Alex Bobrov
The Masterforex-V Trading Academy forum users are involved in monitoring the brokerage of various dealing centers. Recently, a new column called “Everyone Should Know That” has appeared in the “Market Leader”, providing the information about those dealing centers, their news and achievements, features and advantages.
Things are changing with time. The quality of brokerage services is constantly improving. Today brokers offer better trading conditions, with lower spreads, greater number of trading instruments, better market information support, faster execution speed etc. The NordFX company offers one of the latest innovations.
One of the most popular terminals – MT4 – contains a lot of indicators, allows trading with “expert advisors”, provides good speed and convenience for opening and closing orders etc. Professional traders are also aware of some problems existing in standard MT4 terminals, used by unfair brokers to simulate slippage and execute tradres’ stop-loss orders with non-market quotes. Is it possible to combine the convenience of MT4 and straight interbank dealing? Or maybe it is a dream? Now it has become possible with the new MT4–ECN trading terminal provided by NordFX, combining the interbank Forex with the most popular trading platform.
Here are some differences between the new MT4–ECN NordFX and the standard MT4:
1. Both MT4-ECN and the Currenex system are suitable for short-term, intraday trading. They lower the transaction cost offering very small spread. E.g. 10 transactions in 0,1 lot each with spread from 2 to 5 points result in $20-50 overhead charge, or about $1,000 per month. MT4-ECN offers a powerful advantage by lowering or charging no spread at all. Scalpers will be happy with the ECN system as they gain small-scale profits from a set of short-term orders, So for them the size of the spread matters a lot.
2. MT4 allows many different “advisors”, either standard or custom. MT4-ECN supports any mechanical trading systems which can handle the price with 5 digits after the decimal point. The code of the “advisors” that support only 4 decimal places needs to be improved in order to be able to work with 5-decimal numbers.
3. The direct interbank access does not allow the broker to cheat with the orders, guaranteeing the integrity of trades. The main difference between the MT4-ECN and the standard MT4 terminal is that the MT4 dealers, obtaining the quotes from the market makers, are able to delay or modify them before transferring the quotes to the trader. The STP technology, used by NordFX in its MT4-ECN terminal, serves as a bridge between the MT4 and the Currenex system, preventing the quotes from any modifications or delays. Traders obtain a direct access to the interbank quotes and their orders are executed automatically through finding the best possible proposal at the given time.
The OpenBook, available in the MT4-ECN, helps to analyze the strength of the technical levels and shows the market depth. In MT4-ECN traders do not need to worry about the possible control over their orders. The trading platform is simply executing the orders at the closest price possible, which is always seen in the open book. Sometimes, the order is executed at a slightly different price as if some slippage appear, but be sure that the price is always the best possible from several market-makers with the lowest possible spread.
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MT4 has slightly changed as a result of the integration with the Currenex platform via the ECN\STP bridge
One should pay attention to the quotation accuracy of 5 digits after the decimal point (3 digits for JPY) when developing custom scripts for the new MT4-ECN terminal. And finally, one should use order execution ‘at the market price’ instead of “instant execution” in standard MT4.
Currently, NordFX has suspended opening new accounts for the Currenex platform due to increasing popularity of the new MT4-ECN platform, which has the same advantages as Currenex, but also provides a well-known MT4 interface. The minimum required deposit for the MT4-ECN platform was reduced to $1000 to attract new clients.
To see the complete picture, pay attention to the commission fee charged for each opening or closing a position just like when using the Currenex platform. The commission size depends on the turnover of the account. The more transactions done, the lower is the commission size.
Finally, here are the conditions for new accounts at the МТ4-ECN platform from the official web site of the NordFX company:
• minimum required deposit $1000;
• 21 currency pair;
• dynamic spread starting from 0 points;
• leverage 1:100;
• minimum allowed lot 0.1;
• maximum allowed lot 20 with step 0,1;
• margin call/stop out level 100%/50%*
• quotation accuracy of 5 digits after the decimal point;
• no stop/limit levels;
• commission $8 for 1 lot – if the turnover per month is 899 lots or below;
• commission $6 for 1 lot – if the turnover per month is $900 or above;
It is possible to try the ECN platform through demo-trading: opening and closing positions at demo account for various currency pairs like «EURUSD.». After a certain period of practice, you can easily open a real trading account. The minimum required deposit is quite large for a beginner, so you should study hard and be careful when first trying to trade at the real account. Anyway, the NordFX company is trustworthy for the absence of conflicts, constantly improving trading conditions, new services and advanced technologies.
Describing the MT4-ECN trading platform from NordFX, the «Market Leader» continues to inform traders about the innovative proposals for brokerage from the perspective companies. We are always happy to provide articles, interviews and comments on everything that happens on both sides of the screen, thus consolidating all the market participants to discuss the trading.
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Alex Bobrov
