US Forex Brokers - Ikon GM out, Tradestation Forex in
And then there were thirteen... Actually twelve as CMS Forex is phasing out. Ikon GM is out (since October 2010, Francesc thanks for the tip) and Tradestation formed a new entity - Tradestation Forex which received an RFED status in January 2011. IG Markets is out as well.
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.
These are the US Forex brokers left (by RFED status with CFTC):
- ADVANCED MARKETS LLC
- ALPARI (US) LLC
- CAPITAL MARKET SERVICES LLC (phasing out)
- FOREX CAPITAL MARKETS LLC
- FOREX CLUB LLC
- FX SOLUTIONS LLC
- FXDIRECTDEALER LLC
- GAIN CAPITAL GROUP LLC
- GLOBAL FUTURES & FOREX LTD
- INTERBANK FX LLC
- MB TRADING FUTURES INC
- OANDA CORPORATION
- TRADESTATION FOREX INC
Of course there's also the non-RFED brokers such as CitiFX Pro and dbFX as well as MF Global and thinkorswim. PFG, which primarily deals with futures, is not an RFED by definition but still offers forex.
Tradestation Forex:
Reading from the most recent TradeStation financial report:
TradeStation Forex, Inc., a Florida corporation (“TradeStation Forex”), was recently formed to assume, own and conduct all of our forex brokerage business (such business has historically been owned and conducted by TradeStation Securities using an established forex dealer firm to clear its forex business). In January 2011, TradeStation Forex was registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) and approved by the National Futures Association (NFA) as a forex dealer member (FDM). Later in 2011, TradeStation Forex expects to receive a transfer of all of TradeStation Securities’ forex accounts and commence operations as a forex dealer (at which time TradeStation Securities will cease its forex business). TradeStation Forex’s business model will be what is commonly referred to as “agency execution” or the “agency model”.
We believe that our new forex offering through TradeStation Forex will be superior to what we previously provided in many ways. We will now be brokering as principal to our clients (also referred to as “agency execution” or the “agency model”), no longer introducing accounts to a third-party forex dealer, and use systems and relationships designed to offer narrower, more-transparent price spreads. We will no longer charge a monthly service fee to forex customers to gain access to our Trading Platform Trading Platform In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. Read this Term, and will charge no fees for forex data and no commissions. Our profit on each trade will be limited to a reasonable mark-up of the spread that we believe will not affect the competitiveness of the spread in the marketplace. We have also built into TradeStation a brand new screen interface for customers to place orders in an intuitive and familiar way, which is seamlessly integrated with the 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. Analytics may also be structured with a descriptive model, where readers attempt to draw a correlation and better understanding as to how and why traders react to a particular set of variables. Traders sometimes implement technical indicators such as moving averages, Bollinger Bands, and breakpoints which are built upon historical data and are used to predict future price movements. How Analytics Relates to Algo TradingAnalytics are relied upon in the concept of algorithmic trading where software is programmed to autonomously signal and/or execute buy and sell orders based upon a series of predetermined factors. In the institutional space, Algo-trading has become vastly competitive over the years as trading institutions seek to outperform competitors through automated systems and the virtual application of trading strategies.The digestion and computation of analytics are also seen in the emerging field of high-frequency trading, where supercomputers are used to analyze multiple markets simultaneously to make near-instantaneous automated trading decisions. Platforms that support HFT have the capability to significantly outperform human traders.This is due to the innate ability to be able to comprehensively analyze big data sets while taking under do consideration an innumerable sum of factors that humans are incapable of comprehending in such speed. Additionally, analytics are seen with backtesting. Backtesting is used by traders to test the consistency and effectiveness of trading strategies and software-based trading solutions against historical price data. Backtesting also serves as an ideal playground for the further development of high-frequency trading as well as evaluating the performance of manual or automated trades. Analytics will continue to have an increasingly significant role in trading as emerging technologies and the advancement of trading applications progress beyond human capability. 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. Analytics may also be structured with a descriptive model, where readers attempt to draw a correlation and better understanding as to how and why traders react to a particular set of variables. Traders sometimes implement technical indicators such as moving averages, Bollinger Bands, and breakpoints which are built upon historical data and are used to predict future price movements. How Analytics Relates to Algo TradingAnalytics are relied upon in the concept of algorithmic trading where software is programmed to autonomously signal and/or execute buy and sell orders based upon a series of predetermined factors. In the institutional space, Algo-trading has become vastly competitive over the years as trading institutions seek to outperform competitors through automated systems and the virtual application of trading strategies.The digestion and computation of analytics are also seen in the emerging field of high-frequency trading, where supercomputers are used to analyze multiple markets simultaneously to make near-instantaneous automated trading decisions. Platforms that support HFT have the capability to significantly outperform human traders.This is due to the innate ability to be able to comprehensively analyze big data sets while taking under do consideration an innumerable sum of factors that humans are incapable of comprehending in such speed. Additionally, analytics are seen with backtesting. Backtesting is used by traders to test the consistency and effectiveness of trading strategies and software-based trading solutions against historical price data. Backtesting also serves as an ideal playground for the further development of high-frequency trading as well as evaluating the performance of manual or automated trades. Analytics will continue to have an increasingly significant role in trading as emerging technologies and the advancement of trading applications progress beyond human capability. Read this Term power of our platform. We also will include, at no extra charge, the functionality of our premium RadarScreen product so that our customers can analyze multiple foreign currency pairs simultaneously on one screen. Also, to make the offering more attractive to the large and growing retail forex market outside of the United States, accounts can be funded and monitored in one of several different foreign currencies. We believe this combination of features and pricing produces a forex offering that is superior not only to what we previously offered, but also superior to what is generally available in the market today for retail forex traders.
Until our new forex offering is launched, our forex deal services are provided through an arrangement with GAIN Capital Group, Inc. Forex customers can design, test, optimize and automate their forex strategies, including the placement of their orders, using TradeStation , then, when a deal order is placed, GAIN Capital’s electronic dealer system processes the order and GAIN Capital acts as counterparty/principal with respect to the execution and clearing of each forex deal. This relationship is expected to terminate later in 2011 in connection with TradeStation Forex’s anticipated launch of our new forex offering.
And then there were thirteen... Actually twelve as CMS Forex is phasing out. Ikon GM is out (since October 2010, Francesc thanks for the tip) and Tradestation formed a new entity - Tradestation Forex which received an RFED status in January 2011. IG Markets is out as well.
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.
These are the US Forex brokers left (by RFED status with CFTC):
- ADVANCED MARKETS LLC
- ALPARI (US) LLC
- CAPITAL MARKET SERVICES LLC (phasing out)
- FOREX CAPITAL MARKETS LLC
- FOREX CLUB LLC
- FX SOLUTIONS LLC
- FXDIRECTDEALER LLC
- GAIN CAPITAL GROUP LLC
- GLOBAL FUTURES & FOREX LTD
- INTERBANK FX LLC
- MB TRADING FUTURES INC
- OANDA CORPORATION
- TRADESTATION FOREX INC
Of course there's also the non-RFED brokers such as CitiFX Pro and dbFX as well as MF Global and thinkorswim. PFG, which primarily deals with futures, is not an RFED by definition but still offers forex.
Tradestation Forex:
Reading from the most recent TradeStation financial report:
TradeStation Forex, Inc., a Florida corporation (“TradeStation Forex”), was recently formed to assume, own and conduct all of our forex brokerage business (such business has historically been owned and conducted by TradeStation Securities using an established forex dealer firm to clear its forex business). In January 2011, TradeStation Forex was registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED) and approved by the National Futures Association (NFA) as a forex dealer member (FDM). Later in 2011, TradeStation Forex expects to receive a transfer of all of TradeStation Securities’ forex accounts and commence operations as a forex dealer (at which time TradeStation Securities will cease its forex business). TradeStation Forex’s business model will be what is commonly referred to as “agency execution” or the “agency model”.
We believe that our new forex offering through TradeStation Forex will be superior to what we previously provided in many ways. We will now be brokering as principal to our clients (also referred to as “agency execution” or the “agency model”), no longer introducing accounts to a third-party forex dealer, and use systems and relationships designed to offer narrower, more-transparent price spreads. We will no longer charge a monthly service fee to forex customers to gain access to our Trading Platform Trading Platform In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real-time updates on quotes, charts and is the main frontend which customers are facing.Brokers either use existing trading platforms and sometimes customize them, or develop their own platform from scratch. Since the beginning of the retail FX trading business MetaQuotes and its platforms MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) have been the industry standard, especially when it comes to automated trading.MT4 Shows Resiliency While MT4 has long been seen as ubiquitous amongst brokers’ offerings, a targeted push by MetaQuotes themselves has led to broader adoption of MT5 in recent years. Advanced trading platforms such as MT4 or MT5 also allow access to a wide range of asset classes available for trading.The development of trading platforms over the past decade has failed to successfully dethrone MT4 or MT5, notably in the retail market. However, in institutional markets, brokerage companies and banking entities also construct and utilize proprietary currency trading platforms to help satisfy internal needs with trades executed through institutional trading channels.By far the most important parameter for many retail clients is the optionality and pairs available on trading platforms. Additionally, demand by traders has led to a greater emphasis on newer features such as advanced charting and other tools. Read this Term, and will charge no fees for forex data and no commissions. Our profit on each trade will be limited to a reasonable mark-up of the spread that we believe will not affect the competitiveness of the spread in the marketplace. We have also built into TradeStation a brand new screen interface for customers to place orders in an intuitive and familiar way, which is seamlessly integrated with the 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. Analytics may also be structured with a descriptive model, where readers attempt to draw a correlation and better understanding as to how and why traders react to a particular set of variables. Traders sometimes implement technical indicators such as moving averages, Bollinger Bands, and breakpoints which are built upon historical data and are used to predict future price movements. How Analytics Relates to Algo TradingAnalytics are relied upon in the concept of algorithmic trading where software is programmed to autonomously signal and/or execute buy and sell orders based upon a series of predetermined factors. In the institutional space, Algo-trading has become vastly competitive over the years as trading institutions seek to outperform competitors through automated systems and the virtual application of trading strategies.The digestion and computation of analytics are also seen in the emerging field of high-frequency trading, where supercomputers are used to analyze multiple markets simultaneously to make near-instantaneous automated trading decisions. Platforms that support HFT have the capability to significantly outperform human traders.This is due to the innate ability to be able to comprehensively analyze big data sets while taking under do consideration an innumerable sum of factors that humans are incapable of comprehending in such speed. Additionally, analytics are seen with backtesting. Backtesting is used by traders to test the consistency and effectiveness of trading strategies and software-based trading solutions against historical price data. Backtesting also serves as an ideal playground for the further development of high-frequency trading as well as evaluating the performance of manual or automated trades. Analytics will continue to have an increasingly significant role in trading as emerging technologies and the advancement of trading applications progress beyond human capability. 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. Analytics may also be structured with a descriptive model, where readers attempt to draw a correlation and better understanding as to how and why traders react to a particular set of variables. Traders sometimes implement technical indicators such as moving averages, Bollinger Bands, and breakpoints which are built upon historical data and are used to predict future price movements. How Analytics Relates to Algo TradingAnalytics are relied upon in the concept of algorithmic trading where software is programmed to autonomously signal and/or execute buy and sell orders based upon a series of predetermined factors. In the institutional space, Algo-trading has become vastly competitive over the years as trading institutions seek to outperform competitors through automated systems and the virtual application of trading strategies.The digestion and computation of analytics are also seen in the emerging field of high-frequency trading, where supercomputers are used to analyze multiple markets simultaneously to make near-instantaneous automated trading decisions. Platforms that support HFT have the capability to significantly outperform human traders.This is due to the innate ability to be able to comprehensively analyze big data sets while taking under do consideration an innumerable sum of factors that humans are incapable of comprehending in such speed. Additionally, analytics are seen with backtesting. Backtesting is used by traders to test the consistency and effectiveness of trading strategies and software-based trading solutions against historical price data. Backtesting also serves as an ideal playground for the further development of high-frequency trading as well as evaluating the performance of manual or automated trades. Analytics will continue to have an increasingly significant role in trading as emerging technologies and the advancement of trading applications progress beyond human capability. Read this Term power of our platform. We also will include, at no extra charge, the functionality of our premium RadarScreen product so that our customers can analyze multiple foreign currency pairs simultaneously on one screen. Also, to make the offering more attractive to the large and growing retail forex market outside of the United States, accounts can be funded and monitored in one of several different foreign currencies. We believe this combination of features and pricing produces a forex offering that is superior not only to what we previously offered, but also superior to what is generally available in the market today for retail forex traders.
Until our new forex offering is launched, our forex deal services are provided through an arrangement with GAIN Capital Group, Inc. Forex customers can design, test, optimize and automate their forex strategies, including the placement of their orders, using TradeStation , then, when a deal order is placed, GAIN Capital’s electronic dealer system processes the order and GAIN Capital acts as counterparty/principal with respect to the execution and clearing of each forex deal. This relationship is expected to terminate later in 2011 in connection with TradeStation Forex’s anticipated launch of our new forex offering.