Best Forex Brokers

Looking at what others have requested I think that the best brokers to add to the existing FXCM is LMAX and Interactive Brokers. LMAX has very low spreads, typically 0.1-0.3 pips, many times lower. The commission is $5 (100k lot) round turn (about 0.5 pip). Compare that to many other Forex brokers and it is obvious that LMAX is very interesting. Interactive Brokers is a default choice since they offer not only Forex ($5 round turn commission) but many other assets like Futures and Stocks.

Dukascopy is also interesting but for traders with less than $50k it is not the best deal as the commissions are high.

IB has definitely high priority.

Armada Markets is one of the best brokers for automated trading.

You can download their price here.
http://www.armadamarkets.com/one-click-trading-plugins/

After a lot of investigation, I must agree that LMAX is a very interesting broker. Actually, they're not even a broker, but a MTF (multilateral trading facility) and as such, one of a kind.

Beside low spreads, reasonable commission and very fast execution, they also offer various API access methods:

"With messages available in XML/JSON format clients can either choose to develop their own wrapper or use our customisable Client Libraries (Java, .NET) or our FIX protocol to simplify the integration."

More info on LMAX:

http://www.lmax.com/
http://www.lmax.com/trading-tech/access
http://www.euromoney.com/Article/3115737/LMAX-Exchange-An-FX-exchange-for-a-new-era.html
http://www.automatedtrader.net/articles/...-the-status-quo

I understand that MT4 is extremely popular among forex traders, and that developing plugin for MT4 would mean much for Zorro popularity, but LMAX would be so much better for automated trading. We all know that MT4 is made primarily for market makers (dealing desks) and that it is slow, cumbersome and unreliable.

I like the look of LMAX and Interactive Brokers, would be great to have these broker type options implemented in Zorro like FXCM.

Since I'm new & shopping for a broker I did a quick reviews check on those brokers. IB did not have the greatest reviews, mainly Customer Service was terrible. LMAX had glowing reviews, actually the best I recall seeing for any broker so far (probably 40-50 or more in the past couple of days), but their minimum deposit is $10K. That's more than Zorro allows, and more than I am comfortable to begin FX trading with.

Does anybody have any good brokers to recommend for US traders?

Is FXCM the only broker that Zorro will work with?

Zorro works with 90% of all brokers. But not yet with LMAX, so we'll certainly have a look into their API - they seem to be interesting.

I like their wide variety of the trading products.
http://www.fxflat.com/en/

And after LMAX is added, it looks like Dukascopy could be the next candidate.

jcl,

Does that mean Zorro works automatically with them, like with FXCM where we just type the account # and pass code into the Zorro panel?

If so, we should be able to run demos with a different broker instead of going to the trouble of a VPS or separate computer running 24/7.

But it's not that simple, we need to create a broker dll for them first, right?

I have not unzipped & loaded the MT4 file yet. If I do will that allow me to run additional demos with other brokers that MT4 works with? Instead without the need for a VPS or another computer, broker dll, API, etc.?

The 90% mean using the MT4 bridge. But this is unrelated to the need for a VPS - if you have no reliable PC at home, a VPS is highly recommended.

I signed up with Amazon AWS. I don't see VPS mentioned anywhere. Is this the correct service, and if so what should I look for to get a VPS set up?

thanks,


Geeeeez! I hope this isn't it. You've got to be a programmer to make it work! Where's the easy version??

Amazon calls it "EC2" - it is already the easy version .

I think that users might get a little intimidated by the EC2 setup procedure, but in fact it's quite straightforward. You can have your VPS set up and running in 5 minutes. I've added a short description to the manual how to run Zorro on a VPS:

http://manual.zorro-trader.com/brokers.htm

thanks,
I'll give it a try again.

I somehow screwed up my robot. My original tests had very high AR's and low UI's. I'm not sure what I did, but the test results got worse, so I thought perhaps I didn't unzip the history files properly, so I tried again.

Well, the results got much worse, for both Z12 & Z3. The last Z3 test gave an AR of 56% and UI of 24.5%.

I decided to totally clear the history file and try extracting the zipped files again. That just made things worse, because now I am just getting History missing errors & and the test can't even finish running.

Luckily, we are on vacation this week with my brother-in-law who's a programmer. Maybe he'll be interested in Zorro enough to help me some. If not, I'll get back to it myself next week.

Thanks jcl for the new section on the vps.

It took me ages on amazon, all the language was so unfamiliar, but if you persist it is achievable for non techies like me.

I do have a question re securing the server. In general, are firewalls, antivirus, anti-spyware etc. handled by the provider, or do I need to install and configure all that stuff as on my PC at home.

Firewalls are normally handled by the provider, antivirus and antispyware is up to you. Because only you can upload files - at least when you don't use the VPS to browse the Internet - it's normally not required.

thanks jcl

I like the looks of these guys:



Very low spreads.

You can find lots more broker examples from here...

LMAX news time...

LMAX up to $125 billion per month of forex volume

LMAX’s David Mercer THINKING BIG

Very quickly and roughly estimated, LMAX turnover is about fourth of the FXCM one. FXCM, being the biggest US forex broker. Not too shabby.

I don't know what to think about changing customer profile towards institutionals. Although, that was their intention from the beginning (for example, they require quite steep $10000 deposit from retail customers). Maybe they'll stop taking up retail traders after a while? Still, there are lots of introducing brokers that require much smaller capital to trade with LMAX. I will sumarize them in the next post.

LMAX Evolvement Continues as it Focuses more on Liquidity

The focus on liquidity, comes as LMAX is in the process of winding down its direct retail offering. Currently, retail customers can open accounts directly with LMAX, with onboarding and compliance procedures handled by the exchange. While these account come with a minimum $10,000 deposit, LMAX offers reduced sized accounts with as little as $1000 deposits through IBs.

And as promised:

http://www.fxmtf.com/
http://www.hftgroupfx.com/
http://www.fastbrokers.com/
http://www.forextown.com/

From what I see, all of those allow you to open LMAX account with only $1000 deposit. hftgroupfx even offers 12% discount on already very reasonable commissions.

Though, it's not obvious if $5000 requirement for API access still applies?

And the other bad thing is that LMAX is not accepting customers from US.

Also, an interesting chart...

Thanks for the reports Acidburn.