Hi folks,

I discovered that MBTrading are moving into an MT4 platform that offers ECN based spreads. My broker GoMarkets is presently switching from MT4 fixed spreads to MT4 ECN.

For those that have used ECN and fixed spreads,
What are the benefits of being ECN?
How does ECN impact your trading?
How can you determine transparency at the market with ECN quotes?
Does anyone know of MT4 brokers Aside from GoMarkets and MBTrading moving into ECN?

Any comments are appreciated.


Concerned about the transparency of my broker as this email was sent on Friday 27th.

In the coming days and weeks you will observe changes with FX coming through the MetaTrader4 platform. The biggest change will be at the price feed. As you're aware we offer fixed pricing which does not fluctuate throughout the day. Whilst this may give transparency in the pricing it may mean customers do not always receive the best prices online offer.
We're in the final stages of executing a new ECN-style price feed coming from a combination of 70 banks. This will indie that customers get the absolute best bid/ask prices coming from the interbank market. During liquid instances spreads can become as low as 1-pip on major pairs, and if spreads widen it could be a signal to a client that the conditions for trading are not favourable. As an indiion of spreads, many majors such as GBPUSD, EURUSD, EURGBP and AUDUSD can offer spreads as low as 1-2 pips, even during the Asian session.

Offering the accurate interbank market prices means it is simpler for us to hedge our positions. As part of this we will have the ability to accept ALL EXPERT ADVISORS such as FAPTurbo. We'll send an email to all customers as soon as this is fully implemented.

If you have any questions about the above please do not hesitate to contact us.

UPDATE: MT4 brokers that are ECN are ATCBrokers, and MBTrading (not yet released).
Http://www.GoMarketsaus.com are not ECN, but are ECN-styled, which I have highlighted above.
This means that they are a retail market maker, but I have discovered that their spreads are generally lower than fixed spread broker buddies. Yes they've spreads such as the aforementioned, but are almost never 1-2 pips in the Asian session.