Hi Matthew and others,
I can’t help coming to the conclusion that the list of spot forex pairs available at C2 is very odd. Maybe it’s because I am not from the US, but I can’t fathom why there’s so many exotics in the list, “and the spreads and liquidity aren’t existent (either in real-life or on C2’s quote feeds)”, while more mainstream pairings (like EURCAD, just to name one) don’t appear.
In my view, a basic list should include all non-equivalent pairings of:
USD, EUR, CHF, GBP, JPY CAD, AUD, HKD, and NZD. That would give 36 combinations [n*(n-1)/2]. To offer more, throw in NOK, DKK, SEK, and SGD - and you have 78 combo’s. Most with good liquidity and reasonable spreads. Actually, you could miss out the combo’s of the last 4 currencies above with each other (eg: NOKDKK), so you don’t even need 78 pairs.
I for one am much more likely to want to trade EURCAD than GBPCLP. I don’t even know what CLP is!
I’d like to hear the thoughts of others on this.
EURCAD had been available for quite some time. I guess I forgot to add it to the help file. But it is tradable. If in doubt about a pair, try trading it in the order ticket. If it doesn’t work, then let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
OK, thanks Matthew.
I’d prefer a less hit-and-miss approach (like a complete list of what is available), but I guess you have more pressing priorities.
There’s plenty of crosses of the currencies I listed not on “the list”, so I’ll raise each one as I need to. I’ve been trading roughly equivalent currencies to-date (like EURAUD instead of CHFNZD), but that was less than ideal when my trading signal was for CHFNZD.
Murray,
Most retail brokers offer 30 pairs or less. Here is the list at FXCM http://www.fxcm.com/spreads.jsp
Francis
Thanks Francis,
That seems to be common in the US, but less so elsewhere.
I use CMC Markets (UK) and Saxo Bank (Denmark) for my own trading.
CMC offer about 72 pairs.
Saxo Bank offers over 150.
Even in the US it is changing:
I often recommend GFTForex to my mentoring clients as they offer flexible contract sizes (great for folk who are learning).
GFTForex have recently increased their offering from 64 to 123 pairs.
Others: Oanda - 38 pairs, IB - 42 pairs.
But really, I didn’t mean to imply more-is-better. Rather it seems there are some odd exotics on the list, while others that might be of more interest to European-based - or even just non-US based - C2 clients are missing. Eg: EURHKD, EURSGD, AUDNZD, EURCAD, CHFAUD, CHF vs just about anything! etc
I haven’t checked liquidity, but a nice feature of GFTForex is fixed spreads (24x7) on the most liquid pairs - so for example EURHKD is fixed at 25 points while EURHUF (that is on the C2 list) has variable spreads ranging from 60 to 200 points, indicating low liquidity.
I just think a better mix of currencies, focused on the more liquid ones and less on exotics, would result in more signals for C2 to process, which has to be good for everyone.
It would also be good if there was a way to automate the creation and daily update of the table of available pairs based on what C2 can transact today. That way Matthew would have one less manual task to worry about.
As a system vendor you will get more subscribers if you stick to pairs that people can autotrade. Currently the Forex autotrading brokers are all in the US.
Francis
Thanks Francis, that’s an important point I’ll keep in mind.
It would great to see C2 partner with GFTForex or a non-US based broker.
Fingers crossed …
Yes it would be great, we’ll keep it in mind.
Francis
