[snackly]

Originally Posted by minoo »

Use brokers who provide
'Customers Segregated Accounts' with Banks
and keep check on the credit rating of the particular bank

This is what I do with the money market account to transfer deposit to brokers affiliated trading accounts

I am not sure if this is adequate though.

Guess I'm real late to this thread..

If you want the best protection with retail spot fx, use IB's IDEALPRO. They are insured through Loyd's of London and have a high credit rating from S&P (for whatever that is worth, if you've been paying attention to counterparty ratings lately in this industry at the banking level you know what I mean).

But seriously, they are as safe as you can get with retail FX and as transparent as you can get. HotSpot is 2nd, but they are too secretive about liquidity, and don't insure their accounts.

I believe because IB accounts are futures/stock accounts they are effectively covered by laws that require insurance to a certain amount. I am probably badly bungling this explanation so someone with better knowledge can step in.

[snackly]

Originally Posted by MC »

I'll borrow a prior quote of yours to relate to this.

"But news events aren't exactly manipulation IMHO and anyone stupid enough to get caught in that situation deserves to lose their money."

STUPID is the common denominator. If you don't have a hedging plan you have no business trading futures. Thank god I was paper then and saw what could have happened without a proper business plan! The vehicle makes a difference, but the plan is what can make or break a trader.

How are you hedging your FX Future trades? Using negatively correlated spot pairs? Or I would think the better choice would be FX options from the same place (CME)?

[daedalus]

so snackly who do you use as a broker?

[snackly]

Originally Posted by daedalus »

so snackly who do you use as a broker?

I have IB setup to do spot FX through their IDEALPRO ECN platform. The S&P rating and the Loyds of London insurance adds a nice feeling of security.

Check out this page:

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en...F-FXTrader.php

[Jene]

differences between forex and futures trading, futures traders often find it a natural transition into forex trading. Market liquidity, pricing structure, available leverage and open hours are just some of the differences.

[brownsfan019]

Originally Posted by Jene »

differences between forex and futures trading, futures traders often find it a natural transition into forex trading. Market liquidity, pricing structure, available leverage and open hours are just some of the differences.

Differences?

Market liquidity - futures have plenty of volume
Pricing structure - if anything, futures are more transparent than FX
Leverage - you can control an ES for $500, how much more leverage could one possibly want?
Hours - can trade around the clock if you wanted, but just like FX, has high volume areas

I'm missing what you are calling differences.

[johnlucas]

May I ask a silly question?

since spot and fx futures prices follow each other, are the support
and resistance levels to watch the same?

For example: when trading spot forex, some currency pairs show a tendency to rebound to round numbers more than others. If a "spot" pair rebounds when hitting a round number, what happens to the correspondant futures fx pair at the same moment?

should one treat Fx Futures as "Spot prices + forward points" for charting and trading purposes?

thank you,

cheers,

johnlucas

[thalestrader]

Originally Posted by johnlucas »

May I ask a silly question?

since spot and fx futures prices follow each other, are the support
and resistance levels to watch the same?

For example: when trading spot forex, some currency pairs show a tendency to rebound to round numbers more than others. If a "spot" pair rebounds when hitting a round number, what happens to the correspondant futures fx pair at the same moment?

should one treat Fx Futures as "Spot prices + forward points" for charting and trading purposes?

thank you,

cheers,

johnlucas

I used to trade the 6E(EURUSD future) and 6B (GBPUSD future) quite bit. Many of my trading opportunities occurred early (betwen 6am and 8am EST). So, often times I would be in a position during an 8:30 am EST news release. It was not uncommon for the spot FX price to swing 50, 100, 150 ticks in the seconds and minutes after the news, while the price of my futures contract barely wiggled. In other words, while the Futures and Spot price will track one another, they will not always move lock step.

The futures may sell at a premium or discount to the spot - do not think it is always or even most commonly at a premium to the spot market.

I am a breakout trader, so to speak, and breakouts on the futures tend to be more reliable than breakouts on spot (this does not mean that false breakouts do not occur on futures, of course they do). Usually, the spot breaks out, and if the move is sustained, the futures will follow. Often, the spot breaks out from S/R and quickly reverses, while a look at the futures chart wil show that the futures never did chip away at the corresponding S/R level. I should add that this was my experience when I primarily traded futures only. I have only recently started paying much attention to the currency markets again as result of my daughter's interest. I do not know if the spot still tends to lead on breakouts or not, though if I had to bet based upon what I've noticed the last month or so, I'd have to say that most of the time, spot will break before futures, though, as in everything, not always.

Best Wishes,

Thales