calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest of u

[scalperfx]

Hi all,

Even though i have been following this forum for close to a year,i had registered only today,with the intention of taking on pipshower's offer to start a community to help each other trade better...the reason i have started a new thread is to find out if
1.how many of you are full time traders?as in is this ur full time jobs?
2.out of the above,are there any of u who exclusively trade fx (or at least primarily prefer it to equities or commodities)
3.years of experience
4.have a discussion of the brokers used (ECN or market makers)

I am a trader based out of chennai,trading for the last 5 years..(the last 2 years exclusively in fx)..i have used market makers in the past (fxcm,alpari and the rest of the usual suspects) and am now looking to move to ECN brokers..

can the rest of u re-introduce urself with ur email ids/location/profession and brokers used...depending on the response,we can move to a new thread to discuss intra-day strategies etc

Cheers!

Another FX scalper

 

[ag_fx]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Welcome to TJ scalperfx.

Before asking in depth questions to the boarders around(you must be knowing about us anyways as you have been following TJ for an year), why dont you take the lead and tell us about yourself?

My first guess..You are a scalper

Go ahead, tell us about yourself.

Happy Trading

 

[scalperfx]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hi Ankit,

I thought i did introduce myself in my post.But lemme elaborate a bit.
I am a trader based out of Chennai
1.Trading is my full time job.
2.I am almost exclusively focussing on FX trading over the last 2 years.
3.I have traded with quite a few market makers in the past (FXCM,Alpari etc) and learnt a lot from my mistakes and their underhanded schemes. (Reversal of positions,stop hunting,screen freezes etc) I am looking to trade through ECN brokers. (wondering if any one of you are trading through ECN brokers)
4.I am a scalper,i look to exit trades within 5secs-1 min. (I guess now you can understand why marketmakers don't suit me and vice verca).
5.My email id is scalperforex at gmail dot com.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Another forex scalper

 

[ag_fx]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Alright Scalperfx...Good to see you here. Here is my intro then..

1. I traded FX for ICICI Bank for 2 years. Now, I am a full time trader.
2. I am not an exclusive FX trader. But yes, do prefer it over anything else.
3. Yrs of Exp: Depends on what do you count as exp. If being in mkts is an exp, I have it for 4 years approx. Otherwise, I would say, I am not even an year exp in markets.
4. I use Oanda as my broker. I trade Higher Time frames (H1,H4,D1) and thus not that worried about market maker/ECN brokers.

For scalpers, ECN vs MarketMakers is a difficult choice. While ECN provide a lower spread, they charge you a commission. Whereas, MMs dont charge any commission but have higher spreads. You said your trade lasts between 5 secs to 1 min(wow..I would burn out doing that) and thus IMO, ECNs could be a better choice for you as you would get fills at your levels. Also, if you trade crosses like GBPJPY, it would be a good idea to use an ECN(4-5 pip spread) vs a MM(7-9 pip spread). Infact, Oanda is a mkt maker, but has one of the most narrow spreads in MM category.
Generally ECNs require a higher deposit or account size. When you go shopping for ECN, do take these points in mind and also the currency pairs offered by them to trade.

Best
Ankit

 

[surya_sun]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hi Scalper,
Good to know about these broking companies.
I was (almost) planning to start one with these (FXCM) but would delay it further after seeing ur post
I do live in chennai and would be happy to connect with u.
tnx

Hi Ankit,

I thought i did introduce myself in my post.But lemme elaborate a bit.
I am a trader based out of Chennai
1.Trading is my full time job.
2.I am almost exclusively focussing on FX trading over the last 2 years.
3.I have traded with quite a few market makers in the past (FXCM,Alpari etc) and learnt a lot from my mistakes and their underhanded schemes. (Reversal of positions,stop hunting,screen freezes etc) I am looking to trade through ECN brokers. (wondering if any one of you are trading through ECN brokers)
4.I am a scalper,i look to exit trades within 5secs-1 min. (I guess now you can understand why marketmakers don't suit me and vice verca).
5.My email id is scalperforex at gmail dot com.

Looking forward to hearing from you

Another forex scalper

 

[pipshower]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hello scalperfx, first of all good to see fellow indian fx trader.
So you are a scalper . Ok . and You are trading for living --This is awesome.
So you might be having really big acct as you are trading for living .So its better for you to move to ECN .There are many ECN's u can use like Dukascopy, MBtrading, interactive brokers which only charge the commissions on the lots traded.
All scalpers must trade with ECN so that they dont have to face the problems of chargebacks and so on as u mentioned in opening post.
Since u have been trading for living we all would be delighted to hear experiences from you .
Regards
Pipshower

 

[scalperfx]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hi all,
Thanks for replying so promptly (I will ensure that i logon to this forum more regularly)

@Ankit-I was under the impression that u are a fellow scalper...don't know why i got the impression,but i remember a long time back (5-6 months back) when u had posted that u were a scalper trading with 1m TF. I think pipshower had initiated a discussion on trading strategies wherein he mentioned that he was a positional trader with trailing stops.
Regarding the ECN details that u had posted,u r right on all counts.
It's just that the brokers are slightly more flexible regarding a/c size these days.
for e.g Dukascopy had a min size of $50K till last year,have now relaxed it to $10K now.(Interactive and Alpari Pro ask for $20k) though...

@surya-imho all MM's are the same until they scam u (FXCM is no different)...however,if u start with a micro a/c with them,and steadily build it up,their mt4 platform is very user friendly and charting is decent.
If u plan to start with a low enough a/c,FXCM is a decent place to start.
and yes,let's connect now that we know that we r in the same city.

@pipshower-i'd like to take this chance to tell u that u've been doing a wonderful job in posting basic info abt forex,ur trading strategies etc...i know how much of research u would ve done a 2-4 years back to dig up all the info and use it to develop a consistent strategy.
In the list of ECN brokers that u have mentioned-i am looking to open accounts with dukascopy and interactive brokers (but not MBtrading because in my opinion their commission is too high,especially for non-usd base pairs,this defeats the purpose of trading with an ECN broker)
Dukas and IB seem to have similar spreads (0.5-1.5 pips) at any given point of time,similar commissions ($3.6 per standard lot dukas and $4 per standard lot for IB)
I am not too happy with the 1:50 of IB (i have read in ur posts that for u it does not matter) versus 1:100 for dukas.
I am also considering Alpari's currenex and FXCM's active trader (both are supposedly ECN)..but considering my earlier experiences with them,i most probably might stay away.

I don't trade with huge capitals- My personal a/c size is $100k which i would like to divide between 2-3 brokers (don.t want to lose all my capital if 1 broker goes bankrupt like refco or corwn forex)
I also trade on behalf of select clients.

Scalping is terribly unexciting in the sense,there are no huge 200-300 pips profit to boast of in a single trade.It is more of 2-3 pips multiple trades on a consistent basis.
I kind of miss last years (especially sep/oct 2008) volatility when it was easy to gauge direction and scalp away)...i am sure fxcm has other opinions on this matter,when they happily started reqouting and locking my screen when my positions were open.

Looking forward to learn/share with u guys

Scalper

 

[pipshower]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hi all,
Thanks for replying so promptly (I will ensure that i logon to this forum more regularly)

@Ankit-I was under the impression that u are a fellow scalper...don't know why i got the impression,but i remember a long time back (5-6 months back) when u had posted that u were a scalper trading with 1m TF. I think pipshower had initiated a discussion on trading strategies wherein he mentioned that he was a positional trader with trailing stops.
Regarding the ECN details that u had posted,u r right on all counts.
It's just that the brokers are slightly more flexible regarding a/c size these days.
for e.g Dukascopy had a min size of $50K till last year,have now relaxed it to $10K now.(Interactive and Alpari Pro ask for $20k) though...

@surya-imho all MM's are the same until they scam u (FXCM is no different)...however,if u start with a micro a/c with them,and steadily build it up,their mt4 platform is very user friendly and charting is decent.
If u plan to start with a low enough a/c,FXCM is a decent place to start.
and yes,let's connect now that we know that we r in the same city.

@pipshower-i'd like to take this chance to tell u that u've been doing a wonderful job in posting basic info abt forex,ur trading strategies etc...i know how much of research u would ve done a 2-4 years back to dig up all the info and use it to develop a consistent strategy.
In the list of ECN brokers that u have mentioned-i am looking to open accounts with dukascopy and interactive brokers (but not MBtrading because in my opinion their commission is too high,especially for non-usd base pairs,this defeats the purpose of trading with an ECN broker)
Dukas and IB seem to have similar spreads (0.5-1.5 pips) at any given point of time,similar commissions ($3.6 per standard lot dukas and $4 per standard lot for IB)
I am not too happy with the 1:50 of IB (i have read in ur posts that for u it does not matter) versus 1:100 for dukas.
I am also considering Alpari's currenex and FXCM's active trader (both are supposedly ECN)..but considering my earlier experiences with them,i most probably might stay away.

I don't trade with huge capitals- My personal a/c size is $100k which i would like to divide between 2-3 brokers (don.t want to lose all my capital if 1 broker goes bankrupt like refco or corwn forex)
I also trade on behalf of select clients.

Scalping is terribly unexciting in the sense,there are no huge 200-300 pips profit to boast of in a single trade.It is more of 2-3 pips multiple trades on a consistent basis.
I kind of miss last years (especially sep/oct 2008) volatility when it was easy to gauge direction and scalp away)...i am sure fxcm has other opinions on this matter,when they happily started reqouting and locking my screen when my positions were open.

Looking forward to learn/share with u guys

Scalper

Hello scalperfx,
If you are planning to trade everything under sun not only forex go with IB -interactive brokers. No one in ECN can beat them in providing everything under sun to trade from stocks, commodities, forex ,indices etc. Only thing that sucks is there charting which also can be managed using multiple new platforms with whom there datafeed can be used.
Dukascopy is without a doubt the best too.

Good to hear that you are trading with $100k which in my opinion in indian standards is huge capital {since it gets multiplied by rupee rate}.
And yes it took me many years to learn on my own blowing many accts and lot of cash to arrive at current point to pull out cash from market. Though i exclusively trade forex i am looking forward to move on to other areas like stocks, commodities and futures in near future too...

So you are staying in chennai? The main question always lies in case of trader in India is how did you manage to fund your accts with $100k? And taxes...Would love to hear your thoughts and explainations on this one..:thumb:

Regards
pipshower

 

[ag_fx]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Hi all,
Thanks for replying so promptly (I will ensure that i logon to this forum more regularly)

@Ankit-I was under the impression that u are a fellow scalper...don't know why i got the impression,but i remember a long time back (5-6 months back) when u had posted that u were a scalper trading with 1m TF. I think pipshower had initiated a discussion on trading strategies wherein he mentioned that he was a positional trader with trailing stops.
Regarding the ECN details that u had posted,u r right on all counts.
It's just that the brokers are slightly more flexible regarding a/c size these days.
for e.g Dukascopy had a min size of $50K till last year,have now relaxed it to $10K now.(Interactive and Alpari Pro ask for $20k) though...

Well the post that you are referring here was at the time, when I was trading smaller time frames. At that time, I was working as a market maker for ICICI and this scalping was the only way to trade for me. Sooner I realized, for me, scalping is not the way ahead. It just robs you of your mental peace IMHO.

Regarding ECNs and their deposits, with a $100K capital to invest, you will have no problems in opening an account with any broker whatsoever. Like Pipshower said, IB is like best broker to trade with because of hell lot of facilities that they offer. Also, with such large capital , keeping your money with Market Makers makes no sense. Infact, some market makers dont allow scalping.

And btw...$100K account...great :thumb:

 

[surya_sun]

Re: calling out all the professional fx traders-pipshower,ankit,ramdas and the rest o

Thanks scalper
I come from fx backround.. having managed large fx strategy 4 an MNC but never did trading on this for myself though made money for the employer..
Has been thinking abut it for myself whether to do it or not and has been tracking FXCM for quite long.. with conflicting reports of indian resident nationals not allowed to trade etc.,,
yes lets touch base and let me know how to reach you.. perhaps you can PM me..the details.. (funny i couldn't do it today any PM dunno why??).
tnx in advance

Hi all,
Thanks for replying so promptly (I will ensure that i logon to this forum more regularly)

@surya-imho all MM's are the same until they scam u (FXCM is no different)...however,if u start with a micro a/c with them,and steadily build it up,their mt4 platform is very user friendly and charting is decent.
If u plan to start with a low enough a/c,FXCM is a decent place to start.
and yes,let's connect now that we know that we r in the same city.

I am not too happy with the 1:50 of IB (i have read in ur posts that for u it does not matter) versus 1:100 for dukas.
I am also considering Alpari's currenex and FXCM's active trader (both are supposedly ECN)..but considering my earlier experiences with them,i most probably might stay away.

I don't trade with huge capitals- My personal a/c size is $100k which i would like to divide between 2-3 brokers (don.t want to lose all my capital if 1 broker goes bankrupt like refco or corwn forex)
I also trade on behalf of select clients.

Scalping is terribly unexciting in the sense,there are no huge 200-300 pips profit to boast of in a single trade.It is more of 2-3 pips multiple trades on a consistent basis.
I kind of miss last years (especially sep/oct 2008) volatility when it was easy to gauge direction and scalp away)...i am sure fxcm has other opinions on this matter,when they happily started reqouting and locking my screen when my positions were open.

Looking forward to learn/share with u guys

Scalper