Forex Bastards
Having perused the site I liked the similar views held by the owner of Forex Bastards, Felix Homogratus (not his real name), on Oanda – that being: Oanda is the best forex broker out there (but not perfect). Another interesting thing I found about Felix’s site was the economic announcement portals he uses to obtain the latest released figures. If you’re someone who isn’t using Bloomberg or Reuters to obtain your economic figures and you need these numbers with your forex trading strategy (and you can afford the hefty monthly fee) then you’ll want to subscribe to Felix’s signals and read what he has to say. Lastly, I had a good laugh at his “Forex Scams” page where he listed popular forex brokers such as AC-Markets, Refco, and FXCM on this page!
Probably the most interesting thing about Forex Bastards was Felix’s braodcast email that he sent out on the weekend on an interview he had with Richard Olsen, CEO of Oanda. I’m probably not at liberty to copy the entire email here, but what struck me was the fact that with Felix’s news announcement strategy (where he takes a direction as soon as figures are released on popular news announcements and then proceeds to exit that position within ONE minute of it being opened) was that Oanda were willing to take a loss with the positions he was taking (due to the fast moving market)!!
As Felix has had some success with this news announcement strategy he was looking to increase his position sizing to see if he could make more money with it, but after realising the cost to Oanda of his strategy he concluded after the interview that he would maintain his current position sizing and continue to withdraw his profits on a weekly basis.
In a way it reminded me of the days when forex brokers guaranteed stops and traders, such as myself, were able to make good money trading volatile announcements such as the Non-Farm Payrolls by strangling either side of the currency – unfortunately this strategy was nullified when forex brokers no longer guaranteed stops and we all experienced slippage of between 30-50 pips!
I similarly think that Felix’s news strategy will not last long at Oanda, as I haven’t heard of too many brokers willing to take a loss on behalf of their clients. Things that make it even worse for Felix are the fact that he has a large subscriber base where he details his strategy before the event and no doubt some of them use his strategies on Oanda too – all it will take is one person with a big enough bank to nullify this opportunity for everyone else.
For those using Felix’s strategies: take advantage while the opportunity exists, but don’t think it will last forever (although for your sakes I really hope it does).
Tags: Oanda, Oanda com, FX Oanda, Forex Bastards
July 17th, 2006 at 1:49 pm Is Onada a ligit operation? I like the tech aspect. I like the charts. I like the trade platform, then
I kept getting blocked,computer froze, no response etc.
I finaly deleted the site. It worked really well when I first tried it. Where can I check to see if Onada is OK?
VB
July 17th, 2006 at 7:44 pm Victor,You’ll need to make sure that you allow popups in your browser to enable Oanda’s platform to work properly.
You may wish to read through these instructions.
Ryan
August 10th, 2006 at 8:30 pm Forex Bastards is a SCAM?
August 17th, 2006 at 12:41 pm Hi All,
I don’t know about forexbastards but maybe, he is the biggest forex scam himself. Giving best ratings to his own services and rate dow others, also, since his call with the OANDA president, during news times, EURO spread goes up 7-10 pips. WOw, nice guy FELIX but this affect all OANDA clients including myself. Thank you FELIX. ALSO, who are we to rate others services..An interesting website I found is this one http://www.felixbastard.com/, just read the facts on that website.A portion of that from felixbastards:
“Proof of the forexbastard.com scam
Proof 1—- When you Post Reviews besides 1,2,3,4,5 stars, there is no “Not rating” option… Now you see in the reviews sections many reviews are “Not Rated”. Where do they come from??? Yes, created by felixbastard.
Proof 2— Felix/Tom already accepted that he was involved in HYIPs, Autosurfs and many HYIP sites are listed in the managed accounts section. I think people will find it difficult to trust a person who is a scammer who ran numerous HYIP sites.
Proof 3 —- He edits posts of users to make them negative, against other sites. Check the posts and you will see the difference.
Proof 4 —- There is no Tom Yeoman or there is no Rob. These are all fantasies created by Felix Bastard to earn money by introducing fake names and personalities. He always says bastard to all brokers and signal providers except tom yeoman, because tom yeoman is Felix himself or may be his dad. Who knows? Who is tom yeoman? Has anybody ever seen him? No! We know all popular traders and we have seen many traders in trade expos but we never seen Tom/Rob.
Proof 5 — If you see his site, you notice some older posts are posted on top then new ones. And there is no continuity in the dates.
Proof 6 — forexbastards.com is banned on US NFA (National Futures Association USA)
Proof 7— He put the low class brokers on top of list who widen their spreads during the news, don’t offer hedging and don’t offer large leverage. Their support is not good either which is also a bad broker named Oanda.com on the top of broker’s list. The reason behind this is that Felix bastard is a friend of Oanda’s CEO Richard Olsen, and I can imagine that he must be giving some money to felix bastard to get on top of brokers list.
Proof 8 — Check his site and this picture that he posted 2 fake reviews for his site kingforexsignal. one is by Anonymous and other one is by John Benson but reviews are same. http://www.forexbastards.com/kingforexrobgrespinet.shtml yes felix we know you will now remove one.
but i took a snapshot where you will go.
We know that because when we point certain things out, bastard will change things.
If you check the IP and whois information of some of his websites, all are hosted at becotech.com as he made all the websites himself.
If you want to check the proof of Rob, check the Forex alert section on forexbastard. Nobody has posted any good reviews for Rob since April. He only received 2 positive reviews which were probably posted by Felix! Check it out.
”
My 2 real cents.
Wim
August 22nd, 2006 at 5:42 am […] I know profitable forex traders who use only a MACD (or the Macdizzle as Rob put it!), traders who trade announcements (such as Felix), traders who trade bank opens, carry traders, CCI trades (such as Woodie)… etc etc. […]
September 8th, 2006 at 7:40 am Anonymous.
Someone wrote this article and you’ll be the judge.
He wrote: what you are about to read is not a long dissertation on technical analysis or some system with the 20 indicators you need to load on your chart and analyze to trade the Forex
This is not meant to be an introduction to Forex and tell you what a pip is, what spread is or what is this whole Eurodollar thing. You can find all of that information elsewhere. Instead, this is meant to give you information that is simply going to save you a considerable amount of money, grief and time.
It all comes from the school of hard trading knocks. I am writing this anonymously. There are going to be things I’ll say below that the powers that be int he world of Forex trading simply do not like anyone to say.
Instead they like to tell you about how easy it is. How it’s all commission free, super trending and quite simply easy to trade. You’ll be grabbing pips whenever you need them! If only it was so easy.
No, instead we are going to acknowledge the good and the bad. And some of the ugly of Forex trading and you are going to learn somet hing shtat you will definitely not know if you are new or even moderately experienced at Forex trading, and for those of you who are very experienced you will either have experience much of this or always wondered about it. Let’s proceed. Promise, it will be brief and painless. This is about quick tips that will save you money, grief and time.
1. Commission Free Trading.
This was the initial sales pictch most brokers used and many still do. “You’ll trade for free–no commissions!” Well, any of us who trade actively know commissions add up to some ungodly amounts– Many times you lok at your annual statements if you trade actively and it’s not uncommon that your broker makes more, maybe much more, than you do in your trading profits. Forex trading is not commision free. Sure, there is usually not an “add-on” commision. However, they force you to pay a spread on every trade. You have to always buy at the ask and always sell at the bid. This is not the casein stocks, or futures or really any other market. This forced spread on every trade is a commission. That’s what it is. Despites what the broker might claim. And that forced spread is not cheap. 3 pips is $30 on a just one full sized pair. Try $50 on a 5 pip spread you still see a commonplace.
Now, compare that to your average futures or stock trade. Which one is more? Forex usually by far.
Now, let’s not leave it at that. Remember, you get some amazing leverage opportunities with Forex so the actual commision compared to the dollar volume you are able to trade is actually reasonable in some cases–assuming you trade at the right places and follow the right strategies. We’ll cover that below.
2. 100:1 Leverage…No, Wait! How about 200:1….or 400:1?
You’re going to be rich! with that kind of leverage you make just a few pips per days and you’ll spend as much time with yo banker as you do with you significant other right? You lok at the end of month totals from your strategy, run it through your state of the art leverage Calculator and instantly you are making 100%, 300% or 500% per month. Do that a few months, a big of compounding and you’ll be buying that private island after all.
This is another one of those broker come-ons. It just doesn’t work this way. Yes, you can get this leverage. The brokers are going to allow it so I’m not saying it isn’t as advertised. However, you are guaranteed to wipe-out using it. Guaranteed. There simply is no way you can trade at these leverage levels and make it. Not unless you are some trading genius who can take a trade and never lose. If you are–please contact me at one!
For the rest of us, you are going to lose. You are going to lose more than once. YOu are going to have some losing streaks. It’s the nature of trading. It’s not a big deal especially if you can win more than you lose, and if your average loss. You do that and who cares about some losses. Don’t get hung on it.
However, you will care very much if you over-leverage. Do not over-leverage! This is the single, greatest mistake most new Forex traders make. Your state of the art trading calculator spits out numbers that are too great to pass up and you let greed get in the way of logic.
Think about it this way. 200:1 leverage.
You have a trade you are targeting 25 pips and risking 25 pips. As you’ll learn below that trade acutually has to go 28 pips or more to hit your target of 25 pips and you’ll actually be risking 28 pips or more–but, for this example we won’t get hung up on that. We’ll solve that later.YOu have a $5,000 account and trade it with 200:1 leverage. That means you can trade 1,000,000 worth of currency (you can see why we said spreads above are a significant cost but with leverage can end up being a small percentage of cost)–and that means 10 full sized pairs.
Oh, and you lose on this trade. Let’s do the math. 10 pairs X 25 pips=250 pips loss. Make that with spread 10 pairs x 28 pips=280pips loss x$10/pip=$2800 loss.
Oops. You’ve just lost over 50% of your acount. Don’t even thinka bout what would have happened if you were risking more–and these days ont he Forex good luck risking much less.
If you lose twice in a row-which happens all the time you’ve just wiped out. Sure, if you win you make a great return but you are completely counting on virtually never losing. Even if you get a few wins immediately, you’ll eventually wipe out.
It’s what happens to the new gambler in Las Vegas. They try a few hands, they win, they get sucked in and then before they know it they are at their ATM maching looking for their mortgage money to try and get back that winning feeling.
You’l have success trading wth huge leverage. Some of the time. It will be great and you’ll brage to you friends how you made 50% that afternoon. Then, a few days later you’ll be asking them to pick-up the lunch tab.
Do not use crazy leverage. Do not use…ok, you get the idea.
Decide on a fixed percentage you are going to riks on your account on any one trade. 5%?10%? And, calculate that amount to determine what size you can trade based upon the risk per trade. It will still be great leverage–Forex provides that. What’s wrong with 5:1 leverage or 10:1 leverage? It blows away the stock market but it’s not going to wipe you out ina c ouple of trades.
3. Spreads
FInd a broker that does not charge high spreads. Sure, you need a broker who provides stable platform, which provides good customer service, which is regulated (important!), that has account insurance guaranteeds, etc…BUt, realize these brokers make money many different ways. They make spread money, they make money by laying off orders on other banks, they make money on stop running. Did i say that? Guess it’s too late to take it back.
There is simply no reason to pay more than 3 pips on the EurUSD. And really, you should be paying 2 pips. ON the GBPUSD and USDCHF why are you paying 5 pips? SOrry, it’s not going to charitable cause–your broker’s bank account isn’t a non-profit. Those spreads are crazy. You should pay 3, maybe 4 at most ont he other majors.
And typically, forget all all the “exotics”–avoid trading anything that is not amongst the main pairs—EURUSD, USDCHF, GBPUSD, USDCAD, AUDUSD, USDJPY, EURJPY and maybe EURGBP. And stay away unless spread is 2 or 3 pips, maybe 4. That’s already more than enough to trade so why do you need to trade the GBPCHF for 15 pips spread. Unless you really like to amke a car payments and pay for round of gold for your broker.
4. Banker’s Hours…I Mean Broker’s Hours
Most of us think that all brokers are up the entire time these markets are trading. Not exactly. Brokers can set their own hours–there are not rules and regulations ont hat. YOu had better check on this. YOu’d be suprised how many close and hour or two early on Friday. How many open later on Sunday then the market trades. HOw many close for holidays even though there is trading. And when theya re closed–you are stuck in yoru trade. YOu’ll be in for a rude surprise when you go to exit a trade ahead of the weekend only to find out they are already closed. I know, sound really basic, check the hours of business but you’ll be surprised how many have no clue about this until it burns them bad. Know this upfront–including when you can call the broker( theya re not always staffed at the trading desk) as well ahave access to their system AND order executions.
5. Wild West Trading Prices
The Forex does not have centralized pricing. Think of it this way, all those banks out there that rade, all the brokers all the individuals that rade–none of it is centralized into on executable source. Each broker has their own data feed and they decide what the highs and lows are, what the highs and lows are on a swing, and can limit movement on a pair. It is articially controlled. Sorry, it’s not the free market yout hink it is. And, it’s nothing like the stock or futures markets where you are trading ina centralized market where all the bids, ask and trading volumen is executable no matter what broker you choose.
This is a big difference in Forex. One day it likely will be centralized–and that will be a great thing. In the meantime, you are goin to be trading a market where one person might have a stop filed, another one trading eslewhere will not. Same with limits. This means you literally can have two people trading the same exact strategy and they will end up with completely different results at times.
It’s frustrating but true– and you need to understand this. Just because broker NoCommisions.com executes a fill doesn’t meant hat WeNeverRunStops.com is going to execute as well. If you are ver bring up charts from differnt brokers you’ll see they can be different–it’s never drastick, usually a few pips on various swings but in fast markets you’d be amazed how much they can vary. It is not uncommon for me to be trading and see brokers different by 5 or 10 pips at times–it’s not typical but it happens and that can make a major differnce in your results.
Solution? there isn’t solution other than to realize this is the case. If you are following a strategy/service and they have hit target and you have not–you better chalk it up to slippage and get out because they hit and you didn’t. Hapens all the time and it’s best to simply try and stay in synch with your strategy and assume you’ll make up those pips on another trade.
IF you need the full article, you can email at xmsoul44@yahoo.com
September 9th, 2006 at 5:37 pm Felix was right. Refco is a scam. They stole their clients money and are gling to end up in bankruptcy. Felix is not a scam, I have made money trading the news based on his signals.
September 15th, 2006 at 7:12 am The person, ” felix”, is a Scam.
September 16th, 2006 at 7:51 pm This website is a total scam. He’s created his own BS websites to suck in clients by bashing every ligitimate service on the internet. I’ve been with one of the services that he list as a scam for over 6 months…and for the first time, I’ve actually been making money. I tried to post a review on his site praising the company, and the post never got put on the site.
I talked to the company about it, and they sent me documentation of their returns…as well as the documentation to “Felix”…who’s real name is Dmitri Chavkerov’s horrible trade record from his actual account with forex.com. You can look at the posts on his site where he has the company peakforex.com listed as a scam…they sent me verifiable account statements to disprove everything this guy had written. I also came across another site www.peterbainscam.com that talks about this joker.
I hope none of you have been taken in by this crook…
September 28th, 2006 at 11:22 am To the last poster:He’s not a complete scam, as his system (which is really a great guy called Tom Yeomans’ system) is VERY good. Actually, I’ll rephrase that, it WAS very good. The thing that is really bad about him is that he is a fabulous marketer and he has taken a profitable system and let the masses in on it. This has a twofold effect: 1. It has screwed up the system for those that were quietly using it for consistent profits BEFORE he came along and 2. By letting everyone and his cat in on it, he’s screwed it up for all the NEW people too, as they all simply cannot be profitable. The only winner is Dmitri himself and he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but himself. Tom has parted ways with him, so he’s trying to suck the life out of other profitable traders by marketing them! That’s Rob Grespinet and Jimmy Young for those that don’t know.
So to any other profitable gurus out there, DO NOT get entangled with this forex bastard, as he is only out for himself. Dmitri gains at every turn and all his paying subscribers LOSE!!! Take heed.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:42 am Come on people… Of course Dimitri is out for himself. So are you and everyone else. I subscribe to all of his services and have made a little money doing it. Don’t use his services to make yourself rich, but to learn his strategies. Take what you learn and part ways. It will only make you a better trader to educate yourself.
March 31st, 2007 at 5:04 am Felix is dangerous. SCAM!!!!!!!!!!
December 4th, 2007 at 6:13 am Dmitri is a dead set scammer. He survives off commissions, splits, joint ventures and profit sharing with the brokers, system vendors, charting companies and signal service providors that he’s partnered with. If you take his recommenedation on a service he gets a cut of the turnover or % of the sale price.Felix is an arsehole.
December 22nd, 2007 at 7:39 am I NEED ASIGNAL AND TIME TO PLACE MYORDER
January 22nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm I developed a decent little system that really works, but I can’t compete when people who don’t have clue what they are talking about can post anything they want to. I know this business! Felix is a brilliant marketer who dogs people’s programs to make people believe he’s a fx god. He’s been stepping on people for too long. It’s time for him to step down.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:04 am is mtlforex.com a scam
March 19th, 2008 at 7:12 am tosinoo, if we are a scam then why are you constantly flooding our application for free trial? Tosinoo is from Nigeria, and paypal didn’t allow him to join the service, and so he started bombarding our 3 day free trial offer so that we continue to serve him, free of charge. Now he has turned around and decided to go as far as calling the service a scam, when he has never actually joined the service as a paid member. Infact, during his first 3 day trial he made over 200 pips. I guess it’s frustrating to have such great signal, and not be able to afford a live account or the signal charge to act on it. Well, to finalize, we won’t reply to every hater out there, so feel free to bombard this board as well tosino, just make sure to use creative names.. unlike our service, this board doesn’t go thru mobile phone verification, so you can post as many messages as you like. Have a blast