Following the recent release of their forex trader profitability statistics, Jason Rogers of FXCM has written a guest post for us on the topic of the moment – "Why have traders been unprofitable"
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Just in case you hadn't noticed, today is October 18th 2010. Today is the day that all those new CFTC regulations come into force, and when a forex trader opens a new account brokers must now reveal to them quarterly account profitability statistics covering the previous year. FXCM have done just that, and here are their numbers:
More on FXCM Release Extra Forex Trader Profitability Statistics
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In the second in our series of interviews with senior figures from the Forex industry following the release of the final version of the new CFTC regulations, I spoke yesterday with Jason Rogers, FXCM's Brand Ambassador to online communities. I started off asking my standard $64,000 question at the moment about the effect of those new regulations on the forex industry. I asked numerous other questions too, many of which Jason was compelled to answer with "no comment" because of restrictions imposed by FXCM's forthcoming Initial Public Offering. Despite that you will be able to read about FXCM's views on a few other topics of the moment below.
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As anticipated I received an email from FXCM last night, but it did seem just a touch impersonal. It started out by saying:
Dear Trader:
Code and Compete for a chance to win cash prizes in the FXCM Automated Trading Challenge. Sign up for a contest demo and put your automated strategy to the test with zero risk to your own money.
A bit further on it posed this rhetorical question:
More on Trading Gurus Random Robot Enters the Dukascopy JForex Strategy Contest
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In a flurry of press releases FXCM have just (re)launched their new Strategy Trader trading platform. The headline reads:
FXCM Strategy Trader Delivers the Next Evolution in Automated Trading.
Despite this their Strategy Trader home page (now retitled "Automated Forex Trading") is still at pains to point out that:
More on FXCM Launch Strategy Trader Automated Forex Trading Challenge
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The CFTC final rules on the regulation of retail foreign exchange have now been officially published in the Federal Register. At the same time they have also authorized the NFA "to process and grant applications for initial registration, renewed registration and withdrawals of retail foreign exchange dealers (RFEDs) and their associated persons (APs)", effective from September 10th.
More on NFA Starts Registering Forex Brokers and "Solicitors"
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FXCM have made a couple of announcements recently about new developments they've introduced to make it easier for their customers to start automated trading. First they announced their new Strategy Trader platform with quite a bit of razmatazz, then with rather less fanfare earlier this month they invited their clients to get involved in open beta testing of their new products via FXCM Labs. It's said that these things come in threes, and FXCM have just quietly revealed via the FXCM Labs forum that starting on Monday users of the venerable Trading Station platform will be able to program their own automated trading strategies too.
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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.
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Following hot on the heels of the announcement of the Strategy Tester public beta testing program, FXCM are now inviting their clients to sign up for FXCM Labs:
An online research center that grants clients exclusive access to FXCM products and services still in the development stages.
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The beta test version of FXCM's new Strategy Trader platform has been around for several months now, but you used to have to fill in a form and be approved by FXCM before being able to download it and try it out. That's now changed, and FXCM have made it available for download to anyone who visits the brand new Strategy Trader section of their website, along with a video walkthrough about the wonders of what they now describe as:
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