Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7833362)

Expats have can have any currency, depending on where they worked most recently; USD, EUR, or GBP in particular. Which is why I asked. But I would agree, it's most likely British pounds, in which case it's as bad as trying to sell euros.

Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7833928)

Someone recommended ukforex here, as well as on another expat site. They have a reputation for being one of few brokers that is "transparent", so I looked into it.

Results:

Yes, they appear to offer more transparency than the competition. They give a quote that meets the bid and ask half way on the front page to give you a good idea of the rate, and then once you have an account they quote a rate with their profit margin, based on the volume.

Looking at the numbers: The realtime EURUSD rate that was trading was 1.4152 at around 9pm GMT on 11th of Aug. (verified on a site that offers realtime FX spot trades). The effective quote given by ukforex at the same time on a volume of $10,000 was 1.3973.

The bottom line: if you bought 10,000 USD using ukforex at around 9pm GMT on 11th of Aug., their take is $129.39.

IMO, $129 is unreasonable to buy $10k. That's not to say it's not competitive.. it is competitive because competition is lousy. Eg. I know of a bank that has about the same amount in overhead to change half that volume, and that bank was claiming to charge strictly the interbank wholesale rate with no retail markup.

Ukforex gives a number you can call to haggle, so it would be interesting to find out how much slack they give their sales people.

Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7854245)

I found a comparison site worth checking out:

http://www.sendmoneyhome.org/

I'm surprised there are any brokers open enough for a comparison site to be able to operate. There aren't a whole lot of choices right now, but hopefully this tool will catch on and gain some ground.

If you set the form up to send a small amount from the UK to the US, there are five results (not bad). If more is sent, it exceeds some minimums and 8 comparisons are made.

Sending a large amount from the US to Spain gives 7 choices.

These figures would be good to have on your screen when calling Ozforex to negotiate.

Originally Posted by Mitzyboy (Post 7854351)

Are you obsessed with money transfers? :lol:
Seriously, are you in the business?

Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7833928)

Someone recommended ukforex here, as well as on another expat site. They have a reputation for being one of few brokers that is "transparent", so I looked into it.

Results:

Yes, they appear to offer more transparency than the competition. They give a quote that meets the bid and ask half way on the front page to give you a good idea of the rate, and then once you have an account they quote a rate with their profit margin, based on the volume.

Looking at the numbers: The realtime EURUSD rate that was trading was 1.4152 at around 9pm GMT on 11th of Aug. (verified on a site that offers realtime FX spot trades). The effective quote given by ukforex at the same time on a volume of $10,000 was 1.3973.

The bottom line: if you bought 10,000 USD using ukforex at around 9pm GMT on 11th of Aug., their take is $129.39.

IMO, $129 is unreasonable to buy $10k. That's not to say it's not competitive.. it is competitive because competition is lousy. Eg. I know of a bank that has about the same amount in overhead to change half that volume, and that bank was claiming to charge strictly the interbank wholesale rate with no retail markup.

Ukforex gives a number you can call to haggle, so it would be interesting to find out how much slack they give their sales people.

Originally Posted by JLFS (Post 7856630)

I think you are confusing the question by talking about real time trading figures.
Real time trading has nothing to do with money transfers, and there is always a great difference in pips between the 2.

Originally Posted by JLFS (Post 7856630)

The main reason being that real time trading is a gamble but transferring money is not.

Originally Posted by JLFS (Post 7856630)

But dont forget in real time trading no money is actually transferred, you risk the money you are willing to lose, and you could lose a packet because of the use of leverage.

Using leverage you can trade with 100k of euros with only 400GBP.
you are talking about a whole different ball game here, not a way of transferring funds.

Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7861436)

Of course there is a correlation between market value and what Joe Shmoe is offering. Joe Shmoe is watching the market too, and taking care to add a margin.

Simply comparing John Doe's deal with Joe Shmoe's does not reveal the market value of the assets because your measuring instrument is too blunt. You might know that broker A is better than broker B, but unless you look at the realtime market, you still don't know how much value you're giving up in a trade with broker A.

You're talking the speculation trading on a margin. There's only a gamble if you're trading non-deliverables with the brokers money on a margin account. The realtime market prices that I compared ozforex to actually came from a broker that offers deliverables w/out leverage. In this case, CMC Markets.

You get much more resolution in your comparison if you compare the loss of value in each trade, not just the net.


As I said in an earlier post, there are FX brokers that offer both non-deliverables with leverage, and deliverables as a separate product. It makes perfect sense to look at the spot rates on deliverables, because that's real money if you want to withdraw it. If you like the realtime market rate on CMC markets, and you're trading 10k in assets, you can buy other assets (one-way), and have the new currency delivered. (That's just an example, I do not recommend actually trading with CMC Markets because they siphon wires).

Originally Posted by jgombos (Post 7861436)

Of course there is a correlation between market value and what Joe Shmoe is offering. Joe Shmoe is watching the market too, and taking care to add a margin.

Simply comparing John Doe's deal with Joe Shmoe's does not reveal the market value of the assets because your measuring instrument is too blunt. You might know that broker A is better than broker B, but unless you look at the realtime market, you still don't know how much value you're giving up in a trade with broker A.

You're talking the speculation trading on a margin. There's only a gamble if you're trading non-deliverables with the brokers money on a margin account. The realtime market prices that I compared ozforex to actually came from a broker that offers deliverables w/out leverage. In this case, CMC Markets.

You get much more resolution in your comparison if you compare the loss of value in each trade, not just the net.


As I said in an earlier post, there are FX brokers that offer both non-deliverables with leverage, and deliverables as a separate product. It makes perfect sense to look at the spot rates on deliverables, because that's real money if you want to withdraw it. If you like the realtime market rate on CMC markets, and you're trading 10k in assets, you can buy other assets (one-way), and have the new currency delivered. (That's just an example, I do not recommend actually trading with CMC Markets because they siphon wires).

Originally Posted by greghal (Post 7863136)

I agree to a point that the realtime trading rate has a direct correlation, everyone is buying at the same rate. I think what JLFS means is that you cant compare the spreads that gambling sites charge compared to deliverable. At the end of the day the speculative companies take on the position whether deliverable brokers dont, so they have to charge a much larger spread to make their profit. It is a completely different industry, just all pricing off the same market