Is your ECN a true ECN

[SysInv]

You shouldn't notice a difference between the two execution methods. The slight delay in an STP basis trade as it is aggregated should be unnoticeable.

Well, there is a big difference if my long limit order placed at the bid price can't be filled by a short market order, and I have to wait for the ask to go down and hit it instead. Can you please confirm that if I place an order <1.0 lots, it can not be lifted by a short market in the scenario described and have to wait for the Ask to go down to this level?

[MisterAudio]

Well, there is a big difference if my long limit order placed at the bid price can't be filled by a short market order, and I have to wait for the ask to go down and hit it instead. Can you please confirm that if I place an order <1.0 lots, it can not be lifted by a short market in the scenario described and have to wait for the Ask to go down to this level?

I can verify that .... IF you place a BUY LIMIT order, the ASK price must drop down enough to be equal or less than the price of your BUY LIMIT order. When dealing with buy orders of ANY type, the ask price is the price that determines the opening and the bid is what determines the closing. Conversely, ANY type of SELL order uses the BID price to determine opening and the ASK price to determine closing.

This is the way it is with ANY type of account at ANY broker. The difference between a ECN and Dealing Desk account is that you have the freedom to place the orders super close or within the spread (depending on the order type) in an ECN account and the Dealing Desk accounts do not have that freedom.

Hope that helps!

[SysInv]

I can verify that .... IF you place a BUY LIMIT order, the ASK price must drop down enough to be equal or less than the price of your BUY LIMIT order. When dealing with buy orders of ANY type, the ask price is the price that determines the opening and the bid is what determines the closing. Conversely, ANY type of SELL order uses the BID price to determine opening and the ASK price to determine closing.

This is the way it is with ANY type of account at ANY broker. The difference between a ECN and Dealing Desk account is that you have the freedom to place the orders super close or within the spread (depending on the order type) in an ECN account and the Dealing Desk accounts do not have that freedom.

This is not true. If you place a market order you will take someone elses limit order. This works in reverse as well with a ECN, that if you place a limit order you become a liquidity provider and if someone places a market order on you limit you will get filled for this. I've been talking with MB Trading and they have confirmed several times that this is true, and that it works like this even with a 0.1 size. It was my understanding that it was the same with FX Open, according to RebateFX, but I can't get a straight answer from him as he answers "yes" after several questions (so I'm not sure exactly which one he refers to).

The problem for this lies within MT, as MT is developed as a dealing desk software. You can go to you youtube and search for "ECN Metatrader" or similar, and find 3 videos where MB Trading explains what the broker can adjust regarding orders in MT. In part 2 they also explain that your limit order can get filled without the ask (whole market) moving down to your level. I was just hoping it worked the same with FX Open, due to their PAMM services and that I already have an account with them now.

"Non-marketable refers to a an order which is not immediately executable and rests on the internal limit order book for some period of time, thus adding liquidity when another order of equal or greater value fills with the resting order."

[MisterAudio]

This is not true. If you place a market order you will take someone elses limit order. This works in reverse as well with a ECN, that if you place a limit order you become a liquidity provider and if someone places a market order on you limit you will get filled for this. I've been talking with MB Trading and they have confirmed several times that this is true, and that it works like this even with a 0.1 size. It was my understanding that it was the same with FX Open, according to RebateFX, but I can't get a straight answer from him as he answers "yes" after several questions (so I'm not sure exactly which one he refers to).

The problem for this lies within MT, as MT is developed as a dealing desk software. You can go to you youtube and search for "ECN Metatrader" or similar, and find 3 videos where MB Trading explains what the broker can adjust regarding orders in MT. In part 2 they also explain that your limit order can get filled without the ask (whole market) moving down to your level. I was just hoping it worked the same with FX Open, due to their PAMM services and that I already have an account with them now.

"Non-marketable refers to a an order which is not immediately executable and rests on the internal limit order book for some period of time, thus adding liquidity when another order of equal or greater value fills with the resting order."

Okay, in essence, you said exactly the same thing that I previously did. The only difference is I did not specifically reference a market order. I had assumed that you already knew that a market order just takes the best price available at the time it is initiated. Market Buy uses Ask price, Market Sell uses Bid price.

Placing a market order does not necessarily means that you take someone else's limit order. You are disregarding the fact that there are other people throwing market orders in at the same time and it could be matched with one of these instead of a limit order.

With FXOpen's ECN, anything under 1 lot is aggregated with other orders at that moment to make a 1 lot order size and is then sent to the market via an STP type process. The orders are only sent straight into the liquidity pool if the lot size is 1 or larger.

As far as a limit order being filled if the market doesn't move down to the limit price, that is not true. It is physically impossible. The guys at MB Trading where explaining it in such a fashion because they didn't want to have to go into further detail. A PENDING order of any type (buy limit, sell limit, buy stop, or sell stop) cannot be triggered without the appropriate price (bid/ask) reaching the same or exceeding the level of the order. Now you have to keep in mind that this does NOT mean that the price action will show it on a chart. The chart in mt4 will only show the data for the ticks it receives. This means you can have a pending order triggered even when it doesn't look like the price ever reached the level of your pending order.

If you need to verify any of this....feel free to copy and paste it into your discussion with the guys at MB Trading. They will verify that i am correct.