Jason Rogers

Hi Steve, USD/JPY moves relatively slowly compared with the other major currency pairs. For example, looking at the Average True Range of USD/JPY for the past 14 days, the pair's average daily range has been about 45 pips. The average true range of EUR/USD in contrast has been about 135 pips. So if you're looking for something that will be moving more, you may want to look at other currency pairs. Just be careful with volatility since leverage in the forex market can magnify swings in the currency pair, and thereby your profit and loss. Jason

Hi SpecTrade, Friday's action from the NFA primarily concerns positive slippage, and I would like to shed more light on how positive slippage with FXCM's NDD forex execution system used to work prior to August 2010 and how it has worked since then. FXCM’s platforms display the best bid/ask spread streamed from the firm’s liquidity providers plus FXCM’s mark-up. Every FXCM NDD forex trade is automatically offset in a two-step process, designed to ensure that FXCM does not profit from a trader’s losses. In the first step of the execution process, a trader clicks on the price and the order is sent to FXCM. In the second step, FXCM automatically sends the client’s order to one of its liquidity providers to offset the trade. FXCM’s execution system prior to August 2010 only offered price improvements to clients in the first step of the process. If a better price became available on FXCM’s platform in the fraction of a second after the client submitted the order but before the order was received by FXCM, the client would benefit from the price improvement. However, FXCM’s previous execution system did not provide clients with price improvements in the second step of the execution process, even if FXCM was able to offset the order at a better price, excluding FXCM’s markup. FXCM enhanced the execution system in 2010 so that clients now benefit from price improvements in both steps of a transaction for all order types. It is important to note: By the end of 2010 FXCM enhanced its execution system to offer price improvements on all trades. You may remember from my forum posts last August that I announced positive slippage for limit and limit entry orders on this thread. All orders now eligible to receive positive slippage, and all price improvements are subject to available liquidity. The settlement amount and the client price improvement credit will have no negative impact on FXCM's financial balance sheet because several founding partners of FXCM have reimbursed the company for the credit and the fines. As of June 30, 2011, FXCM Inc. had over $200 million in cash and no debt. FXCM's goal is to have a fair and transparent system, and we are proud to offer an execution system that passes on any price improvements. FXCM has compiled statistics from July 1, 2010 until now to display the percentage of orders positive slipped and negatively slipped, and which orders most frequently experience each. The percentage of orders between positive and negative slippage has been roughly equal. And we have broken this down even further to display the number of orders on a monthly basis positively and negatively slipped: Limit and limit entry orders are the most likely to experience positive slippage which is why we highlight using limit and limit entry orders in the execution center on our website. You can find even more data on slippage broken down per order type in the complete report here: Slippage Statistics Please let me know if you have any additional questions. I will do my best to answer them as thoroughly as possible. Jason FXCM

This is a self-installing version of the Commitment of Traders Indicator for the Strategy Trader platform. The indicator was created by David Rodriguez of DailyFX. Here's how to set it up. Download the COTIndicator.zip file, unzip. Run the attached .exe file. Open Strategy Trader and the Strategy Trader editor. When prompted by the Editor, hit "okay" to import the "COTIndicator.fxd" file. Once it has compiled correctly, open the "COTIndicator.fxw" file found in the default "MyWork" directory. If you installed Strategy Trader in the default location, this would be C:\Program Files\FXCM\Strategy Trader\MyWork . All COT data is printed with the futures contract in mind. That is to say, Non Commercial and Commercial positioning on pairs such as the USDJPY and USDCHF are actually on JPYUSD and CHFUSD futures. COTIndicator.zip

Hi Tomaz, This indicator is for the Strategy Trader platform from FXCM Automated Forex Trading | Strategy Trader Software

The equity plotter will plot the profit/loss from automated trades. This becomes useful if you're running strategies on multiple currency pairs. You can see your profit/loss broken down by currency pair. The below image is an example of the equity plotter on the AUD/NZD and EUR/GBP charts. I added the grid strategy to the chart and you can see that AUD/NZD has an overall loss of $182.70 whereas EUR/GBP has an overall profit of $242.74. Helps you identify which pairs have been most profitable. EquityPlotter.zip

The equity plotter will plot the profit/loss from automated strategies for particular currency pairs directly onto the currency pair chart. This becomes useful if you're running strategies on multiple currency pairs. The indicator will allow you to view profit/loss broken down by currency pair to quickly evaluate strategy performance by currency pair. The attached image gives an example of the equity plotter on the AUD/NZD and EUR/GBP pairs running the Grid Strategy. The equity plotter shows that AUD/NZD has an overall loss of $182.70 whereas EUR/GBP has an overall profit of $242.74. Helps you easily compare and identify which pairs have been most profitable. EquityPlotter.zip

Another contest is being held in early 2011 with prizes totaling $100k. Here's the contest standings thus far with 22 days left in the contest.

The coding documentation for FXCM's Strategy Trader help guide was recently reorganized to make it more user friendly and more detailed for coding your indicators and strategies into C#. You can find it attached to this post in the zip file. Cheers, Jason Strategy Language Help.zip

FXCM is holding an automated forex trading contest which begins October 17. Trading will take place on the Strategy Trader platform which uses C# for strategy coding. The top 3 winners receive the following cash prizes: 1st - $10,000; 2nd - $7,000; and 3rd place - $3,000. Below are some important dates to note in order to participate. Important Dates: September 7: Contest registration opens. Begin coding and testing your automated strategy to prepare for the first day of the contest. October 15: A starting balance of $1,000 will be used for the official contest. Therefore, at the close of trading on October 15th contest demo accounts will be automatically reset to $1,000 and any open positions will be settled. October 17: Contest officially begins when trading opens Sunday October 17th. Participants should activate their automated strategies for trading. There is a leaderboard on the contest page which will update hourly with the current leaders. December 3: Contest trading period ends. Final equity levels will be recorded and prizes will be awarded to the top three contestants If you're going to participate, please make sure to register for the demo though the contest page. All information including FAQ's can be found on the contest website: http://www.fxcm.co.uk/automated-forex-trading-contest.jsp