You pay ZERO commissions and exchange fees!

Extremely low transaction costs
Transaction costs can serve to lower profits or extend losses. Due to the decentralized nature of the forex market, transaction costs in the forex market are either zero or close to zero. The forex market is able to offer lower transaction costs because there is no centralized exchange for trading such as the NYSE or the CBOT. Therefore, clients do not have to pay any exchange or clearing fees. Costs are further reduced by the efficiencies created by a purely electronic marketplace that allows clients to deal directly with the market makers, eliminating both ticket costs and middlemen.

Active futures traders often see substancial portions of their gross profits go to brokers in the form of commissions, and exchanges in the form of exchange and data fees. In the currency market, you pay NONE of that. No commissions. No exchange fees. How can RefcoFX do that? Simple. Because you deal directly with the market maker via a purely electronic online exchange, you eliminate both ticket costs and middleman brokerage fees. There is still a cost to initiating any trade, but that cost is reflected in the bid/ask spread that is also present in futures trading. However, the RefcoFX trading station offers tight interbank spreads. And, because the RefcoFX trading platform offers instant execution off firm two-way prices, you never have to worry about price "slippage" or bad fills which happen all too often in other financial products.

Because the forex market offers round-the-clock liquidity, traders receive tight, competitive spreads both intra-day and night. Online foreign exchange is far the best market choice for aggressive, short-term oriented traders. Online forex allows active traders to trade without the huge costs associated with doing so in the futures trading.

You get more leverage than futures

The sheer size of the currency market (46 times greater than all futures markets combined) and the greater price stability allow you to trade with a much higher degree of leverage than is typical with futures contracts. Plus, you are able to select the degree of leverage that you wish to employ in trading. Unless you specify otherwise, RefcoFX sets your leverage level at RefcoFX's most lenient requirement. The actual margin requirements for leverage vary with account size.

For example, if your account has $30,000 in it, then the margin requirement is $1,000 for every position (approximately equal to $100,000 worth of currencies). Thus, the margin requirement is just 1% of the total value of the currencies traded - a 100:1 ratio. Click here for a demo.

Your risk is strictly limited

With RefcoFX, you can NEVER have a debit balance! In the event that funds in your account fall below margin requirements, the RefcoFX Dealing Desk will simply close all open positions. That means that, even if you are dead wrong and there is a catastrophic market move against you, you can never lose more than the amount of money you have in your account. In addition, by using stop loss orders that are guaranteed by RefcoFX, your risk can be further limited and defined. That provides you with tremendous peace of mind. See for yourself by making a few risk-free virtual trades in your RefcoFX demo account.

You get instantaneous execution and firm prices

The futures market is known for inconsistent execution, both in terms of pricing and execution time. Every futures trader has experienced a half hour wait for a market order to be filled and has been executed at a price far away from where the market was trading when the initial order was placed. The futures market, execution is uncertain because all orders must be done on the exchange. This creates a situation where liquidity is limited by the number of particpants, which in turn limits quanitites that can be traded at a given price.

In the forex market, the price transparency provided by RefcoFX assures that traders always receive a fair price. Every order you place, along with all stops and limits, will be executed at EXACTLY that price without slippage.

RefcoFX offers instant execution from live streaming prices. There is no discrepancy between the displayed price and the execution price. This holds true even during volatile times and fast moving markets. In the futures market, execution is uncertain because all orders must be done on the exchange. This creates a situation where liquidity is limited by the number of participants, which in turn limits quantities that can be traded at a given price. Real-time streaming prices ensures that market orders, stops, and limites are executed without slippage and/or partial fills.

Executable prices
One of the biggest advantages of trading forex online is the ability to trade directly with the market maker. A reputable forex broker like RefcoFX can provide traders with streaming, executable prices. It is important to make a distinction between indicative prices and executable prices. Indicative quotes are those that offer an indication of the prices in the market and the rate at which they are changing. Executable prices are actual prices where the market maker is willing to buy/sell. Although online trading has reached equities and futures, prices represent the last buy/sell and therefore represent indeicative prices rather than executable prices. Trading online directly with the market maker means traders receive a fair price on all transactions.

The futures market does not offer instant execution or price certainty. Even with electronic trading and limited guarantees of execution speed, the price for fills on market orders is far from certain. In the futures market, the prices represent the LAST trade, not necessarily the price for which the contract will be filled. With RefcoFX currency trading, in contrast, you get instantaneous execution and price certainty. On the FX trading station, you trade directly off real-time streaming prices. Your trades are filled instantly. There is no discrepancy between the displayed price and the execution price. This holds true even during volatile times and fast moving markets. Experience the benefits of instant fills and guaranteed prices by opening a free demo account.

You get maximum liquidity

Due to its enormous size (46 times bigger than all futures markets combined), the currency market is the most liquid market in the world. The spot currency market is a $1.4 trillion daily market, making it the largest and most liquid market in the world. This market can absorb trading volume and transaction sizes that dwarf the capacity of any other market. If you compare this to the $30 billion per day futures market, it becomes clear that the futures market provide only limited liquidity. The currency market, in contrast, is very liquid, meaning positions can be liquidated and stop orders executed without slippage. In just a few minutes, you can open a demo account and see how this works.

You can easily trade 24 hours a day

Unlike most futures exchanges, the currency market is a seamless, 24-hour market. At 5 p.m.Sunday, New York time, trading begins as markets open in Sydney and Singapore. At 7 p.m. the Tokyo market opens, followed by London at 2 a.m., and finally New York at 8 a.m. As a trader, this allows you to react to favorable or unfavorable news by trading immediately. It also gives you the added flexibility of determining your trading day. By comparison, the currency markets in the United States, such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Philadelphia Exchange, have regulated hours. The CME, for instance, opens at 8:20 a.m. New York time and closes promptly at 2 p.m. Therefore, if important data comes in from England or Japan while the U.S. futures market is closed, the next day's opening could be a wild ride. (Overnight markets in futures currency contracts exist, but they can be thinly traded, not very liquid and difficult for the average investor to access.) Open a free demo account and get the ability to trade whenever you want.

You don't worry about rolling over your positions

With RefcoFX, open positions are rolled over automatically every two days. As a service to you, at 5 p.m. ET RefcoFX automatically rolls over all your open positions (swaps the trade forward) to the next settlement date two business days in the future. As is true with futures, there is often a carrying cost associated with rolling over a position. Moreover, currency positions sometimes can actually make you money on the rollover. That is because your profit/cost is determined by the difference in interest rates between the two currencies. Thus, if you are long the currency with the higher interest rate in the pair, you will actually gain on the spot rollover through the premium relationship of that currency relative to the short currency. The amount of the gain is determined by the interest rate differential between the two currencies, and fluctuates day-to-day with the movement of prices.

For instance, on any given day, the rollover can be $2 per lot for USD/JPY and $15 for GBP/JPY. Rollover fees are shown in dollars, and are posted in the "interest column" on the RefcoFX Trading Station every day at 3 p.m. ET. For day traders who never hold a position overnight, there are no carrying costs whatsoever. Try the RefcoFX Trading Station Now.