FXCM probably has the best website from all brokers for help/info/training/market analysis etc; - lets face it all brokers have their problems - these guys do have slippage & requotes mainly in fast moving markets the same as other brokers. General rule of thumb is pay higher spreads for instant execution (like Forex.com) - it is very difficult or impossible to get the best of both worlds this is how brokers get that little bit extra out of you.
Beware 10pm (GMT) on FXCM!! They do their swap from one trading day to the next and the spreads go through the roof!! I'm talking about 5 - 10 times normal spread for about 5 minutes. If you've got tight stops it'll take you out!!

I use FXCM. Love their Tradestation II platform. Customer service is great, always a quick response and resolution. Only problem I have noticed - occasional slippage during fast moving periods. This doesn't happen all the time, only during big news releases NFP etc. Some slippage is to be expected, but on the odd occasion it can be downright ridiculous. I don't trade the news so I generally don't notice any real slippage problems on a day to day basis (i.e I had a 18 pip slip on a stop order on AUD/JPY Monday)

Overall, I really like FXCM. They work for my trading style, but I probably wouldn't use them for scalping.

I decided to open an account last month with FXCM when XM Real Server 1 went offline for an hour. Honestly, what really attract me was the education service in dailyfx. Being able to learn from those who really know their stuff like Jamie, Ilya, Chris and the rest was a priviledge to me and All Praises to GOD my performance is meeting target so far.

As far as the Platform is concerned, there was only once instance when I received invalid prices. I like their trade station too on top of the regular MT4 because there was this price overlay function.

Their pricing is not among the best but I understand that bit higher of a spread is very well compensated with the free dailyfx premium services. I am not aware of any other brokers that have a superb education support like fxcm. That what I like best about them.

I have my account with FXCM for 4years and am unable to comment on their services. Never had problems with withdrawals, customer service was always excellent giving almost immediate responses, but ........... for about 6 to 10 months I started to notice that the trading platform station and marketskope charts did not work well. Corresponding claims but I always have an answer for everything. In conclusion I can tell you that on July 5 this year, due to the inefficiency of the trading platform, I lost twenty one thousand dollars. The FXCM trading station run not all market entry orders that had been placed to cover for an operation that had a floating loss, I clarified that all orders, 10 in total, were placed at the same price and only input executed 6. Finally everything ended with the dreaded margin call and closing of all open positions.
FXCM Ask them to review the situation but again and as always, blame the trader and another thing ........

My experiance exactly also on the FOMC today! Realy a problem and exasperating when you are in a trade!!

tbuitendyk posted:
...trying to remember the exact wording of that non-disclosure agreement, but the details escape me...

That being said... I think that I'm within my rights to say that I hate it when people lie to me -- 'all 12 of our liquidity providers were offline for 5 minutes after the NFP, blah, blah, blah...' 'You have a really good point sir!, I'll take it up with my manager, blah, blah, blah...'

jesus christ! when are people ever gonna learn?! the LPs were offline for 5 mins? what a crock of shlt! if i were a customer and heard comments like that, i wouldn't walk away--i would run. you should get on youtube and listen to what anton kreil has to say about retail brokers like FXCM, or GAIN, or FOREX.com, or SAXO Bank (1 of the largest and yet 1 of the worst imo). and if you still don't get it, then you might as well give me all your money instead of donating it to FXCM.

let's have a little history lesson and go down memory lane, shall we? FXCM spun off from REFCO which went bust years ago because the CEO embezzled 500M/USD! 500 millions! that should give you an idea of the kind of corporate culture prevalent at the top in those outfits.

so, the real question is: are you finally gonnna stop making excuses and help yourself succeed better by actually doing some in depth research and find the best broker(s) available? if not, then you are just another moron and you deserve to lose your shirt. but if yes, then there is still hope you'll make it in this business.

i got 2 names for you where you will get institutional spreads and execution quality without needing to qualify as an ECP (it means you don't need 100K+ to open an account.)

the 2 best brokers for retail traders currently are: the LMAX Exchange and RJO'Brien (UK). the former is a MTF which built it's own technology stack and it is bleeding edge. it's all on the web. the company released most of the technical details. that's how transparent they are. and the latter is one of the founding members of the CME, 100+ years in existence and best known for its futures brokerage. they rely on Integral for the ECN infrastructure, which gives you, the customer, insane liquidity.

unfortunately, if you are American, then you are fu€ked because they don't accept US clients anymore. you can thank the US govt for this, holding its own population financially hostage basically.

now, as to those people who yammer about how great FXCM is because, look at their educational material, they teach you blah blah.... WTF!!? 1st of all, brokers whose interests are not aligned with the clients will teach you the wrong way to trade. 2nd, i learned everything by myself using only free resources and some thinking. so you do not need FXCM's education site.

here is what you need:

larry pesavento's book 'trade what you see'
van tharp's 'trade your way to financial freedom'
joe dinapoli's 'trading with dinapoli levels'
john bollinger's 'bollinger on bollinger bands'
scott carney's 'harmonic trading'

and forexpeacearmy.com which has a whole 'school' section for free written by a professional trader actually working for a bank somewhere in europe. the material there has all the basics and more advanced stuff you need to be successful. that trader also makes his technical analysis (based on dinapoli's approach) of the eurusd and xauusd available daily. and for FREE. he has been doing it for years now and it's all archived. a plethora of material to learn from. not to mention other forum sections where you'll find threads explaining the ins and outs of the FX Industry and the whole food chain. once you understand the latter, then you'll know that your goal is to try to go pro as soon as possible because retail brokers really do not cut it, except for the 2 mentioned above which are not retail brokers--their client base is more the institutional crowd although they do accept retail traders if (1) you have the necessary capital and (2) the required experience.

so do wake up people and educate yourselves so you can take it to the next level where you won't have to worry about MT4 related BS, where there are no requotes, LPs are not allowed to have no last-look, and LPs don't suddenly become unavailable at news time. jesus christ! do you think tier 1 FX banks such DB or JPM or GS can't handle a NFP or other news release? exactly.

WAKE THE FU€K UP!!!

Thanks for sharing the two names though I wish you would have published your results with them somewhere. I really am grateful for that coz we are all at a different phase of our growth as traders. I have a friend that have been trading for 5 years but have not heard of meetpips yet trading journal is so basic. But again, though we all have the same objective, i.e to make money, we take different path to it and some took longer than others. Not everyone is a genius ;-) I know I am not.

Thanks as well for the names of the books and I agree they are good though I have only read Van Tharp's 'Trade your way to financial freedom'. I will try to check out the rest :-)

Have a great weekend :-)
Abdul

I you like 50/80 pips slippage on EURUSD with the excuse that 'there was not enough liquidity' (seriously, they told me not enough liquidity on EURUSD...), this broker is for you. Happened to me a good number of times, not just once or twice.

The TradingStation is quite good, but very unstable. Often you'll get a bugged out candle with a 900 pip wick, so if you use kumo it messes it up.

Contrary to what was said earlier, I have bad experience with their customer service. Always making excuses regarding slippage, and even about stop loss that was hit while price action was 10 pips away from the stop (happened twice, and I checked price action on other brokers too to be sure).

Their real strength is DailyFX, but really you'd better run away from them.

Peace for all..Just some updates about fxcm..I already breakeven with them..now I am trading on profits..thank GOD :-) so I contact the customer service about my account history that is not accurate..as some history are missing..they said it was on purpose on the MT4 so as to improve the speed..what??

Kinda weird because my other brokers never delete some history just to improve the speed. Oh well, I still can access my history from myfxcm portal but since many performance monitoring sites, like myfxbook, fxstat, etc use direct feed from MT4...trying to monitor that account now via these sites would be inaccurate.

So I have deleted fxcm from my portfolio until I figure out how to get the performance straight.

GOD Bless
HalalPips