one round turn, what's my total cost. spread and commission.

And can I trade anything less than 1 full contract?
Thanks,
JO
 
1) You can trade from $25,000 upwards. The concept of a contract isn't their with IdealPro. You basically trade an ammount of dollars. When comparing to a bucket shop a mini contract is generally $10,000 and a full contract $100,000
2) Commission is 0.00002 pips with a min of $2.50 per order
For a $100,000 trade i.e. $10 per pip, spread is 1 pip and commission is $2.5 each way.
i.e. a buy and a sell would cost $5 or put another way 1/2 a pip
3) This means that the commission is relatively more expensive if you trade less that $125,000. Its effectively 1 pip for $25,000, 1/2 a pip for $50,000 etc
4) IdealPro is a fair and proper market, you can try and trade between the spread.
5) IB provide basic charting software with TWS
6) I'm developing a Java App to make IdealPro trading easier

HTH

JonnyT
 
Thanks Johnny,
So on a full contract, thats $15 -same as Oanda.com (equivalent to 1.5 pips spread)

edit: Oh and I expect you pay an extra $2.50 if you want to scale in or out..
seems fair to me.
JO
 
Another Question,
I took the TWS demo, and when I clicked on check margin for 1 contract ($100,000 EURUSD) it said the margin requirement was almost $20,000? I didn't see any place to configure the default margin to more than 5:1...
Thanks,
JO
 
And,
Can you use bracket trader or something like it to manage your trade once your in?
JO
 
Hi JumpOff,

Here are the margin requirements. Most are 50:1
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/marginRequirements/currency.php?ib_entity=uk

You need $2000 to trade $100000 EUR/USD on IdealPro

On a $100,000 deal it is eftectively 1.5 pips like Oanda. However that this where the comparison ends.
IB do not manipulate the price, they are a proper broker and do not make any money from the spread.
You can scalp and do anything you want with IB
IB doesn't suddenly stop processing trades on NFP's for example
You can use BracketTrader or similar if you require. I'm currently developing my own Front End purely for IdealPro and I may make it available for others to use in a week or two.

JonnyT
 
From the IB demo it appears that a limit order will only be filled if the price crosses the bid or ask respectively, whereas for Oanda the order is filled once Oanda is quoting at that particular bid-ask. So a 1 pip may actually be 2 pips on IB.
 
IBs order types:
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/orderTypesMatrix.php?ib_entity=uk

IdealPro Specific:
http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/trading/exchanges/usIB-pro.php?ib_entity=uk

I personally at present am using Market orders and what I see has been what I get.

What might be happening is that you place a Limit order at the current market price, the market moves a tic and thus you cannot be filled. Some Forex houses guarentee that what you see is what you get. Remember IdealPro is a real market and sometimes things move in the milliseconds between you placing an order and it get actioned by the Exchange.

To date placing market orders over the past week I have received a fill as required.

JonnyT
 
JonnyT said:
To date placing market orders over the past week I have received a fill as required.

JonnyT
Thanks for the info Johnny,
Have you traded during any periods where the market was really moving? Say like 8:30 - 8:40 EST on Sept 2, 2005? It seems reasonable to expect some slippage at times like this, client/server internet connections can only process so many orders at once.. Are you saying, there was no slippage during these time?

Oanda handles this by raising their spread (and they show it to you transparently tick by tick) so that for 90 - 180 seconds, you really have to stand aside or enter with a much wider than normal stop. To my way of thinking, it prevents some of the highest probability, lowest risk entries that are available at 30-120 seconds after an econ announcement.. These times look good during back testing, and there are classic entry patterns that appear to work well during "replay" simulators of historical data, but in real life, it's not possible to get in at that price at that moment with Oanda.
JO
 
How wide do Oanda go on the euro dollar and cable at say the moment the NFP's are released?
 
I've not traded IdealPro on an NFP announcement yet.

However I collected the data an it looks like you coud well have traded it.

Here is the 1 min chart.

JonnyT
 

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highest probability, lowest risk entries

On Oanda I can observe about one occurrence a month, not worth the while sitting in front of the screen and staring and waiting for it to happen. On Dukascopy it happens a few times an hour, but they prevent customers from benefitting from it.
 
They are usually at 1.2 or 1.5 (I have seen them offer rates as low as .9 for hours and hours...)
During non-farm payrolls and other big announcements, it is not unusual for them to go 10 pips just seconds before the announcement, then dropping to 6,4,3 within 90 - 120 seconds, then back to 1.5 within 3-5 minutes.

They show you right on the screen - it's all transparent, so there is no surprise. -unless of course you put on a position moments before the announcement, and then find yourself yourself 10 pips down a second later - even tho the price is still the same.... :-(

(I can't really get my brain around the idea of putting on a position moments *before* an announcement)

Really, you just have to decide how you feel about the tradeoff:
the ability to trade ultra small sizes vs. the way the platform works.

JO
 
On Oanda I have observed the Euro/US$ deviate 10 pips (with a 1.5 pips spread) and lasted for about 5 seconds before moving back in line. I observed it once happening about 0300 GMT.
 
Hi,

Changing the subject a little. How update are IB's demo system quotes. I know it says 15 mins, but is correct?


The reason I ask, is that I hopefully will be opening an account with IB to trade fx futures. I have been using their demo account, which is good.

Does the futures price follow the spot price or the other way round? At 4.46pm I see the spot $/eur price at $1.2290. Is the future price close to that?

Cheers

Kev
 
Altern8

The prices are not the same (there is an interest component in the futures contract that normally leaves it at the cast price + interest on contract to expiry) but they move up and down with the same patterns. The futures has a little more extension (sometimes) than the cash.
 
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