MT4 Futures

FTMO Trader Scouting

enoch7

Member
Hey guys, I'm new to this forum but I am not new to trading. I would like to know if any of you have or know a MT4 broker that provides USDX, currency futures, bond futures... futures in general. With reliable volume profile?

(good no supply/no demand bars & accurate high volume/low volume)
I prefer a broker that closes the day at EST 5PM. thank you

:)
 
There are pretty much zero brokers out there who offer actual futures trading on MT4***. But besides, you wouldn't want to trade futures on MT4 in the first place, so even if you found one I wouldn't be able to recommend it.

The main reasons (as per why MT4 and futures don't mix well):

- MT4 Server isn't designed to work with the CME's exchange model, or ICE's exchange model for dollar index contracts you mentioned. It's just not designed to be used for trading with direct access to these exchanges.

- MT4 lacks a native depth of market or "ladder".. and lacks the ability to place orders within the depth of market. Currently, the few brokers who offer a depth of market for FX related products have to rely on 3rd parties, and often this is just for displaying info at best.

- MT4 cannot cleanly keep track of all the futures symbols available to trade. I don't just mean that there are a lot of different things to trade in futures (and there are,) but in Futures, contracts come with an expiry date. Often, they expire every 3 months or less, and roll over to new traded symbols (thus a new entry in MT4) each time. Given all the various futures products, multiplied by all their respective expirations, the little market watch window in MT4 would be overrun.

- Futures each have their own contract specifications (cash settled, physically settled, quantity, etc), daily closing times (they do not all close their days at the same time), electronic hours, pit hours, break sessions, various levels of margin, tick values, etc... MT4 just doesn't have the facility to keep track of nor display this info.

(I know that list can make futures sound complicated.. and in some ways they are, but don't let it scare you. Leverage should scare you, not contract specifications. :p Once you settle on a futures product, getting your barrings isn't hard at all.)

(Side thought, even though the next version of Metatrader--Metrader 5 that is-- was built to be exchange compliant, and is said to work with futures, I have yet to see a futures broker adopt it or take it seriously.)

--

*** Some brokers do offer CFDs through MT4 that are named after and track commonly traded futures products.. BUT these are NOT futures.

CFDs tend to cost way more than trading the underlying futures products they track, since that's how the broker structures them in order to make a profit from your trade (they have to mark up the cost of trading so they can make a profit when they offset your trade in the underlying market, if they do offset it at all that is...

For instance: You'll sometimes see "S&P500" CFDs being offered by brokers who use MT4, but upon looking closer, you'll notice that the spread you're paying for the CFD version is often twice to three times the cost vs doing the same trade in the futures directly. In this case, the active contract for ES often is just 1 tick in spread (0.25 points on the index,) but the equivalent CFD can be often seen for 0.50 to 0.75 points (2-3 ticks.)

That's not to mention that the cost of financing at rollover is often huge on CFDs when compared to futures.

In short, I do not recommend CFDs in general, since they take an already hard market (most commodities, index, and financial futures) and add additional cost and leverage to the mix...

--

So back to the futures part:

You'd want a broker who primarily deals with futures before anything else. Through them, you'd want to use a platform that's designed to work with futures and that meets your technical needs.

Examples of such a broker: https://www.mirusfutures.com/

Examples of such platforms: http://www.ninjatrader.com/ or http://www.multicharts.com/

(Each platform does have a licensing fee for their full versions, but there are versions with slightly limited features that are often offered for free through brokers... or even full versions that are sponsored by the broker. Aside from that, often the broker will have an entry level platform they offer for no cost, if not NinjaTrader or MultiCharts. Mirus Futures has Mirus Trader for instance.)

--

Hope I didn't bombard you with too much info at once. :p
 
Thanks alot for your informative reply Jack.

I am not looking for a broker to place trades in the futures market with. I am looking for an MT4 broker where I can just look at JPY index and USDX and load up my MT4 template.
I only trade forex, these futures will help me make a better educated decision on the pairs that I trade.

I am only limiting myself to MT4 because of my MT4 template I use to trade forex is nicely done, I am looking to load this same template but on USDX chart with another MT4 broker.

I would think that since Futures actually goes through an actual order center that the volume displayed by the MT4 broker would be accurate.
 
You can chart the derived CFDs on MT4 (so not directly futures, but the candles should work out to be very similar,) with the only disadvantage being that MT4 can't display actual reported volume (no feature for it, the only volume MT4 has is tick volume which isn't the same as actual volume. That's a limitation of MT4 itself, not the broker.)

AvaFX, as another member recently pointed out, has CFDs for most futures that you can chart out on MT4.

Oanda as well, but I don't think they have USDX / DX CFDs, which I know is important for ICT style setups.
 
Meta Trader FOREX Ltd out of the UK offers EURO and USDX on the Mt4 platform. It doesn't expire but if you live in the US it will only be a demo. Good Luck Damon
 
http://www.ampclearing.com/

http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=278853&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

no bullshit here.

s
 
shopster said:
http://www.ampclearing.com/

http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=278853&perpage=6&pagenumber=1

no bullshit here.

s

Yeah, with you here. Have traded with both AMP and Mirus. I give the edge to AMP, hence current account with AMP.

Ninja with superDOM for the Futs as far as I'm concerned.
 
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