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open discussion with EFX Group president, Mr. Jon Floyd

Posted: Thu Jun 22, 2006 12:51 pm
by michal.kreslik
Hello, friends,

Avery is using and recommending EFX Group as a forex broker, which is a subsidiary of MB trading.

As we all have already discussed many times, we feel the platform change from Tradestation to something else is quite desirable for many of us.

With that platform change the transition from that horrible GAIN capital group FX broker that comes with Tradestation is also on agenda.

Personally, for me, NeoTicker4 seems to be the most probable option at this time, MetaTrader4 coming second.

EFX group order interface connects to NeoTicker, so it's possible to fully automate FX trading with NeoTicker/EFX combo. (How long it will take for Tradestation to finally come to realize the long promised FX automation is a must?)


Open discussion with an EFX Group president

I've arranged an open discussion with an EFX group president, Mr. Jon Floyd. He told me he will be happy to answer our questions directly on this forum, in this very topic, so please go ahead and ask questions.

My questions:

  1. is there any publicly available spread history for EFX? Oanda publishes theirs here. This way, it's clearly visible what spreads are really offered by the broker as opposed to the sales pitch like "spreads as low as.."
  2. is it possible to monitor the trades realtime from EFX trading platform (EFX Navigator) as I am connected to my account from NeoTicker?
  3. is it possible to connect NeoTicker to a demo EFX account so that one may test how it works prior to committing any real money?
  4. under which conditions would EFX reject orders? It happens to me too often my profitable limit orders are being rejected by my broker 10 mins before the news breaks
  5. how do you calculate the commissions? There seems to be a confusion between the term "trade" and an "order" on your pages. At the fees page, you state that the commission is $7 down to $5 per $100,000 traded. But I assume that for every $100,000 traded (i.e. open position/close position) the commission is in fact charged twice (2x $7). Is my conclusion correct?
  6. Is it mandatory for NeoTicker on my side to be up and running every time I want to place an order with EFX or is it possible to run my NeoTicker scripts directly on your server?
  7. do you provide any tick history for the major FX pairs? The trouble with the third party history data is that it often doesn't match the broker's data and thus the strategies don't work precisely the same
  8. once the order is placed vie NeoTicker, does it remain live at your server regardless of my internet connection state etc.?
  9. is the much valued Level II pending orders information which is available at EFX transmitted to NeoTicker, too?
  10. I've read your Limitation of Liability agreement for new clients and this part caught my eye:

    "If the market moves against your position or margin levels are increased, you may be called upon to pay substantial additional funds on short notice in order to maintain your position. If you fail to comply with a request for additional funds within the time prescribed, your position may be liquidated at a loss and you will be liable for any resulting deficit in your account."

    Does that mean the client may actually go into debt? This is not possible with my FX broker - they would simply close out my open positions and no liability beyond the amount initially depositied might ever emerge this way. Please explain.
  11. Is the leverage ceiling of 100:1 applicable to all clients? Or can it be raised if one deposits a certain higher amount of money to the account?
  12. What are the main advantages of EFX over Oanda which is deemed by many as the best FX broker? Apart from the fact that Oanda only offers 50:1 leverage


Thank you very much for your answers!

Michal

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:00 am
by jon.floyd
Michal,
I will have a response to your above question shortly.
Thanks,
Jon Floyd
EFX Group

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 2:58 am
by jon.floyd
Michal,
Thank you for inviting me to participate in your forum. It is my pleasure to try and answer all questions to the best of my ability. EFX Group prides itself on excessive customer service and anything we can do to support you and your community we will try and do! With that being said let me give the first questions my best effort.

1. is there any publicly available spread history for EFX? Oanda publishes theirs here. This way, it's clearly visible what spreads are really offered by the broker as opposed to the sales pitch like "spreads as low as.."

EFX Group does not keep a spread history similar to Oanda, but we do feel our spreads are far more competitive during the key volume and relevant trading hours. The best way to judge is to sign up for a demo acct, which utilizes the same quote feed as our live platform. In addition we offer spreads currently in 1/10th increments and will be going to 1/100th of a pip with the release of our ECN very soon.

2. is it possible to monitor the trade’s realtime from EFX trading platform (EFX Navigator) as I am connected to my account from NeoTicker?

Yes, it is possible to monitor your trading in realtime from the EFX Navigator. We are fully integrated.

3. is it possible to connect NeoTicker to a demo EFX account so that one may test how it works prior to committing any real money.

It is possible to connect NeoTicker to a demo acct and that is what Tickquest suggests clients do in addition to having a live acct.

4. under which conditions would EFX reject orders? It happens to me too often my profitable limit orders are being rejected by my broker 10 mins before the news breaks

The only conditions we would reject an order would most likely be due to a buying power issue. We do not restrict any type of trading style. Our firm is completely aligned with the interests of the client. We do not have any interest in trading against clients orders and actually do not have the capability to do it in the first place. We are order neutral and handle all orders on a pass through basis.

5. how do you calculate the commissions? There seems to be confusion between the term "trade" and an "order" on your pages. At the fees page, you state that the commission is $7 down to $5 per $100,000 traded. But I assume that for every $100,000 traded (i.e. open position/close position) the commission is in fact charged twice (2x $7). Is my conclusion correct?

The actual commission charged is $5 per $100,000 traded the website should be updated to reflect that ASAP. Every time an order is executed regardless of it being to open or close, buy or sell a fee is charged. The fee is prorated based on the amount of dollars traded. To buy 10 lots† of USD/JPY is $5.00. $100,000 * $0.00005 = $5.00 commission . To buy 1 lot of USD/JPY is .50 cents. $10,000 * $0.00005 = .50 cents commission.

6. Is it mandatory for NeoTicker on my side to be up and running every time I want to place an order with EFX or is it possible to run my NeoTicker scripts directly on your server?

You can trade without NeoTicker running by just logging into the Navigator, but if your trading were dependent on signals from NeoTicker then both would have to be up. It is not possible to run your scripts directly on our servers.

7. do you provide any tick history for the major FX pairs? The trouble with the third party history data is that it often doesn't match the broker's data and thus the strategies don't work precisely the same

In the coming weeks we will be providing complete tick history on all major FX pairs. Data will be our data and thus will match and solve any issues of precision.

8. once the order is placed vie NeoTicker, does it remain live at your server regardless of my internet connection state etc.?

Once the order reaches our order servers it will remain live regardless of what happens to your connection or computer.

9. is the much-valued Level II pending orders information which is available at EFX transmitted to NeoTicker, too?

I will have to confirm with NeoTicker that the Level 2 feed is our quote feed. I would see no reason why they would not be delivering the data from us. However, I would like to verify with them, sorry I cannot be clearer on this now.

10. Does that mean the client may actually go into debt? This is not possible with my FX broker - they would simply close out my open positions and no liability beyond the amount initially deposited might ever emerge this way. Please explain.

It is our policy to not allow a client to go into a negative balance. We use very sophisticated risk management and admin tools to monitor accts 24 hours a day. That being said because of the nature of forex and it being a highly leveraged market, there is the possibility that someone could go negative on a severe and instantaneous move in the market. Very rare but possible. We do give our clients every chance to meet their margin call or liquidate a portion of their position to maintain the proper margin levels.

11. Is the leverage ceiling of 100:1 applicable to all clients? Or can it be raised if one deposits a certain higher amount of money to the account?

100:1 is the standard across all client accounts at this time. It cannot be changed at this time.

12. What are the main advantages of EFX over Oanda, which is deemed by many as the best FX broker? Apart from the fact that Oanda only offers 50:1 leverage

I cannot really speak about Oanda, but I can tell you why we are quickly becoming a strong contender in the FX world. We are not only a brokerage but we are a very strong technology company. We offer a state of the art platform with award winning order routing technology called MBTX. (Recently awarded top honors by Barrons for technology and order execution.) We have the most advanced order types in the industry including TTO, and pip for pip trailing stops. (I will post a complete description of the various order types we offer in another post.) We have live support 24 hours a day, no recorded voice prompts, and our customer service is unmatched. We supply our clients with access to 11 of the world’s largest liquidity providers and integrate into multiple data vendors. (NeoTicker, ESignal, QuoteTracker) Finally, we have an open API and the ability to write to our SDK, which allows programmers to maximize our technology.

I hope this is helpful and I would like to make myself available to answer questions either in this forum, via email, or phone anytime. Thanks for the great questions and let me know if I can be of any assistance.
I can be reached at jfloyd@efxgroup.com or 480-212-1112 or 877-212-1112

Thanks,
Jon Floyd

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 3:20 am
by TomKeough
Jon and Michal,
Thanks for providing this informative dialog on the EFX Group. I also use NeoTicker and will consider opening a demo EFX account.

Jon, with your demo account will I be able to access the "complete tick history on all major FX pairs" you mentioned using NeoTicker for back testing?
Thanks,
Tom

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:05 am
by michal.kreslik
Jon, thanks much for your initiative and for answering our questions!


jon.floyd wrote:In addition we offer spreads currently in 1/10th increments and will be going to 1/100th of a pip with the release of our ECN very soon.

This really sounds great. But I signed up for a demo and cannot see any fractional 1/10th prices. All the prices end with 00 instead, like 1.257200:



What should I do to see the 1/10th prices?


jon.floyd wrote:It is possible to connect NeoTicker to a demo acct and that is what Tickquest suggests clients do in addition to having a live acct.

Sounds good. Also, is it possible to connect to EFX demo acct with NT to try how it works before opening a live EFX account?


jon.floyd wrote:We are order neutral and handle all orders on a pass through basis.

Does that mean that you are absolutely not taking the other side of your clients' positions (like FXCM etc. does)?


jon.floyd wrote:Every time an order is executed regardless of it being to open or close, buy or sell a fee is charged.

OK, so this is clear finally.

In a nutshell:
  • I open a position, I pay the commission
  • I close the position, I pay the commission
For 1 standard lot (100,000) of USDJPY RT trade I pay 2*commission rate then.


jon.floyd wrote:It is not possible to run your scripts directly on our servers.

OK and do you plan to offer this functionality in the future? Some FX brokers do.


jon.floyd wrote:In the coming weeks we will be providing complete tick history on all major FX pairs. Data will be our data and thus will match and solve any issues of precision.

Absolutely fabulous!! So no need to hassle with the third party data then!

:D :D :D

For me, the synchronization of data was the biggest obstacle in making a decision to switch to EFX/NeoTicker combo.

How far the tick history will go to the past? Will the ticks have a second-precision time stamps? Tradestation tick history is only minute-precise which is useless.


jon.floyd wrote:I will have to confirm with NeoTicker that the Level 2 feed is our quote feed. I would see no reason why they would not be delivering the data from us. However, I would like to verify with them, sorry I cannot be clearer on this now.

I am positive the quote feed transmitted to NT is your Level II feed. But I was interested if the Level II additional information like bid size/ask size on different adjacent price levels is made available to NT somehow:



The information you provide in EFX navigator is quite unique, I don't know of any other FX broker that offers the "depth of market" for FX. My question was aimed towards if you make this information available for NT, too, if connected to your data feed.


jon.floyd wrote:It is our policy to not allow a client to go into a negative balance. We use very sophisticated risk management and admin tools to monitor accts 24 hours a day. That being said because of the nature of forex and it being a highly leveraged market, there is the possibility that someone could go negative on a severe and instantaneous move in the market. Very rare but possible. We do give our clients every chance to meet their margin call or liquidate a portion of their position to maintain the proper margin levels.

OK. From reading your pages I just got an impression that after the margin call level is reached, you don't simply close out the position but rather try to contact your client to raise his deposit and if he doesn't, you close out the position.


jon.floyd wrote:We have the most advanced order types in the industry including TTO, and pip for pip trailing stops.

Does that mean that these trailing stops will be treated systematically on your side rather than my (NeoTicker) side? This way, once I enter a certain special type of order via NeoTicker like "trail_stop_system", I can disconnect from EFX and the order gets calculated and updated on your server alone, right?


jon.floyd wrote:I will post a complete description of the various order types we offer in another post.)

Please do!


I've got one additional question to you: why does EFX call the minilot (10,000) a lot? That brings confusion.


jon.floyd wrote:I hope this is helpful and I would like to make myself available to answer questions either in this forum, via email, or phone anytime. Thanks for the great questions and let me know if I can be of any assistance.
I can be reached at jfloyd@efxgroup.com or 480-212-1112 or 877-212-1112

Thanks,
Jon Floyd

Thank you very much for your answers, we are looking forward to further discussion with you.

Best regards and have a very nice day

Michal Kreslik

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 11:25 am
by michal.kreslik
I would like to reiterate that

all community members are welcome to ask questions

This is not a sole dialogue between me and Mr. Floyd, so please feel perfectly free to ask!

Michal

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:32 am
by pal2
I am Forex trader. I like the option to trade it using NT and EFX so much that I decided to open live account with EFX. Unfortunately to my great surprise in is not possible for Canadian citizens from some provinces. My question is, when if at all EFX will be available for me? Should I wait? I have a couple of friends interested to open live account as well.

account insurance

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:43 am
by michal.kreslik
Some of our members have a bitter experience with Refco.

Are the clients' accounts insured in some way with EFX?

Michal

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:10 am
by jhtumblin
I applied for an EFX account today. The only insurance I noticed is that the accounts are covered up to $350,000 against employee theft or conspiracy, however I can't seem to remember which out of the 300 agreements it was in.

I still have one question; is there any "important" impact the switch over to MB Trading Futures will have on the EFX Group accounts? I am curious from a retail customer standpoint .

Thanks in advance.

EFX My experience so far

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 2:39 pm
by jstockman
I downloaded the demo and began using.

Here is what I found.

The Position screen does not have columns to show if I am long or short.

The docs are inadequate.

Sorry for the bad report. I am probably missing something on the postion screen, but the docs not give an answer. I believe a program should be user friendly for new folks trading forex.

Also the price quotes on the EFX do not match the quotes on TS forex.