FXSelect utilizes apool of managers and rotates them in and out of action based on proprietaryperformance algorithms: FIGURE 13.10 DynexCorp Source: DynexCorp, Ltd, www.dynexcorp.com Aft
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or bad—that occurs in a mostly contiguous area of the matrix (clusters) cantell you much about the manager’s trading methods A short track recordwith a broad ME sample may be better than a long track record with hot andcold ME clusters See Chapter 18, “Improving Your Trading Skills,” for more
on ME applications to trading
Peter Panholzer
One of the most respected names in the managed FOREX business is PeterPanholzer Already in 1979 Peter Panholzer ran what is today believed to be thefirst-ever systematically managed currency program offered to the general public
at large, the Magnum Program at ContiCommodity, with over 300 accounts,indeed a very early example of currency alpha as a separate independent asset class.(See Figure 13.10.)
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Mr Panholzer, Partner of DynexCorp, offers our readers a brief summary
of the latest managed money trend, Investable FX Indices FXSelect utilizes apool of managers and rotates them in and out of action based on proprietaryperformance algorithms:
FIGURE 13.10 DynexCorp
Source: DynexCorp, Ltd, www.dynexcorp.com
After 30 years of toiling to achieve episodic profits in currency trading,
my whole outlook on life (and stress) has changed since I am involved inwhat I deem the best—and unmatched—risk-adjusted returns currentlyavailable in the FX field
DynexCorp was invited by Deutsche Bank London AG, alongsidewith Mercer Consulting and Parker Global Strategies, to be index archi-tects for Deutsche Bank’s FXSelect platform
in time
Trang 3FOREX Market letters and signal services are reviewed on www.forexpeacearmy.com
WDFX
www.wdfx.co.uk
Trust me on this I do not normally recommend Signal services But Mark
at WDFX Forex is good He’s a longer term trader in a world of scalpers Theyalso offer a Trading Room forum and an Expert Advisor
This is our FXSelect edge:
1 Our quantitative and qualitative selection algorithm: As veteran FXmanager we are familiar with many traders and their styles; ourquantitative model very quickly determines “exclusions.”
2 We use only “real” daily data achieved on the FXSelect platform:Historic data supplied “on a reported basis” are not as reliable as the
“real” daily data achieved on the FXSelect platform
3 We can switch managers on any day and at no cost: When investing
in conventional multi-manager currency funds, consider that themanager selection process is costly and the manager selection length
is quite inflexible
—Peter Panholzer
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An excellent supplement to your own trading tools Of course, past formance is never a guarantee of future results, but WDFX has some solid FXbenchmarks indicating some long-term staying power
per-Currency Bulletin
www.currencybulletin.com An interesting FOREX
newsletter/advi-sory with a long track record in FOREX The author uses this ice as a check on his own long-term chart analysis
serv-GoodmanWorks
www.goodmanworks.com The author publishes the GoodmanWorks
Blog 6–8 times each week It focuses on the Goodman tradingmethods—Goodman Wave Theory and Market Environments,offering instruction as well as trading ideas The web site alsoupdates this book, answers readers questions, and digs deeper ontopics in this book with the Getting Started Blog
EuroTrader
www.eurusdtrader.com Jimmy Young’s advisory service has
attracted a loyal following One focus is trading vis-à-vis the quent news releases in the FOREX arena
fre-If you plan to be a self-directed trader, consider using two sory services: one of them to complement your own analysis and one
advi-of them “out-advi-of-the-box” to give you a fresh perspective I use twoservices to confirm my own work but rarely follow the traderecommendations unless they also match up with my own thinking
Online Reference Guides
www.investopedia.com Superior reference on technical analysis,
charting, and other aspects of trading New articles are publishedalmost daily Material is geared to the new and inexperienced traderand leading-edge ideas are discouraged
Spread and Binary Betting
Spread Betting It has been said that retail FOREX market makers are tially bookmakers You might wish to consider spread or binary betting on cur-rencies Be sure to check the legality where you reside
essen-Most of these offer binary options on currencies in a variety of flavors
www.deltaindex.com One of the oldest spread betting web sites.
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www.fxbt.com This web site offers binary options in a number of
markets, including FOREX You take a yes or no side to a financialquestion such as “Will the EUR/USD go over 1.3700?” Or you canspeculate on the likelihood of a hurricane Government-regulatedand open only to U.S citizens
www.nadax.com Trade the political, financial, and weather events
that make up at least part of the fundamental picture for currencies
www.igindex.co.uk Offers a dealing platform and charts.
Periodicals—In Print and Online
www.forexjournal.com Forex Journal is the sister publication to
Trader’s Journal Editor Dickson Yap does an excellent job with both.
Unlike many editors in this space he is not afraid of new ideas.Content is varied and stimulating See Figure 13.11
www.currencytradermag.com Excellent content although it tends
to mainstream ideas for the most part
www.e-FOREX.net By subscription, pricey but excellent if you are
serious about the inner workings of the FOREX industry
177
FIGURE 13.11 Forex Journal
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Euro Money Magazine
www.euromoney.com
Futures Magazine
www.futuresmag.com Just a shell of its former glory days when
Darrell Jobman was editor
FX – Week Magazine
www.fxweek.com
Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities
www.traders.com A 25-year treasure trove of technical analysis If
you can afford it, buy their complete articles volumes, available inhard copy or dvd
Books
www.traderspress.com I would be remiss if I did not accord special
mention to Ed Dobson’s Traders Press, www.traderspress.com,which has been around for decades They carry a number ofFOREX-specific books as well as hundreds of newly published andreprinted books on technical analysis One of the author’s all-timefavorite market books is Mr Dobson’s The Trading Rule That Can Make You Rich (Traders Press, 1979).
For specific titles and out-of-print books, see www.abebooks.com,www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, www.alibris.com, and the ubiquitouswww.ebay.com
Summary
As I stated at the beginning of the chapter, this is but a small sampling of what
is available to the currency market participant Armed with these links and areliable bookmark manager, you should be able to navigate to almost anything
in the burgeoning FOREX marketplace Begin with some idea of what youwant and need, but be open to new and out-of-the-box ideas, also
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Chapter
Many FOREX brokers use their own proprietary platform, but the trend
is to use one of a number of standard cross-broker platforms that havebecome popular This is a potential win-win-win situation The brokerwins by not having to invest large amounts of money in constant development,the platform vendor can concentrate on upgrading their service with new fea-tures and more stability, and the trader just sits back and makes money trading.Platform vendors make every effort to get as many brokers to offer theirplatform as possible, not just because it means more business When tradersshop platforms they want to know that if Broker ABC does not pan out forthem they can go to Broker XYZ and use the platform they have become accus-tomed to trading Here I am discussing the front-end trading terminal There isthe back-end server software and setup, which is required (in most cases) for thebroker to have installed to run the client terminals
TIP: You may need to dig deep on a broker’s web site to find which ing platforms it supports Sometimes the Search function will help The vendorsalso usually list the brokers who currently use their platforms
trad-The reviews below are ordered on a mix of popularity, broker support, andfeature-richness, based on my research Many brokers use multiple platformsand some offer one of these exclusively Of course, popularity should not beyour only criteria You want to be comfortable with both your broker and yourtrading platform Table 14.1 lists the candidates
179
Trang 8Professional FX Platforms
There are a number of trading platforms designed for the professional trader,which are beyond the scope of this work but merit a mention (See Table 14.2.)Several retail FOREX brokers now offer the Currenex platform to their clients
Trading Platform Features
A trading platform is defined by the features it offers to users Brokers look forwhat the platform offers to them on the server side For each platform we reviewthe following:
Connectivity to the broker’s data feed
Integrated order entry and management
Without these two features a platform is not fully integrated with the dealer
broker-Charts and indicators
Almost every retail FX trader uses charts and indicators The sheernumber and permutations of these available—especially indicators—
is simply staggering
TABLE 14.1 Retail FOREX Platforms
NinjaTrader www.ninjatrader.com eSignal www.esignal.com ProTrader www.protrader.com MetaTrader www.metaquotes.net TradeStation www.tradestation.com StrategyRunner www.strategyrunner.com FXCM www.fxcm.com
TABLE 14.2 Professional FOREX Platform
Currenex www.currenex.com FlexFX www.flextrade.com FXall www.fxall.com HotspotFX www.hotspotfx.com ProTraderPlus www.fxbridge.com
T H E T O O L S O F T H E T R A D E180
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This shows standing orders in the market and the amount bid orasked at prices near the last price It is useful information for placingorders—especially large ones that might eat several bids or asks inexecution
Scripting or programming language
Advanced traders often wish to program their own indicators andtrading systems or EAs These can vary in ease of use and capabili-ties Generally, the easier they are to use, the less robust
Testing and historical data
Traders want to test their ideas and their programs on the same form on which they will ultimately live trade them Simulated trad-ing, a form of back-testing, is all the rage
plat-API connectivity
Advanced traders may wish to create a program too complex for thetrading platform’s scripting language, in which case they will need totap into the broker’s data feed, then port the program in some fash-ion to the trading platform As the capabilities of these platformsadvance, I predict this need will all but disappear in the next fewyears NinjaScript version 7 is in many respects superior to API
Automated trading
The ability to automatically execute the trades generated by a ing system or EA is becoming more and more popular But it is notfor the novice
trad-In the past stability has been an issue for currency trading forms But all of those listed here may be considered stable and reli-able with two caveats—some tend to take more computer resourcesthan others and all have at least a few small bugs In combinationwith a live data feed these are enormously complex programs requir-ing a sophisticated server-client arrangement
plat-The author has used the MetaTrader platform for years but ismigrating to NinjaTrader I am something of a service fanatic.NinjaTrader’s support is excellent whereas multiple e-mails toMetaquotes went unanswered NinjaTrader’s feature set and script-ing language is better than MQL4 or MQL5—at least for my needs
I have worked with all of the platforms listed and they all are ble and feature-rich Some are definitely better than others but much
sta-of the decision on which one you choose is based on personal needs
R e t a i l F X P l a t f o r m s 181
Trang 10and personal tastes All of them have many loyal and adoring fans.The new trader can definitely live without Depth of Market,Scripting Language, API Connectivity, and Automated Trading.
NinjaTrader
NinjaTrader is currently on version 6.5 A major upgrade, version 7.0 wasexpected in the first quarter of 2010—it has been anxiously awaited byNinjaTrader aficionados The author was in the beta group and came away veryimpressed
NinjaTrader is more customizable than MetaTrader The flip side of thecoin is that it is more difficult to set up and learn Pre-built configurations or amodular approach would help the neophyte ease into this truly awesome plat-form NinjaTrader does offer many live and on-demand webcasts to assisttraders with all aspects of application Support from the vendor is stellar Theiruser forum is lively and offers much advice on using the platform and develop-ing systems and methods with NinjaScript
NinjaTrader has some excellent features Two the author appreciates areMarket Replay and Strategy Analyzer For U.S traders who miss the ability tohedge positions, Ninja allows all orders to be entered into its system—and onlysent for execution as price targets and other parameters are met in real time.The NinjaScript language is a C# subset with add-on functions andobjects for system development
Navigation is a little tricky as the charts in a Workspace cannot be docked.Also, if you have very high resolution monitors you may need to make font sizeadjustments to allow all text to fit in some NinjaTrader windows Version 7 ismuch less a resource hog than previous versions and—it appears—the list offrustrating little bugs is down substantially
The number of NinjaTrader users is growing quickly and more brokersupport in FOREX is likely to follow
Report Card: Broker Support: B, Features: A+, Stability: B, VendorSupport: A+, Ergonomics and Ease of Use: B, Third-Party Support: B+ SeeFigure 14.1
MetaTrader
The current leader of the pack Dozens of foreign and domestic brokers offerMetaTrader as either their primary platform of as one of the platforms in theirstable I have no numbers but MetaTrader through the life of their MetaTrader-
4 (MT4) has garnished a substantial percentage of the business WhileMetaTrader has its own forum and there are three other popular MetaTraderforums, the company itself does not offer direct support to end-users They
T H E T O O L S O F T H E T R A D E182
Trang 11seem a tad cocky and are obviously enjoying their well-earned success in themarketplace But there is a Yin and a Yang to everything.
As this book goes to press MetaTrader-5 (MT5) with its new object-orientedscripting language (MQL5) was just released to the public beta testing; unfortu-nately too late for a full review It was scheduled for release in the summer 2009but the fast-hitting new NFA rules for anti-hedging and First In First Out (FIFO,see Chapter 4, “Regulation: Past, Present, and Future”) sent them back to thedrawing board to make the platform compliant for U.S domiciled brokers
It is likely the older MetaTrader-4 will remain online with some foreignbrokers for a period of time As noted in Chapter 4, “Regulation: Past, Present,and Future,” many traders found their methods and money management upset
by NFA Compliance Rule 2-43 MetaTrader-5 is a completely new build andfrom the forums it seems to be quite buggy at the time of this writing although
it is not yet available to brokers and is still in beta testing Indicators and expertadvisors for MT4 will not work as-is—upward compatibility is limited; only thesimplest of indicators will not need to be rebuilt The client terminal of MT5has a dazzling array of graphic features, new indicators, and 21 time frames forcharts The new scripting language, MQL5, is closer to a full object-oriented
FIGURE 14.1 NinjaTrader www.ninjatrader.com
R e t a i l F X P l a t f o r m s 183
Trang 12language such as C++ Programs in MT5 are said to run 5 to 10 times fasterthan in MQL4 As a consequence Metatrader-5 can support substantially morecomplex indicators and expert advisors.
MT5 can be used for stocks, futures, and FOREX as long as the brokerserver is set up to accommodate them The order palette and order managementsystem has been modified extensively
Report Card: Broker Support: A, Features: B+, Stability: A, VendorSupport: C, Ergonomics and Ease of Use: B, Third-Party Support: A+ SeeFigure 14.2
eSignal
eSignal has been in this space for almost 20 years; they have had the time to getthings right The platform is feature-rich, well thought out, and well designed.Service, a weak link in the past, has become truly excellent in the past year.Installation and setup is similar to NinjaTrader—it is a bit tricky—but the platform
is a pleasure to use eSignal’s scripting language, EFS2, while easy-to-use, appears to
be weaker than MQL4, NinjaScript, or ProTrader’s onboard scripting tool
FIGURE 14.2 MetaTrader-4 www.metaquotes.net
T H E T O O L S O F T H E T R A D E184