Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

Done for the day. 3 cable & one USD/JPY. Managed to accidentally close one cable trade out for a small loss whilst setting the stop. Doh!!

Ruth - 30 Oct 2007 09:48 - 8593 of 8837
Hi Guys /Girls, just wondering if someone could give me a bit of help, im confused,
im really fed up with all the nonsense that goes on with uk stocks, im not mad keen on the usa hours even though its really cheap to trade and they trend well,
Obvioulsy the other viable option is forex and im only just seriously looking into it, wish ide done it years ago to be honest, but live and learn hey, anyway im seriously looking at getting into forex and sacking the uk stocks altogether,they are seriously hard work at times.

Is there any tips re forex , ie a time of day its usually more volatile than other etc, that sort of thing,or is it random, whats the most popular consistent timeframe for the trend,ive been looking at 1,3,5 min,
i will be looking to scalp in places but also stick with the trend when it goes,
Obviously a really good daily calendar is essential and i can see Hils kindly posts one here, is there any other tips you guys/girls can give me?


Been looking at interactive brokers and their commission etc , seems very cheap to me, but im easily confused, not sure how they work out the value etc, im hoping someone can help me out,

heres their rates, looking at the quotes the market spread is usually 1p on cable and 1p on gbpjpy plus their commissionTrading Currency Monthly Trade Amount(4) Commissions Minimum per Order Examples
IDEALPRO (Trading, trades > USD 25,000)
< =USD 1,000,000,000 0.2 basis point(3) *Trade Value USD 2.50 USD 50,000 daily volume for EUR = USD 2.50

USD 1,000,000,000 daily volume for EUR = USD 20,000
USD 1,000,000,001-2,000,000,000 0.15 basis point(3) *Trade Value USD 2.50 USD 1,250,000,000 daily volume for EUR = USD 23,750
>USD 2,000,000,000 0.10 basis point(3) *Trade Value USD 2.50 USD 2,500,000,000 daily volume for EUR = USD 40,000
IDEAL (Conversions, trades < USD 25,000)
All 1 basis point(3) *Trade Value




so in theory if i wanted to do the equivalent of say a tenner a point on gbpjpy how much would that be trade value, i get confused with the decimal points etc and how they price it?
would that cost me just 2 dollars 50 each way? if so that means i only need a point to be in profit? or am i barking up the wrong tree,
is there better options out there?
sorry its long, but you know me,:-)

heres the link for ib in case the copied and posted bit is confusing,

http://individuals.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/fees/commission.php?ib_entity=llc

Thanks
Ruth x


Ruth,

I know some of this has been covered already but this is how I see it.

1ppt = $21,000
10ppt = 210,000

0.2 basis points is equivalent to $210,000x0.00002= $4.20 per trade or 2 a trade if you like.

If the spread is 1 pip the commission adds an exta 0.2pips to each side giving a total spread of 1.4pips which makes it alot cheaper than your average spreadbet company for eurusd or gbpusd.

but are you sure all the spreads are 1 pip esp for gbjpy? Because that would give a spreads of 1.4pips vs cmc 8 which seems fairly drastic.


I know it's an old question but do others use to trade with? I've looked through 500 odd posts but it's going to take me hours to trundle through another 8000 (something I am doing slowly as the more information the better)

really made up, just had my best forex trade too date , shorted the gbp jpy at 237.33, closed for 101, sorrry to post after the fact i know thats naughty, but i was on the phone to sputnik and he can vouch for my short, ive probably got out too soon, but i was so excited at getting into the 100 points bracket
im now only trading if the 1,3, and 5 min trends are all in the same direction, obviously the 1 min changes regularly and thats my cue if it goes negative or positive and the 3 and 5 are in the same direction,
its working for now,


looking at the chart now i was too soon, hey but you cant blame a girl for being premature while shes a newbie,i could lie and say im still in it, but i closed :-(

CC, ive been messing with my friends cmc account while im learning, but on the times i have watched ib, most of the time the spread is 1 point, at times it does spike out but seems to come back to 1 quiet quick,
hope this helps Ruth x

CC, ive been messing with my friends cmc account while im learning, but on the times i have watched ib, most of the time the spread is 1 point, at times it does spike out but seems to come back to 1 quiet quick,
hope this helps Ruth x

Hils, ive discovered something else very very interesting with the arrows, only on the entries though, very reliable so far , will post a chart later tonight with some text boxes added to explain, works superb on the dow and ftse futures and us stocks , not tested it too much on the forex yet , but from the bit i have done its looking good,am going to spend an hour doing some backtesting on sunday when other half is watching footie,

well done Ruth. Got closed out of my remaining half of usd/jpy for 150 pips, as dont want to hold over wkend, looks like its got alot further to go!

Ruth, congrats on that trade.
As I previously mentioned I am using Worldspreads and have come up with a way of having multiple windows open at the same time. You can't do it within one login. You have to login multiple times. With CMC you could only login once but WS are different. That means you can track loads of price trade windows on your many screens at the same time. The spreads on currencies are 1, 2 or 3 pips and there are no dealing costs so it may be worth considering. Plus it's all tax free!
TT

TT can you trade both ways on one currency at the same time

TT - are you suggesting it's not possible to have multiple windows tracking the same instrument with different timeframes on CMC ?

Goforit,
If you place one trade (in one window) and trade in the opposite direction in another the system will automatically close the first trade assuming that you had bet enough and leave any remaining bet open. I was trading FTSE with a small bet with the intention of leaving that open for the trend. If I then scalped during the day it kept on giving me partial closes and therefore funny profit/losses on each trade. I only place one trade at a time on the FTSE now. I also have other stock trades running in the background and they are shown in my open trades page.
Hope that helps even though on rereading it it all looks like gobbledy gook.
TT

Hotei, as far as I remember I couldn't but then I only traded stocks as CFDs but I don't use CMC now because of their charges. Also, I couldn't use their system in my office as it required an up to date Java and here I am running stuff that arrived with Noah and the Ark. WS works here at the moment and that is fine by me.
TT

Well done to the 1122 sell, Barclays have certainly spoilt the party.

Worldspreads very tight spreads 8AM to 4PM only (1 on Euro, yen and Aussie-think they widened on cable, but can't place attached orders until trade opened so no good for limits with attached stops and if done limits

thanks guys, just back in what the hell happened there, seems like i was very premature, couple more hundred pips there to be had,
hopefully i will get better with time:-)

moves seem to be on back of barclays rumours. market stablised after barclays denial of emergency rights issue.

however, cable in particular seems to be about to lose another trend line I don't see any sort of support for a while.

think I should be short cable but it's entirely possible it could come back to the trendline yet. break of the trendline which has now gone should quicken the downward move.

Not sure about fx yet. finding it difficult not to overtrade and finding it difficult not being busy all the time.

However made 68 pips today so far so maybe I should be happy to do nothing for a few hours ?

You weren't premature, Ruthie. You were sensible, cos you were going out, so well done you :)

As for little meggers - aren't you just the biz :D

Hey and you, Cap'n.
Welcome to the banana bunch :)

chocs
Thanks - pulled it for the moment - made 120 and looking for a re-entry 'cos I've got a support line which used to be a reistance at or around here. Could well go shooting back up beyond previous high - so maybe my other magic number will have a chance of triggering - or support will fail and the tumble will continue - we'll see.

I bet you wish you'd "seen the light" two or three years ago, Ruth.

:o)

I'll be interested to see your chart later. It might be worth your while speaking to Chocopops too about some of the work that I've spent 90% of my time on recently.

Hils, interested to know if you think the short term stuff is better than the longer term pyramiding? I'm only short terming it as & when & have been for the last 3 weeks.

edit - I'm going off stocks. Fx much more enjoyable :-)

CC, message sent - I have some of the interesting / educational posts from this thread saved.