Is it possible to use Alpaca without being a US resident.
So I am looking for ways that I can programatically trade stocks and equities through the use of an API, so far I have only found Alpaca (https://alpaca.markets/) however they say that it is only for use for US residents, is it still possible to use it in anyway, I reside in the UK, and if not, are they any alternatives? EDIT: Thank you all for the answers, even if there were only 6 comments, I wanted an api for more than just forex but even that is better than nothing and I have been struggling to find anything. I think I am going to give FXCM a try.
Does anyone know of any forex and commodity brokers in the UK have have a reliable and fast Python API. I have tried IG but they limit their data to 10k data items a month and have tried FXCM but there are quite a few bugs in their FXCMPY wrapper and their ForexConnect API is really slow.
For a trader the broker is the key partner in his activity, choosing the right broker can make a huge difference on the trading results. Differentiate the best brokers with professional criteria needs extensive market experience, with all the brokers that claims to be number 1, a beginner could easily fall in the trap of the aggressively marketed brokers.
Most important selection criteria :
Robustness of the broker in exceptional events ( in 2015 following the decision of the SNB to end the Swiss franc’s peg with the euro , UK online broker Alpari and Global Brokers collapsed, while shares in FXCM plunged more than 90 per cent, after it announced it was facing losses of $225 million.
Trading costs as spreads, commissions , financing rates, deposit/withdrawal fees, inactivity fees, API fees..Depending of the broker the trading costs can vary from simple to X10 on the same currency pair !
Trade execution : negative slippage ( when you get a different price than expected on an entry or exit from a trade)
[investments] Cheapest and safest way to hold shares, options etc for 1 year at a time
I currently have approx £100k wasting away abroad in a savings account at about 4%... Because I have, up until now been unsure what to do with it, paralysed with caution. I'm used to trading futures but through FXCM, who are primarily known as a forex broker. What I'd like to do is have an account option to: - position a multi year hold in a few indexes, notably FTSE100, Spx500 But also - I'd like to be able to put 'some' aside, ready to invest in any opportunity I may see. I really want to be able to react quickly to as much as I can, from investing in the South African index, to a set of companies in China, to lithium and to be able to short oil and gas. these positions would be held for a year on average I am also concerned for the security of the funds of course. I would really like to have the original paper certificate available to me if I find something I want to keep for more than 5 years I noticed International Brokers has a UK branch and they have private insurance for UK residents. However... I'm not sure the fees are really designed for such long holds... It seems for day trading?... But they seem to have a wide range of markets available. I guess the basic question behind all this is: is £9/share cheaper than IB if I hold for a year?
FXCM CEO Drew Niv Discusses Firm's Future after the CHF Crisis
Hi Everyone, Our CEO Drew Niv held a Q&A with Forex Magnates which will answer many questions we have received over the past couple of weeks http://forexmagnates.com/exclusive-fxcm-inc-ceo-drew-niv-discusses-firms-future-after-the-chf-crisis/. Please understand that some questions I can't answer since we are a publicly traded company and it may be material information, but we will get to all questions in due time. What happened on January 15th after the SNB announcement? What was the immediate impact of the SNB announcement on the company’s systems? At the time of the SNB announcement over 3,000 FXCM clients held slightly over $1 billion in open positions on EUCHF. Those same clients held approximately $80 million of collateral in their accounts. As you know this was the largest move of a major currency since currencies started floating 1971. The EUCHF move was 44 standard deviation moves, while most risk management systems only contemplate 3-6 standard deviations. The moved wiped out those clients’ account equity as well as generated negative equity balances owed to FXCM of over $225 million. We believe that the FXCM system operated properly during this event. The caveat of our no dealing-desk execution system is that traders are offset one for one with a liquidity provider. When a client entered a EUCHF trade with FXCM, FXCM Inc. had an identical trade with our liquidity providers. During the historic move, liquidity became extremely scarce and shallow, which affected execution prices. This liquidity issue resulted in some clients having a negative balance. While clients could not cover their margin call with us we still had to cover the same margin call with our banks. When a client profits in the trade FXCM gives the profits to the customer, however, when the client is not profitable on that trade FXCM Inc. ends up having to pay the liquidity provider. FXCM ended with a regulatory capital shortfall. Accordingly, FXCM needed to get a loan to cover this balance, which it did. For anyone that still thinks FXCM is running an FX dealing desk, we have now demonstrated that such is not the case. Why do you think many people traded EUCHF with FXCM? Because we are a no dealing-desk broker and offset each trade one-for-one with our liquidity providers, and only make money on trades not customer losses. We published a study a few years ago called “traits of successful traders” that looked at FXCM traders over a long period of time and their general behavior to find what was destructive behavior to stay away from and what worked for clients. The study focuses on what the majority of profitable traders did to increase their odds of success. What the study found was that traders who traded during quiet range-bound market hours like Asian hours OR that traded rang- bound low volatility currency pairs tended to be more profitable. Obviously many of our competitors who are on the opposite side of their clients’ trades did not find this trade to be helpful to their bottom line, as they lose money when traders profit. We saw many of the dealing desk firms begin to increase overnight rollover cost as well as raise margin requirements to get these trades off their system and that’s why FXCM and other STP brokers had much bigger exposure. Why did FXCM require an emergency loan with such tough terms? As a regulated broker we are required to notify our regulators in a timely manner when any event occurs that may be deemed sensitive to clients. When we notified the regulators, they required FXCM Inc.’s regulated entities to supplement their respective net capital on an expedited basis. We explored multiple debt and equity financing alternatives in an effort to meet the regulator’s deadline. The deal we ended up doing with Leucadia was the only deal that could and would happen in the very short timeframe we were given by the regulators. The CEO and the president of Leucadia were here in the office working on the deal. It was a tall order for someone outside of the FX industry to come in and write a $300 million dollar check. This was the type of thing only top management could do. But they see the sustainability of FXCM, and that was everyone’s end goal. We really are very thankful to Leucadia. The deal enables us to live and fight another day and gives us time to build shareholder value in the future. You said you plan to pay back the loan with proceeds from sales of non-core assets so what are non-core assets and will that be enough? We announced last week that we anticipate that with the proceeds from the sale of some non-core assets and continued earnings we can meet both near and long-term obligations of our financing, while preserving the strength of our franchise. It’s widely known and understood that FXCM’s core business has always been retail FX; It is the majority of FXCM’s revenue. However, over the past few years, the company has spent over $250 million dollars making strategic acquisitions building up our non-core businesses, mainly the institutional side as we tried to diversify the firm. We are now looking to sell some of those non-core assets; But, we are not in a rush and are looking to get the highest valuations for these assets. We are considering closing or selling smaller regulated entities that require large sums of capital requirements, but that offer increasingly low return on capital. The latter move allows us to free up significant amounts of cash that is currently trapped. We believe that in the near term we can pay down a majority of the loan. That’s our goal. What happens after 90 days according to your agreement with Leucadia? The agreement says we need to pay back $50 million of the loan along with $10 million in fees in 90 days. If we don’t pay that $60 million, we will be assessed an additional $30 million in fees when the loan is due in 2017. So we are going to pay our $60 million and hopefully more in 90 days and then go from there. To be clear, the financing does not force us to do anything at 90 days. Will you be selling FXCM? I absolutely do not plan on selling FXCM. Like I said we will be selling non-core assets but no I don’t plan on selling FXCM. That is also why we implemented the shareholder rights plan to prevent a hostile takeover. FXCM has been independent for over 15 years and we intend to stay that way. Are client funds safe with FXCM? Yes. As we have said, we believe FXCM’s systems operated properly during this event. I’ll stress it here again, FXCM is not insolvent, has not filed for any form of bankruptcy, and is in compliance with all regulatory capital requirements in the jurisdictions in which it operates. The financing we received from Leucadia has strengthened our balance sheet and gives us the opportunity to grow our core business. With Leucadia, our pockets are even deeper and we aren’t going anywhere. Additionally, all of our regulated entities except the U.S. provide clients with segregated funds. All of our global client base in our regulated entities minus US clients would be protected under a bankruptcy. Our UK regulated entity through the FSCS even offers clients £50,000 per person in protection. Canada has similar insurance for retail traders of up to $1 million CAD. What are the relationships like with your liquidity providers after this event? Many of these relationships are long-standing relationships. The entire industry took a hit here. They understand what happened. Most everyone halted trading in EUCHF, but half of our liquidity providers kept providing prices in all other pairs the entire time. Half of the LPs did stop pricing FXCM on Friday January 16th, but most have returned. We presently only have two providers that have not yet returned, but we are optimistic that they will soon return. There is still plenty of liquidity on the platform. Most banks and other liquidity providers have been working very closely with the FXCM team. Where do you see FXCM in six months from now? We will be well on our way to paying down the loan and continue to grow our core franchise. FXCM still has the best platform for retail traders, we still provide the fairest and more transparent execution in the business and we have a slew of new trading indicators and applications that no one in the space is even considering offering their clients. We’ll still be here; We may just look a little different. Here are a few things we are working to get out in the next six months: Single Share CFDs – We are going to be offering the top 200 or so most traded US, UK, French and German stocks. We are going to offer these shares on the equivalent of NDD in FX. Improving CFD execution – Sharpening execution capabilities to match some of the benefits of our FX capabilities for Index and Energy CFDs to remove restrictions on stops and limits, allowing APIs, along with tighter spreads. Market Depth in FX – clients will be able to see the depth of liquidity which will provide them more transparency with execution quality and allow them to make more informed trading decisions. Real Volume indicators – clients will have a real volume ticker of all trades done on the FXCM system, which will show clients’ actual order flow; they can see directional volume, so long, short, net or total volume as well as balance on volume per instrument; and finally we have an indicator to show the ratio of real volume divided into transactions per period. These indicators will let clients compare our trading activity against other independent providers who also publish volumes like the CME, and clients will be able to compare execution. Sentiment Index – We will be providing FXCM’s client sentiment data in real-time as a default on the platform so clients can see where the rest of the clients are. These software updates and platform features are bringing much more transparency to the retail FX market aimed at improving the client experience in the market. With your stock price so low, is that an indication of the health of your company? While it is true that FXCM’s stock price dropped after the events of January 15th, we do not believe that the present stock price is indicative of the health of the company. The stock price does not impact our day to day operations as a company. With the injection of cash from the Leucadia financing, the core retail business is functioning completely as normal. We have excess regulatory capital in all our regulated entities and never had to pause trading or interrupt client’s trading experience. As we announced in our business update, daily volume on the retail side was on pace to set an all-time company record. Why didn’t the dealing desk brokers have these types of losses? A dealing desk broker does not have offsetting trades. If the customer is long a trade the broker is short that trade, so when the customer makes a profit on a trade the broker loses. When the customer loses on the trade then the broker is profitable. Obviously on January 15th most clients lost money so the dealer was very profitable. Even for clients that blew through their stops and had negative balances with these firms, the dealer doesn’t have a liquidity provider that it owes money to. They can essentially act like the negative balances never happened and enjoy their profits. What is FXCM changing with regards to their risk management systems? The primary change we will be making is removing currency pairs from the platform that carry significant risk due to over-active manipulation by their respective government either by a floor, ceiling, peg or band. Given what happened with EUCHF the industry is now looking very hard at any potentially similar issues, especially given the increased geopolitical risks in Southern and Eastern Europe. We will also be raising margin requirements for other pairs as well. Some of these changes will be permanent while others may change as geopolitical risks change. The pairs we are removing from the platform were not material to our volume or our revenue. Some of the currencies we are removing include DKK, SGD, HKD, PLN and CZK. FXCM made some material changes in margin requirements for clients. Are those changes permanent or temporary in nature? When you look at some of the changes we made to margin requirements, look at them in three different categories: 1. Some of the changes we made were required by regulators, and therefore we had to comply with these changes. 2. When you look at emerging market currencies, the banks and our liquidity providers were raising margin requirements to eliminate any potential risk of large gaps. 3. Previously liquid Western country currencies, like the DKK or CHF, which now carry risk because they are manipulated currencies, have become less liquid. Despite what the media thinks about leverage, we know the clients like it and want more, it’s the number 1 or number 2 request our sales staff has been getting the past week. We understand the importance of this to our clients but we just need to be smart about it moving forward. What is Black Thursday’s long-term impact on the retail foreign exchange industry? In what ways has it changed the direction the industry is going? Banks are raising their margin requirements, too. A lot of these currencies that carry any type of geopolitical risk with them are going to lose support and liquidity. Investors always had little faith in emerging market currencies but always believed in Western countries’ currencies even if they were manipulated in some way, but that’s gone. Switzerland is a Western country and if they can pull the shenanigans they did with their currency, what’s to say other western countries won’t do the same? The market is going to be very sceptical as they can only stand to lose; The risk is just too high now. It’s too bad really as these pairs historically had low volatility, were range-bound and were very profitable trades for clients.
ECN. Used most by professional traders. Difficult platform for beginners
Tight spreads
Minimum deposit $10000 (or $3,000 if under 25yo) * Well diversified -Oanda
Market maker. Second largest retail FX brokerage in the US. Easy platform for beginners.
Fair spreads
No minimum deposit
Not well diversified, but well capitalized -Gain Capital (whitelabel forex.com) *Market Maker *Fair spreads *Minimum deposit $250 *Well diversified -FXCM Inc
ECN. Largest retail FX brokerage in the US
Tight spreads
Minimum deposit $2000
Not well diversified. CAUTION: FXCM nearly went bankrupt in Jan-2015 due to a lack of diversification and low capitalisation. As a result FXCM LLC was bailed out with a large loan which may prove difficult to pay back. Be warned that their business may not be sustainable in the long term. -MBTrading
ECN. Mid-sized retail FX brokerage
Fair spreads
Minimum deposit $400
Well diversified.
International Only- -LMAX (whitelabel DarwinEx) *DMA broker based in the UK. Note that as a DMA broker LMAX eliminates the ability for LPs to last-look transactions. This may result in reduced liquidity during volatile times as liquidity providers would be likely not to risk posting liquidity to LMAX's pool. *Tight spreads *Minimum deposit $10,000 *Fairly well diversified -Dukascopy *ECN based in Switzerland, but available elsewhere depending on local regulations. *Tight spreads *Minimum deposit $100 *Fairly well diversified -IC Markets *ECN based in Australia *Fair spreads on standard account, tight spreads on professional accounts. *Minimum deposit $200 *Fairly well diversified -Pepperstone *ECN broker based in Australia. *Fair spreads on standard account, tight spreads on professional accounts. *Minimum deposit $200 *Not well diversified Software / Apps: Desktop/mobile
Apps are typically broker dependent. Some brokers have their own proprietary software, while others lease common software like Metatrader or NinjaTrader. Some software has a large development community for indicators and EAs.
Terminology/Acronyms: www.forexlive.com/ForexJargon - Common terms and acronyms FAQ: I need to exchange money, how do I do it? This isn’t what this sub is for. Your best bet is using your bank or an online exchange service. Be prepared to pay a hefty fee. I have money in one currency and need to exchange it into another sometime in the future, should I wait? Don’t ask us this. We speculate intraday in FX and shouldn’t be relied on to tell you what’s best for you. Exchange the money when you need it. I have an FX account, should I start trading demo or live? This is highly debatable. You should definitely demo trade until you have mastered how to use the trading platform on desktop and mobile. After that it’s up to you. Many think that the psychology of trading live vs demo trading is massively different. So it may pay to learn to trade live. Just be warned that most FX traders lose almost their entire first account so start with a low affordable balance. What’s money management? Money management is a form of risk management and is arguably the most important aspect of your trading when it comes to long term survival. You should always enter trades with a stop loss - the distance of the stop allows you to calculate how large of a percent of your account balance will be lost if your trade stops out. You can run a monte carlo simulation to figure out the risk of having a number of trades go against you in a row to drain your account. The general rule is that you should only risk losing 1-4% of your account per trade entered. More on this here: www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/06/fxmoneymgmt.asp[35] www.swing-trade-stocks.com/money-management.html[36] What about automated trading? Retail FX traders have been known to program “Expert Advisors” (EAs) to automate trading. It’s generally advisable to stay away from that until you’re very experienced. Never buy an EA from a developer because the vast majority of them are scams. What indicators are best? That’s up to you to test and find out. Many in this forum dislike oscillating indicators since they fail to capture the essence of what moves price. With experience you will discover what works best for you. In my experience indicators that are most popular with professional traders are those that provide trading “levels” such as pivot points, fibonacci, moving averages, trendlines, etc. What timeframe should I trade? Price action can vary in different timeframes. In longer term timeframes the price action and fundamentals are much more clear. Unfortunately it would take a very long time to figure out whether or not what you’re doing is successful on longer timeframes. In shorter timeframes you can often tell very quickly if what you’re doing is profitable. Unfortunately there’s a lot more “noise” on these levels which can prove deceptive for those trying to learn. Therefore the best bet is to use a multi-timeframe analysis, working from top-down to come up with trades. Should I trade using fundamental analysis (FA) of technical analysis (TA)? This is a long standing argument in these forums and elsewhere. I’ll settle it here - you should have an understanding of both. Yes there are traders who blindly ignore one of the other but a truly well rounded trader should understand and implement both into the analysis. The market is driven in the longer term through FA. But TA is necessary to give traders a place to enter and exit trades from a psychological risk/reward standpoint. I’ve heard trading Binary Options is an easy way to make money? The general advice is to stay away from binaries. The structure of binary options is so that when you lose the broker wins. This incentive has created a very scammy industry where there are few legitimate binary options brokers. In addition in order to be profitable in binaries you have to win 55-65% of the time. That’s a much higher premium over spot FX. Am I actually exchanging currencies? Yes and no. Your broker handles spot FX is currency pairs. Although they make an exchange at the settlement date they treat your position in your account as a virtual currency pair. Think of it like a contract where you can only buy or sell it as a pair. In this sense you are always long one currency while short another. You are merely speculating that one currency will appreciate or depreciate vs another. Why didn't my order fill? Even if price appears to cross over a line on your chart it does not guarantee a fill. Different charting platforms chart different prices - some chart the bid price, some the ask price and some the midpoint price. To fill a limit order price needs to cross your limit's price plus the spread at the time that it is crossing. If it does not equal or exceed the spread then it will not fill. Be wary that in general spreads are not fixed. So what may fill at one time may not at another.
My dad wants me to trade forex in the future, how do I change his views? any advice is appreciated.
So a long time ago, my dad clicked an ad that brought him to ufxmarkets, which promised him a lot of money. So right away he put $3000 and lost it all eventually because it was a scam. He recognized it was a mistake but he still wanted to trade forex, so now he's moved on to fxcm.ca, which I read may be a scam, linklink2 Yesterday, he told me he getssignals from a "guru" in New Zealand or Australia, I don't remember, and he basically wants me to replace him, that way he doesn't have to pay for one and always rely on someone he didn't know. He said that he made $160 just yesterday, so that surprised me. He then told me to study about it, and if I don't wanna do it, I don't have to. So today, after researching, I've seen people say that forex trading is unregulated, high risk and is basically gambling, (no skill, all luck), and online trading (what my dad is doing) are scams. But some people say otherwise. So basically my questions are, is forex trading a whole, a scam? And is fxcm.ca a scam? Should my dad stop forex trading? He thinks forex trading can be his main income if I help him, and he also finds it fun, so is forex trading pretty much his way of gambling,? Gambiling is prohibited in our religion so clarification on this will help.
Forex Capital Markets Limited (FXCM LTD) is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. According to FCA regulations, FXCM LTD must meet strict financial standards, including capital adequacy requirements. On a regular basis, FXCM LTD is required to submit financial reports to regulators. Forex Capital Markets Limited ("FXCM LTD") is an operating subsidiary within the FXCM group of companies (collectively, the "FXCM Group"). All references on this site to "FXCM" refer to the FXCM Group. Forex Capital Markets Limited is authorised and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registration number 217689. Forex pairs aside, FOREX.com offers traders access to 4500 CFDs while FXCM has 82 available CFDs, a difference of 4,418. Overall, between FOREX.com and FXCM, FOREX.com is the better forex broker . FOREX.com Review FXCM, or Forex Capital Markets, is a UK-based broker offering forex and CFDs trading. FXCM was established in 1999 and is 100% owned by the Jefferies Financial Group, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has a background in investment banking. Forex Capital Markets Limited ("FXCM LTD") is an operating subsidiary within the FXCM group of companies (collectively, the "FXCM Group"). All references on this site to "FXCM" refer to the FXCM Group. Forex Capital Markets Limited is authorised and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registration number 217689.
Check out Our Blog: https://bit.ly/2Dgzb8e - FXCM: UK Forex Trading - Currency Trading Examine to see what kinds of support the very best binary choices brok... The forex market is the largest, most liquid market in the world with an average daily trading volume exceeding $5 trillion. All the world's combined stock markets don't even come close to this ... FXCM Review 2020 – Forex Brokers Reviews by Thediaryofatrader.com FXCM (Forex Capital Markets) is one of the largest Forex brokers in the world and it is the... FXCM Heroes provide first class service for first class traders. Learn more about FXCM: https://www.fxcm.com/uk/ This video is intended for the users of Forex Capital ... Here's more on the FXCM story: http://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/breaking-fxcm-restructuring-plan-includes-termination-150-employees/ For more inf...
