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Dealing Desk or No Dealing Desk – That is the Question!

Jim — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:58:47 +0000

Smart Live Markets are proud of their dealing desk and their fixed spreads. In this guest post Paul Hare, their Director of Trading, explains why. (Note that Smart Live Markets are a UK based broker, and are therefore regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Some of the regulatory points Paul makes don't work in quite the same way in other jurisdictions.)

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MetaTrader Micro-Lots go STP

Jim — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 11:42:35 +0000

Thanks to yesterday's disappointing Non-farm Payroll numbers the greenback fell and my troublesome sell limit order at European broker ActivTrades finally got filled. Consequently my new Interbank MetaTrader 4 micro-lot account with them is now fully funded, and open for business. As you can imagine, I have had one or two long discussions with ActivTrades over the last couple of days. During the course of those they pointed out to me that enough of their liquidity providers are now willing to quote and fill a 1K trade that it had now proved possible for them to introduce micro-lots on their "Straight Through Processing" (STP for short) MetaTrader Interbank accounts. When I enquired what "enough" meant in this context, the number three was mentioned. Unlike their Standard account, there is no "averaging algorithm" inserted by ActivTrades between you and the banks on their Interbank account. Instead they just add a bit to the spreads they are quoted, since they have to earn a crust somehow just like the rest of us.

More on "ODL Powered by FXCM"

Jim — Thu, 06 May 2010 12:51:10 +0000

Following the formal announcement yesterday of FXCM's takeover of ODL I've been chatting to both companies about what to expect from the new larger group, which must now be vying for the position of largest retail forex broker on the planet. As we pointed out previously, the enlarged FXCM is still a long way from being the largest retail broker in the world per se, but the likes of Interactive Brokers deal in an awful lot more than just spot forex.

Alpari Launch MetaTrader Pro STP Account in the UK

Jim — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:35:00 +0000

Here at the Trading Gurus we are constantly monitoring the quotes from a wide range of brokers. Yesterday alarm bells started ringing to tell us that the spreads on one of our MetaTrader 4 demo accounts at Alpari UK had suddenly reduced to previously unheard of levels. Spreads as low as 0.4 pips on GBP/USD for example, and once (briefly!) even zero on EUR/USD.

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The Forex Hedging Ban – A Transatlantic Perspective

Jim — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:56:36 +0000

In the second of our series of interviews with senior figures from the Forex industry, I spoke earlier today with Marc Prosser, Chief Marketing Officer of Forex Capital Markets. I started off asking the question on everyone's lips these days about the new "hedging" ban. We then talked about the relative merits of "straight through processing" versus "dealing desk" business models, and then briefly touched on the regulatory aspects of transatlantic transfers of client cash.

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Start Your Own Brokerage for Dummies

Jim — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:24:15 +0000

As you know, I was idly perusing the Boston Technologies website the other day when I happened across their very own MetaTrader robot, which seems to have developed an unfortunate habit of losing money rather than making it hand over fist.

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