Automate trading on ECN MT5 vs Ctrader

Fxpro is set to open another ECN venue through the electronic retail investing platform Metatrader 5 few days after Alpari UK , one of its competitors, filled for insolvency.

It turns out the company is well placed on the hunt for the orphan client base, both of them having similar Russia-Cyprus-UK links. Russian oil dollars seek UK shelter in EU through Cyprus meedle man, offering in the process world wide retail margin trading for a few instruments.

The news does not bode well for Ctrader, the current Fxpro ECN platform which has better graphics, faster execution, non-proprietary programming language and better integration in the Windows environment due to its building upon Dotnet framework. On the other hand, MT5 manages consolidated trades and provides better reporting capabilities.

It seems online broker AlpariUK was to software MT5 sort of what Fxpro is to Ctrader, its larger client base. 

Nevertheless the Fxpro announce should please Metaquotes after the Alpari UK debacle. MT5 has   room to expand upon dominant MT4 client base after a three years run. Given expanding automated retail trading due to higher volatility, genuine retail ECN platforms should follow the track of large ECN platforms.

One year past implementation Alpari UK threatened to bill commisions on MT5 but never followed. With one of the lowest spread without commision in the retail market, no wonder MT5 enforced Metaquote's grip upon.

MT5 has the same tick chart trading capabilities as MT4, rather poor compared to Spotware's  Ctrader or Dukakis's Jforex. What makes MT5 stands appart is consolidation of trades  in a sole position, which symplifies trading, plus ability to auto-trade many instruments in one unit of code.

Upcoming trend seems to integrate asset classes such as indices, commodities, bonds or stocks. Volatility could differs notably among asset classes, making sense to switch asset classes  within an account, the new rule is one account, many asset classes.

I expect next trend will be automated personal hedge funds, trading FX and CFDs on ECN PAMM from one Expert Advisor running on a VPS, but that is up to brokers and traders.