Discuss mbtrading.com (MB Trading)

[EduS]

How to recover/regenerate key file on MBTrading MT4?

I mistakenly deleted the account key file in the config folder and cannot restore or recover it. Any other options???

Thanks

 

[Boko Maru]

I've stated here before I think these guys are mediocre brokers at best, but just an update I finally closed my account with them. Bad slippage for one. But also you can't place a pending buy and sell order on MT4 at the same time. You get this message that says "no hedging." I can do this just fine at other USA MT4 brokers though.

The fact is it isn't a hedge anyway. If I have a pending buy EU for 50K then a pending sell EU for 70K, I just end up in a short position for 20K. Where's the hedge?

Then, I had am aggravating experience on chat. I first waited 13 minutes for a response, then when the guy comes on I input my question, then he hangs up on me. He actually came on later and I asked him about it, and all he says is that I "didn't respond in a timely fashion." WTF?? I posted the transcript of the chat to him even, showing how I responded as soon as he came on, and he just keeps telling me about how I didn't respond timely. Totally unapologetic and indifferent.

Anyway, very glad to be gone from there

 

[Reverend Ken]

MB Trading are scam artists. They would not let me close a trade and said I didn't have enough money to close it. WTF???????

They opened trades on my account without my knowledge. They close trades when they feel like it and its always when you are in the negative waiting for a turn. It is not a margin call.

STAY AWAY!

 

[Triantus Shango]

MBTrading platform quirks and causes--a computing environment comparison

I am very surprised to read all the recent bad reviews regarding my broker. Quite frankly, I don’t know what to make of it. Again, let me reiterate what I wrote in my last post: I haven't experienced anything remotely as bad as what a few users here have claimed. MB Trading Futures, Inc. (MBTF) seems to be upfront with its customers--go to the following links:

MB Trading - Disclaimer AAD
MB Trading - Disclaimer CP


First, I haven't seen any other FDMs explain on their sites that they can't guarantee 100% uptime or in other words perfect market access. And yes, in a perfect world, we all wish this could be, but if you know anything about the current state of internet technologies you will quickly realize that it is impossible currently. Just think about all that could go wrong with your OS platform, your hardware, the network link that connects you to the Internet, the Internet infrastructure that links you to MBTrading servers. And consider all that could go wrong on MB Trading's side with their infrastructure and network links to the clearinghouse, banks, and so on. That is a fact and they disclose it.

So point 1: All of you who seem to run into issues, please double check your software and hardware setup and make sure you haven't overlooked something that might explain why your trading platform if behaving oddly at times. (I'll give an example shortly of what happens to me in this regard that will explain why I write this.)

Second, I haven't seen any other FDMs explain on their sites that they have a continuity plan, or even a notion of what it means and that they should have such a plan. MB Trading is located in California, in the Los Angeles area if I am not mistaken. So I would well hope they have some continuity plan in place to handle any catastrophic contingency. This is earthquake country after all.

Now, a brief overview of my experience regarding point 1.

I mostly trade with a crappy laptop. (For those who wonder why don't I upgrade here is my context: Too busy with my day job to switch back and forth between a personal laptop and the company provided one, not to mention the impracticality of hooking up a personal laptop to the corporate network because (1) my company doesn't authorize that and (2) all company provided laptops run some security software without which you can't go online therefore precluding the use of a personal laptop, and also the inconvenience of lugging around 2 laptops instead of one just so I can trade on the side; therefore I use the one provided by my company, even though it's a slug.)

So, the laptop is slow, running Windows XP SP3, which is a hog and riddled with more bugs that swiss cheese has holes. Nonetheless, you make do with what you have. So, the reason I made point 1 above is because when I connect to MB Trading with MBT Navigator Pro (why would you need MT4 is beyond me--MBT Navigator Pro now that it has a charting package as good as eSignal and all the necessary technical indicators (it'd be nice to have access to the DiNapoli indicators too in a future release (MBT are you listening?)) works just fine on a desktop, not on the crappy laptop I was mentioning.

I am going to summarize trading/connectivity issues and compare what happens when using the laptop versus a desktop (not a company provided desktop) both in a demo and live environment. (There are some GUI issues, but these are minor--they are annoying as hell, but I still say minor because they don't prevent trading.)


Trading/connectivity issues with the laptop:

Demo: every couple of minutes or so MBT Navigator Pro goes into 'Loading account list…' mode, meaning it reloads account data as if it had lost the connection to the server even though the 3 status lights in the main window stay green (green means there are no problems; if the connection is lost the status indicators turn to red and/or yellow). During that time, the quotes do not refresh and all trading is stopped. Also, I have no connectivity issues at that time as other software such as the internet browser, P2P client, even ping and tracert commands all indicate that the network connection is fine. This behavior can last up to a few seconds to a few minutes. It happens almost every day; some days it doesn’t happen; and it DOESN'T happen ONLY before major news releases, but at ANY time. The occurrence pattern seems to be completely random.

Live: same issue as when trading demo; same behavior. I went on the live chat to ask what the hell was going on, and to the credit of customer service they tried their best but couldn't find any explanation as to what might be causing this--no issues of MBT server side they told me. I also talked to them over the phone and they impression I got from the rep I talked to was very professional. They even called me back internationally to follow up. Therefore my experience with customer service so far has been great: they try to be speedy and take care of business.

Now, the first question that all of you should ask yourselves at this point is: Why would a demo connection display the same dysfunctional behavior as a live connection if the assumption being made here is that MBTrading is up to no good and trying to swindle you? You can't swindle money from people on a demo account by definition. Of course, if I were cynical and paranoid then I would have to conclude that it also happens on the demo because of the way they rigged their backend, thus affecting both demo and live accounts, and if I were hyper-cynical and hyper-paranoid then I would have to conclude that it is a ploy to make people conclude that because it happens on the demo as well, therefore it could not be intentional on the live connection. I'll let you compute the probability functions for these scenarios. BUT read on because based on what happened to me (as explained below) the hyper-cynical/hyper-paranoid scenario doesn't hold… UNLESS another key factor is account size (more on that late).

Now, that being said, when I trade live I usually am able to place an order and stops before the issue arises. The stops always get executed both quickly and at the levels specified, that is, sometimes maybe 0.1 to 2 pip slippage depending on market conditions, which is within acceptable tolerance levels. Of course, sometimes I can't enter a trade when the issue is occurring. In volatile market conditions, of course, that means that I cannot scalp. If volatility is not so great, when MBT Navigator Pro reconnects, I am able to place my order and since the market hasn't moved significantly it doesn't really matter (we are talking about a delay of a few seconds up to a minute or 2). And the reason it doesn't really matter in non-volatile market conditions is because I am usually implementing a strategy on H1 or H4 basis, so there is plenty of time for the market to move to the T/P or S/L targets.

BUT don't get me wrong: THERE SHOULD NOT BE SUCH AN ISSUE IN THE FIRST PLACE AND I HATE IT THAT IT HAPPENS. BUT you adapt.


Trading/connectivity issues with the desktop:

A few words first regarding the desktop environment: The desktop is a high performance gaming machine (unfortunately running Windows XP) connected to a dedicated high-speed line (we're talking about here of 100mbps download speeds max).

Demo: no issues.

Live: no issues.


So, in my experience (it would be worth setting up an independent benchmark lab to perform wide range testing so that the community here could have more reliable data rather than just 1 satisfied customer's experience, namely me--more about a proposal later) computing environments vary greatly and are very complex as well with too many interacting factors that could cause issues.

As you can read above, I experience weird connection issues with the laptop I use, but no issues at all with the desktop! And the reason I keep giving 2 thumbs up to MB Trading is because my trading experience in a desktop environment hasn't changed in 4 years, that is to say:

- Fast order execution
- No significantly detrimental slippage and therefore accurate order execution
- Tight spread, actually interbank spreads (I've an interbank feed and compare the spreads, and MB Trading spreads are inline with interbank spreads) OF COURSE, when volatility is extreme due to whatever market shock out there, the spreads can be all over the place, but only for a few seconds… this is normal market behavior from what I am being told.


That is why I started this post by asking you to double check your software and hardware setup. Do not assume it is perfect because it probably ain't. If you have worked in IT as long as I have, that would be an obvious statement.

So there you have it. I tried to be as exhaustive as possible in as little words as possible without losing too many details of my experience.

Before I sign off, 2 more things:

1- My live account equity is quite small and I wonder whether that might be a factor why I didn't run into anything like Ann did--not worth stealing from me… not yet! ;-)

Yet, 18K is peanuts by FX market standards, so am not sure whether it would make sense from an FDM's perspective to try to steal 18K. Brokers in this business make millions, and if they want to make those millions by stealing from their customers, then they would have to scam most of them, until they fleeced the golden goose, so-to-speak. Then they would have no customers left, and be out of business. And MB Trading has been in business offering online trading for stocks and futures since the 90s. And Barron's gave them one of the highest ratings for 2011.

So how do we reconcile this we the claims of fraud from a few users on this board? Was Barron's bribed? How likely is that? If not, are they a bunch of morons who don't know how to evaluate brokers? If so, then that puts into question all the other high ratings given to other brokers as well.

Doesn't make sense, does it?

2- This is for Felix, the creator or co-creator (don't remember, sorry) of this website: How about creating a test lab where we would actually open a live account with a broker and test them live and then report the results?

1- it will cost money;
2- we need a testing team; (I volunteer :-D)
3- but at least that way, users could have a more 'objective' view of what's going on instead of just an account of my experience and a few other joe schmoes out there
4- and if the account makes money, we can use that to open another account with another broker for benchmarking purposes.


Hope this helps somewhat--ah!! I almost forgot: I went to the National Futures Association site and did a search on MB Trading to find out if there were any cases past or present (including Ann's) and found only 2 old cases that were dismissed in favor of MBTrading: here is the URL: Arbitration Details

As always,

Godspeed to all traders--the more, the merrier!

 

[DJG]

Stay away from them , i use 3 ECN brokerages and ECN and MBtrading is the only one that has slippage issue that is beyond acceptable , their platform sucks pretty much , customer service is bad , stay away from them there are better ECN brokerages out there , this brokerage has nothing but excuses to give to their customers regarding their poor execution and if you look at their latest offer to pay clients for their limit orders that means one thing , they do client to client orders matching and they have either no liquidity providers or very bad ones , again i say there are better ECN brokerages out there so don't waste your time with them and risk your funds

 

[Triantus Shango]

DJG, you got me curious now:

1- What amounts of regular lots do/did you trade on MBT when you experienced slippage?
2- How much slippage are you talking about?
3- When you say platform, do you mean the front end, that is, the GUI or the back end ECN? If the latter, what is it that sucks about it?
4- Agree with the liquidity point.

BUT then what other ECNs out there are better? Can you tell us what are those 3 you referred to?

 

[Boko Maru]

If you're having success at MBT and are happy with them that's great, but I think people are just relating their experiences.

For me, I've been doing this a while and I know all about keeping my computer up to snuff, etc. I trade with other brokers too, and my main one (that I won't name here) provides execution light years better than MBT. And this is all on the same computer, internet connection, etc. that I was using MBT on.

So clearly the issue isn't on my end at all. There is a distinct difference between the brokers themselves.

That being said, you can also do worse than MBT that's for sure. But they are mediocre at best in my opinion from a trading perspective, and as I detailed earlier, their "customer service" people need some serious training to boot...

 

[Triantus Shango]

Boko

This is the only ECN I have been trading with... but I am always looking for better... especially since liquidity seems to have become an issue with MBT. This is why I am active in forums like this one... so as to get advice. Your post makes me feel like I am missing out on something so let's cut to the chase: Could you please tell me what other brokers you use, especially the main one you won't name here? If you don't want to post it here, how about in a private message? Or at least direct me where I can find more info... Thanks in advance.

 

[Boko Maru]

Boko

This is the only ECN I have been trading with... but I am always looking for better... especially since liquidity seems to have become an issue with MBT. This is why I am active in forums like this one... so as to get advice. Your post makes me feel like I am missing out on something so let's cut to the chase: Could you please tell me what other brokers you use, especially the main one you won't name here? If you don't want to post it here, how about in a private message? Or at least direct me where I can find more info... Thanks in advance.

I appreciate where you're at, but I have my reasons for not naming my current broker. However, I will mention the 2nd best one I've traded with live and that's PFG (Peregrine Financial Group). They are in Chicago and primarily a futures broker (and so are heavily regulated), they have plenty of money, and forex is something I'm pretty sure they just added as secondary to futures.

When I traded with them I used their Currenex platform, but not sure they still offer that. They have something called Best Direct 8 that's pretty good too, plus they have MT4. If I needed to change brokers, that's probably where I'd go. I had a good experience with them, and never felt like they were using tricks, etc. Execution was very good 90% of the time I'd say. Of course they are subject to available liquidity like everyone else, but claim to have 9 big investment banks as liquidity providers.

I am with my current broker as I feel they are just a bit better, but not enormously so.

Ok, hope that helps...

 

[Triantus Shango]

Thank you for the advice and taking the time to respond. Now, I don't mean to pressure you but why do you treat the name of your primary broker as if it were a national security secret? I mean, it is puzzling as we are all anonymous on this forum anyway. But no matter... am dying to learn who you think is even better than PFG.

So, would you be OK emailing it to me? I can set up a new gmail account and you could use that address so I won't know your real email address. How about that? Totally anonymous.