ExpressOptions aims to be the #1 retail broker in the world for pricing and execution across all forex and metals. You can read more about our purpose. To achieve our goal of becoming the #1 broker in the world for pricing and execution, and thus achieving best execution for our clients, we consider the following factors:
Spreads Price Integrity Rejections Slippage Small Trades Order execution rules Trading counterparties
Consistently tight spreads are the most effective way of reducing trading costs.
| Symbol | Description | Min | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| EURUSD | Euro vs United States Dollar | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| AUDUSD | Australian Dollar vs United States Dollar | 0.0 | 0.1 |
| XAUUSD | Gold vs United States Dollar | 0.0 | 12.8c |
| XTIUSD | WTI Crude Oil Spot vs United States Dollar | 1.6 | 1.6c |
| GER30 | DAX Germany 30 Index | 0.6 | 0.7 |
Price reliability and integrity is about ensuring that our prices are in line with market prices.
This means our market mid point is in line with other providers or the underlying markets that the product is based off. This takes into consideration factors such as news events, rollover, periods of illiquidity, fair value and so on.
| Market | Q1-19 | Q2-19 | Q3-19 | Q4-19 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forex | 4.52%* | 1.78% | 1.78% | 1.52% |
| Commodities | 1.48% | 0.70% | 0.40% | 0.38% |
| Indices | 1.27% | 0.27% | 0.49% | 1.46% |
Slippage is the difference between the requested price and the fill price or (more accurately) the market price at the time the order is received and the fill price.
| Market | Positive | At Price | Negative |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forex | 19.56% | 66.86% | 13.58% |
| Commodities | 12.87% | 67.43% | 19.70% |
| Indices | 25.84% | 51.65% | 22.51% |
While this information doesn’t form part of our client agreement, this is information that we expect to be held to account to, and which we are always happy to verify, as all brokers should.
Due to ticket fees imposed on the execution of small trades by our prime broker, forex trades less than 50,000, XAU trades less than or equal to 30oz are executed internally by Gleneagle Securities and batch hedged once the position size exceeds the prime broker minimum. This means Gleneagle Securities will take the other side of the trade until the position grows to greater than 100,000, or an opposing trade comes in from another client.
These interbank minimum ticket fee charges are standard across all FX market participants who trade via ‘prime broker’ and the process of batch hedging small tickets to avoid excessive clearing charges is also common place.
| Asset Class | Pricing | Execution | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forex | ECN Tier-1 banks, non-bank market makers and institutional ECNs |
STP | NDD Trades are executed back-to-back with LPs |
FX Trades < 50,000 are executed internally and batch hedged. |
| Metals | ECN Tier-1 banks, non-bank market makers and institutional ECNs |
STP | NDD | XAU trades <= 30oz are executed internally and batch hedged. |
| Indices | Non-bank market makers | STP | NDD* Trades are executed back-to-back with CFD LPs |
|
| Energies | Non-bank market makers | STP | NDD* Trades are executed back-to-back with CFD LPs |
|
| Cryptocurrencies | Non-banks market makers | STP | NDD Trades are executed back-to-back with CFD LPs |
As an ECN, STP and NDD broker, our focus is to find the best trading counterparties for your trades.
ExpressOptions executes all trades on a back to back, 1:1 basis, with the group parent Gleneagle Securities Pty Ltd. Gleneagle maintains all prime broker and trading relationships for the group. Gleneagle Securities executes trades with the trading counterparties below for ExpressOptions.
When you request a trade receipt from ExpressOptions, one of these trading counterparties will always feature - assuming the trade is above the interbank minimum.
| Banks | Non-bank Market Makers |
|---|---|
| BARCLAYS BANK PLC | XTX Markets |
| BNP PARIBAS | HC Tech |
| COMMERZBANK AG | Citadel Securities |
| CREDIT SUISSE | Jump Trading |
| GOLDMAN SACHS | Vidarr Capital |
| HSBC | Virtu |
| Natwest | LMAX |
| STANDARD CHARTERED BANK | |
| UBS AG EB |
| Brokers/Prime of Primes | Institutional ECNs & Aggregators |
|---|---|
| CFH | FlexTrade |
| CMC | HotSpot |
| Exante | Currenex |
| Fastmatch | |
| EBS |
When you trade with ExpressOptions, we execute your trades as principal since we issue the product to you, i.e. we are the financial services provider giving you the product.
This legal relationship does not mean your trade is not executed by one of the group's liquidity providers, it just means that ExpressOptions is the legal counterparty to your trade. This legal relationship will be the same wherever you trade unless the broker is an ‘agent’, i.e. They’re a middleman between you and the real broker, who you will trade with as principal. This is generally how OTC markets operate.
ExpressOptions cannot act as an agent between a trader and the market since this would require the trader to have a relationship with the prime broker, which they could not do without tens of millions of capital behind them. ExpressOptions can and does facilitate such arrangements for institutional traders that have their own prime broker.
ExpressOptions is the legal counterparty to all of your trades. We are the financial services provider issuing the product to you and we are trading with you as principal.
ExpressOptions offsets 100% of its market risk with Gleneagle Securities Pty Ltd who in turn offsets most of this risk with its trading counterparties - banks, non-banks and ECNs. See the small trades section above for how small trades are executed.
Despite the fact that we are the counterparty to your trades, we are always able to demonstrate which liquidity provider filled your trades and this is the core difference between ExpressOptions’s ECN, STP, NDD business model and 99.99% of other brokers.
