Tradestation Forex's official launch announcement

As already announced here on Forex Forex Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Foreign exchange or forex is the act of converting one nation’s currency into another nation’s currency (that possesses a different currency); for example, the converting of British Pounds into US Dollars, and vice versa. The exchange of currencies can be done over a physical counter, such as at a Bureau de Change, or over the internet via broker platforms, where currency speculation takes place, known as forex trading.The foreign exchange market, by its very nature, is the world’s largest tradi Read this Term Magnates a week ago TradeStation now has its own Forex regulated subsidiary in the US called TradeStation Forex. I believe it only has about 1,000-2,000 pure forex trading accounts which is not much but it is also not too low comparing to other US retail forex brokers. We will know this figure for sure only in July after the next quarter's profitability report update. Whatever is the case, we welcome this large and very interesting entrant to this crowded, yet lacking some serious innovation, market.

Tradestation, according to its own report, is pretty small in terms of forex accounts and while liquidating mostly through Gain Capital it brought only about $1.8 million in forex commission in 2010. They expect this to change late 2011 as they’ll be pushing their new forex offering aggressively. It’s hard for me currently to see TradeStation Forex conquering the US retail forex market as the market is already dominated by existing players and TradeStation will probably not offer MT4 at first but it is always nice seeing a more institutional ‘old-fashioned’ type of a player entering this market. Yet another sign of maturity.

TradeStation Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:TRAD) today announced the launch, through its new subsidiary, TradeStation Forex, Inc., a CFTC-registered, NFA-member Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED), of a brand-new, state-of-the-art retail forex offering. Starting today, TradeStation Forex, using what is commonly referred to as the "agency broker model" for retail forex, will own and operate the company's forex business for all existing and new customer accounts. The company believes this new offering will be the best choice available to the retail forex market. Powerful and attractive features include:

• A brand-new screen interface for traders to place forex orders in an intuitive and familiar way, which is seamlessly integrated with the full Analytics Analytics Analytics may be defined as the detection, analysis, and relay of consequential patterns in data. Analytics also seeks to explain or accurately reflect the relationship between data and effective decision making. In the trading space, analytics are applied in a predictive manner in an attempt to more accurately forecast the price. This predictive model of analytics generally involves the analysis of historical price patterns that are used in an attempt to determine certain price outcomes. Analyt Analytics may be defined as the detection, analysis, and relay of consequential patterns in data. Analytics also seeks to explain or accurately reflect the relationship between data and effective decision making. In the trading space, analytics are applied in a predictive manner in an attempt to more accurately forecast the price. This predictive model of analytics generally involves the analysis of historical price patterns that are used in an attempt to determine certain price outcomes. Analyt Read this Term power of the TradeStation platform.
• The ability to design, back-test, optimize and automate custom-designed and third-party forex trading strategies and ideas.
• The functionality of TradeStation's premium RadarScreen® product (TradeStation's state-of-the-art market scanning engine), so that customers can analyze multiple foreign currency pairs simultaneously on one screen.
• A forex market depth window.
• Transparent foreign currency spreads which, including TradeStation's small mark-up, are expected to be extremely tight and competitive – superior, the company believes, to what is generally available today in the market.
• No commissions.
• No forex data fees.
• No set-up, start-up or initial fees.
• No software, service, access or other monthly fees.
• The ability for accounts to be funded and monitored in one of several different foreign currencies.
• Leverage of up to 50:1 for liquid currency pairs.
• Award-winning customer service and education.

"We now have, we believe, the only offering in our industry that is truly focused on helping you become a better forex trader, regardless of the level at which you currently trade," said Gary Weiss, the President of TradeStation Forex. "We believe our combination of features and pricing produces a powerful offering that is superior to what is available in the market today for retail forex traders. We think TradeStation can now become a dominant brand in the retail forex market, just like it has been in the online equities and futures markets over the past ten years, and we plan to devote dedicated marketing dollars and focus to this launch and to grow market share as quickly as reasonably possible."

The retail forex market is large and growing. According to an Aite Group March 2011 report titled Retail Forex Comes of Age: Leveraged Trading is Here to Stay, retail forex generated daily turnover of US $313 billion during 2010, 32% larger than the daily turnover in all global equity exchanges combined, and retail forex volume, as a percentage of total forex volume, grew from 2% in 2007 to 7.9% in 2010.

TradeStation's forex launch follows on the heels of Barron's magazine's March 2011 ranking of TradeStation as the #1 online brokerage firm in the United States in its annual review of online brokerage firms. TradeStation not only was ranked #1 as the "best overall broker," the biggest prize, but also won the #1 ranking for "Best for Frequent Traders," a confirmation of TradeStation's long-standing reputation as the leading online brokerage for the active trader market. TradeStation also scored the #1 rating in two subcategories used to determine the overall winner: "Trading Technology" and "Customer Service and Education." TradeStation was ranked superior, overall, to 23 other online brokerages, including Charles Schwab, E*Trade, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, Lightspeed Trading, Merrill Lynch's Merrill Edge, optionsXpress, Scottrade and TD Ameritrade/thinkorswim. Virtually all of the features, technology and services that resulted in these #1 rankings will be present in the new TradeStation Forex offering.