There has been a bit of banter on this thread and I am beginning to think that we have been focusing on the wrong points!
I think we all agree that there has to be, at some point, a market maker!
A broker can be a market maker or they can do business through a market maker, but there just has to be a market maker, somewhere out there.
Lets assume that FXCM are true 'white knights', who obey all the rules and only have their client's best interest at heart.
If this is the case, I think we have been going in the wrong direction.
I believe that the question really is,
HOW GOOD IS THE FXCM SOFTWARE?
I am a customer of FXCM and in the time I have been with them, I have had lots of Trade Syncs between the MT4 Platform and the Read Only!
It is a major point with FXCM, that you must keep accessing the Read Only while you are trading.
Why should this be?
I also have two live accounts, with two other brokers and to date, I have never had a trade sync from either of them!
With these brokers, what I see on their MT4 platform, as far as trades are concerned, is actually what the account is at that point.
So, seeing that FXCM is a far larger broker than these two, why are their systems far superior to the system FXCM uses?
In the past I have had a couple of real issues with the FXCM system!
One day some time ago, I opened the Read Only and found that there were two open trades which I new nothing about, as these trades were not showing on the MT4!
The FXCM system had somehow opened these two trades, which, winning or losing, I could not close!
I had to telephone them to get these trades closed at a loss. I claimed and was reimbursed these losses, so no problem there.
I also have had the MT4 showing I had a balance of about £70.00, when there was really over £700.00 in the account. Some times, it can take quite a while for this to be synced correctly.
In this high speed electronic age, this is just a joke!
Even at close last Friday, my FXCM account is showing different balances for the MT4 and the Read Only.
This is when all the other MT4 platforms I had open, where showing virtually the same prices for the pair!
FXCM will tell you that the MT4 platform is only an interface!
This may be so, but surely, it would be better all round, if it was at least the quality of other MT4 systems.
Others manage to do it, so why can't FXCM?
I could go on and on, relating other instances, but I would rather sum up and say that the FXCM system/software looks to be second rate, when compared to the other brokers I use.