michal.kreslik wrote:one unnamed retail broker once made me wait for 5 minutes before I got a MARKET fill.. these things are hard to believe.
Yes, but why?
How do they know that delaying an order will be at their advantage? They supposedly don't know the future, unless they manipulate it. (that's a real question, I really want to know!)
I am thinking how would it be technically possible to follow every single trader, and "make them loose" individually - to say it in simple words. I mean it would take an unimaginable amount of calculating power to audit every single account, try to "guess" their next moves, etc
Or is it reasonable to think that they just generate those issues on a random basis to the masses, to make trading more difficult and random - to their advantage in the end...?
Technically it would be possible to audit all the accounts and separate trader in different pools: scalpers, day traders, etc. And then redirect them to a different server or whatever, and generate a set of issues specifically made to impel on their trading.
What do you think?
For example I had an account with FXCM, and I encountered some "suspicious" glitches time to time (Though I have to stay that I was very happy with the stability of their platform). The most common issue I had was "slippage". Orders get opened - but strangely not where the price is, a few pips above the spread - for no apparent reasons. The same occurred when closing trades, even more difficult to spot. However those issues appeared on a completely random basis, very difficult to track, and sometime to my advantage... so I can't say for sure. But I still get this feeling that they artificially inflate the spread to their advantage.
(Just to be precise, I was trading on their UK server, from a nearby country on a 100mbit optical fiber connection - so there was absolutely no lag on my side.)
All those strategies to manipulate the odds in the favor of broker are very complex, and require a lot of resource (personnel, computing power, etc). All this, when they could simply play the statistics if 95% of traders loose, as Adaseb stated before... So what to think?