IB vs Forex.com for Spot Forex Trading? Opinions and Experiences?

[Learning134]

Hey everyone I’m trying to decide between opening an account with IB or Forex.com for my forex day trading with NT8. When connecting to Forex.com a disclaimer popped up with several limitations of their compatibility with NT8, while IB’s connection setup looks more involved but just had one potential limitation.

What are people’s experiences for both and what would you recommend?

Thanks in advance.

[xabcdtrading]

Two things that might interest you. I don't believe interactive brokers does tick charts - so that might or might not be a deal breaker. Also the IB api is rate liminted - so if your doing a lot of scanning etc, you might notice you hit that limit ... again, depending on your usage.

[jeronymite]

Learning134 My personal experience with FOREX.com ... ... I won't use it until various issues are addressed. IB? A bit more fiddly to put in place, and the possible constraints mentioned by xabcdtrading.

Frankly, none of the available Forex brokers is "ideal", for various different reasons. FXCM is the best of the bunch currently supported by NinjaTrader, in my view, although even that needs some work in the platform to improve a number of things.

My own view is that there are many potential Forex brokers who could be used in NinjaTrader, but that are not currently supported by NinjaTrader. Some years ago, prior to NinjaTrader Brokerage and the Mirus acquisition that lead to it, NinjaTrader was admired for its (relative) openness towards Forex brokers. Certainly, the technology to connect to many other Forex brokers is readily available, and so it's not primarily a technology concern. It's more a matter of NinjaTrader policy as to whether or not they are willing to facilitate those choices. Obviously, there are some costs and consequential support requirements, but it's not unreasonable to suggest that the field of supported Forex brokers could probably be very significantly increased without a massive effort.

Again, my personal view is that because NinjaTrader Brokerage is exclusively Futures, there is essentially no competition in that realm, and so there should be "almost zero" impediment to making a very much broader set of Forex brokers available in the Desktop platform. I can only strongly re-iterate again how beneficial this would be to NinjaTrader and its customers. It would also offer potential new customers an environment that makes Forex attractive, and may result in substantial growth in customer subscriptions. That could flow through to Futures as those new Forex customers experience the various Futures platforms.

Thanks.

[Learning134]

Thanks everyone. From the previous post that started this conversation, FXCM seemed to be the consensus brokerage for forex, but alas, I live in the US. It’s unfortunate that they no longer accept US clients and that NT doesn’t partner with more Forex Brokerages.

xabcdtrading at the moment I am not using tick data and I don’t think that I’m using much bandwidth. Please correct me if my assessment is wrong as I’m new to this. I am only trading 3 pairs at the moment utilizing 4 charts per pair for different timeframes. I assume this wouldn’t be considered “scanning” a lot, right?

QuantKey_Bruce mentioned on my previous post that “Interactive Brokers is not really the same kind of broker. They do support spot forex trading, but they're not a forex broker per se... they just let you buy/sell other currencies in your universal account.” Bruce, could you explain more on how this might affect me negatively? Would it make order fulfillment harder at an lower quantity level then a brokerage that is a true Forex Brokerage? If so what levels of quantity do you think this would start being an issue?

Anyone out there have any direct experience with IB for Forex?

At the moment I’m leaning towards IB because Forex.com has more listed limitations that could be an issue if I happen to lose connectivity, which is bound to happen at some point. See Disclaimer points 2 and 3.

“Disclaimer
1. Chart data is driven by the current bid price.
2. Any external order or position on an instrument not defined in NinjaTrader is not supported and will not be displayed. A warning message will be shown in the log to notify you if this occurs.
3. Any submitted market orders or executions resulting from market orders will not be displayed after disconnect/reconnect, as the API does not support downloading market order history.
4. A market data subscription from FOREX.com is required in order to submit a live order.
5. Spread bet and CFD's based on future contracts are not supported.
6. Order type will be inferred by the system based on price the order is submitted.”

IB only has this “Critical: The forex positions reported in NinjaTrader are based on the positions reported in TWS FX Trader and the FX Portfolio section of the TWS Account window. This is NOT the cash value reported in the Market Value section of the TWS Account window.” I’m not entirely sure how this will affect me personally. I’m waiting for Customer Support to respond back and explain more thoroughly. Any of you know how this may affect NT8 users in day to day trading? What situations would this be an issue? What would possible solutions be?

Thanks all.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

I wouldn't read too much into Forex.com having more listed limitations - I think you should direct this question to NinjaTrader support privately by email and ask for their assessment of which is better supported for spot forex trading.

[Learning134]

QuantKey_Bruce I actually reached out to NT support team first and they are the ones who sent me to this forum to get information from users. I was hoping that their support team could give me their opinion based on their day in and day out troubleshooting for different clients using the different brokerages, but they were not able to.

[jeronymite]

Learning134 NT Support is probably reluctant because any comment/recommendation/criticism may confer some type of "legal implications", and so they avoid this. Understandable.

I have had a lot of direct contact with NT Support on this very matter. I would suggest you read my comments above carefully and draw your own conclusions.

Thanks.

[reubenlasky]

The Market On Close orders on FOREX.com are atrocious. Good thing I can still trade with OANDA.

[alanlopen]

In forex every retailer wants his order to go directly to the market instead of being kept in the book of the broker. I heard that IB does send the retail order to the interbank market when the volume is worth at least 30k. Global Prime is a famous broker claiming to not run a B-book and passing the 1 lot and above directly to the interbank. You can read their thread on forexfactory and all their marketing on youtube.

You really have to understand that overall, the universe of the forex brokers is a mess. Fortunately, there are forex futures. If you want to stick to CFDs, then all the brokers offer that, but ofc nobody really wants a CFD lol.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

I think it's important to look at the particulars of the situation. This is not a simple comparison. The way IB handles things, in particular, is quite complex and does not lend itself to an apples-to-apples comparison. You have to consider, at a minimum, the instruments you are trading, where you are located, how you are trading them e.g. what kind of orders and when, and your trading volume which can make a big difference in what is available to you. Only then can you get into details like any commissions or other charges, spreads, slippage, etc. which are all specific to those trading parameters. Although it might be possible to make some sweeping generalizations like "Broker X is bad" I don't think this is one of those cases - it's extremely particular to what you are doing.