Back on Track with FXCM

Yesterday I made an overdue switch of trading platforms from FX Engines to FXCM's TradeStation II. If you've been following the last couple posts you already know the reasons: FX Engines has been down for several days (still is, in fact). As a result I missed three winning trades in a row, and would've missed another winner last night if I hadn't made the switch to TradeStation. Fortunately this turned out to be very easy since FXCM was already my forex broker and handled all of FX Engines' trade execution. So it was just a matter of faxing some power-of-attorney paperwork and downloading the latest version of TradeStation, which I'd used before so there weren't any big surprises there. Last night I made my first TradeStation trade by successfully shorting the EUR/USD, a promising start on the new platform. Overall I've found TradeStation II to be a fine piece of software. The only small differences I've noticed with other trading platforms is that it doesn't come with default charts pre-loaded, so you need to set them up yourself. Which is no big deal. You also can't trade directly off the charts by pointing and clicking at your desired entry point. Again, not a big deal for me.One trading option offered by FXCM that I'm very interested in is "No Dealing Desk" trades, which apparently have narrower spreads and currency rates that come directly from the large interbank players rather than from FXCM's in-house dealing desk. My only concern is that no dealing desk spreads could vary wildly at moments of high volatility in the market, and since that's when most of my trades tend to close I don't want to wake up to any nasty surprises. So there's definitely a trade-off between the greater certainty of the higher dealing desk spreads, and the lower yet more uncertain no-dealing desk spreads. I'll have to do some more research before I decide it's worth that added spread uncertainty.To be fair, the reason FX Engines has been down so long isn't really their fault. The problem is apparently on FXCM's end, since they made a change to their trade fulfillment system that broke the API (Application Programming Interface) that allowed FX Engines to trade through FXCM. Which obviously really sucks for FX Engines and their clients, like me. So I hope FXCM gets their API working again soon.
Labels: Brokers and Market Makers, FX Engines, FXCM (Forex Capital Markets), Spreads