Our DMA account is structured slightly different with our Prime Bank than our ECN is, in that we cannot batch-hedge trades < 1 standard lot in position size ($100,000 of currency), like our ECN is capable of doing. This means we get charged standard ticket fees for trades < 1 standard round turn lot. To encourage trading above this minimum position size, or to cost justify trades that are under this size, account minimums or higher volumes are required when trading on the DMA account. This again boils down to having very tight margins as a single-source revenue stream from transactional fees only.

In the future we may setup a facility to batch-hedge smaller orders < 1 standard lot in size (for mini and micro lots) on the DMA stream. In which case our fees on small orders will reduce, and our minimums will be the same as our ECN accounts. However, this is not ready as of yet.

Our ECN Trading Accounts are our flagship and default accounts, preferred by the vast majority of all of our traders.

Our DMA accounts are a secondary option for our clients looking for fill diversification and split testing, and are built upon a completely separate liquidity infrastructure, and have a completely separate set of technology providers. This is like a completely separate brokerage available to traders (2 for 1), yet under the same roof.

Generally speaking most of our clients are here for our ECN accounts. Those with special requirements often open additional accounts for diversification on our DMA feed. Here are a few major differences…

ECN

• Tightest Spreads
• Fastest Execution
• Integrated ECN Back-office
• NYC (Equinix NY4) server low-latency colocation
• Great for all traders and styles, especially for scalping, HFTs, quants, fast and agile traders, and those who trade lots of cross pairs etc…

DMA

• Wider Spreads (but more market depth)
• Great CFD lineup
• Slightly cheaper swaps
• London (Equinix LD4) server low-latency colocation
• Great for traders who care less about spreads and need lots of market depth, cheaper swaps, and a larger CFD offering.

Our pricing is fixed, and is based on USD currency, and is“notionally priced”.

For example;

Our DMA Account pricing is $32.5 USD, per million, per side (or 0.00325% notional). This is the same as $6.50 USD, per standard round turn lot. This is for all USD based pairs (i.e., USD/xxx pairs).

Because this is notional DMA pricing (i.e., institutional pricing and the same way banks quote prices), it means that all other pairs (i.e., EUR/xxx, GBP/xxx, CHF/xxx, CAD/xxx, NZD/xxx, AUD/xxx) are calculated by multiplying the $6.50 x each other pair’s exchange rate with USD.

So some pairs may actually work out to be a bit more than $6.50 USD per standard round turn lot. While other pairs work out to be a bit cheaper than this. While all USD/XXX pairs are exactly $6.50 USD per standard round turn lot.

The DMA trading engine itself, quite literally lives in a dedicated low-latency facility at Equinix LD4 in London, UK, where it directly aggregates Tier 1 liquidity from major money center banks and venues in addition to non-traditional sources.

Download links will be provided to you upon account approval. However you can also download these at any time from our Metatrader4 page here (including the Windows desktop trading terminal, and MT4 mobile apps as well).

Absolutely not.

We do not run a b-book (and are not permitted to under our current license). All of our clearing falls under the “agency only” model, and trades are passed through directly to liquidity partners and ODPs. Thus, Mt.Cook’s ONLY form of compensation is via transactional fees (i.e., round turn commissions).

Although we understand why some brokers choose to run b-books (they are required in the industry), we as a team, ethically do not like to be in a position to profit from our client’s losses. Instead, we try to focus our efforts on servicing aspiring traders who are striving to be profitable over the long-term. We have built our business around this model, and this ensures our interests are always aligned with our clients.

Rarely. But it does happen.

DISCUSSION: Both our ECN and DMA trading streams reflect the “real market”, and because our feeds are not “synthetic” and we do not b-book our clients, sometimes trades are prone to slippage like any other. If a brokerage tells you they have no slippage, they are either running a synthetic feed (i.e., b-booking you with no real market fill) or they are simply not being honest. The more sensitive the trading style is, the higher chance of encountering slippage.

When orders are sent out to be filled by a liquidity provider or bank, they are filled at the best available price whether the fill price is above or below the price requested. In reality, this is a normal market phenomenon, and is due to the spot market being decentralized and often having a huge imbalance of buyers and sellers.

Although rare, slippage can work both in a traders favor, or against them if it occurs (positive or negative slippage). Certain times and market events are more prone to this occurrence than others such as high volatility news releases and rollover. We have two different liquidity streams for our traders to choose from which both mitigate against slippage as much as possible and in very different ways. Mt.Cook does not control for, or provide any guarantees against slippage (either positive or negative). Again this is a normal market phenomenon that we must all plan for and contend with when trading in the real (live) spot market.

To ensure you are seeing all the tradeable symbols and instruments associated with your account type, you may need to load all market symbols in to your trading terminal, as various versions of Metatrader4 do not always load them all by default.

You can do this by selecting ANY trading symbol in the market watch window, then right click it, and select “Show All”. This will load all the symbols for you, as shown below.

DMA clients will have either a “.” or an “x” extension depending on what liquidity source you are accessing (example: EURUSD. or EURUSDx etc etc…).

For DEMO DMA clients, you will not have any MT4 extensions on the symbol sets (example: EURUSD).

*NOTE: As per the FAQ above, to ensure you are seeing all the tradeable symbols/instruments associated with your account, it is important that you load all market symbols in to your terminal, as Metatrader4 does not always load them all in by default. You can do this by selecting any symbol in the market watch window, then right click, and select “Show All”. This will load all the symbols for you, as shown below..

DISCUSSION: Generally speaking, sensitive trading strategies are those that are considered highly sensitive to price and execution and market volatility, and may include news trading, hyper-scalping, and tick scalping but also hostile algo strats such as various types of arbitrage strategies and/or inter-spread exploitatives.

While we feel we have an excellent trading environment, and welcome any kind of trading strategy that is not exploitative, or considered “toxic flow” by our liquidity partners, it may be that sensitive trading strategies may not perform optimally here and it is widely recognized that they are becoming tougher to execute these days on real market data and bank-based liquidity as many loop holes for market exploitation get closed down by banks. It may be that they perform better on synthetic feeds, non-bank liquidity, or at risk-internalized brokerages (i.e., b-book bucketshops).

As an STP brokerage, we want our clients to be as profitable as possible and simply maintain a neutral position (intermediary) in trade execution and profit by having traders stay profitable and trade volume. However we need to ensure that we present a fair playing ground and as such that we maintain integrity with our liquidity partners as well. These relationships are very important for us in order to maintain competitive pricing for our clients.

As a protection measure, many of our LPs, price engine aggregators and bridges, utilize AI algorithms to detect predatory/toxic/exploitative strategies or those looking to trade within the spread, and it may be that our Liquidity Partners ask us to close these trading account if they are detected and flagged as toxic.

This RARELY occurs, but it can occasionally happen on strategies calculated to have an aggressive YIELD DECAY which end up getting flagged. If this happens, we must honor their request. Please understand that this has nothing to do with our LPs not wanting traders to succeed. This about them detecting predatory strategies looking to take advantage of decentralized market inefficiencies, as apposed to fair trading practices.

Separate to this, and as a general rule, the more sensitive your trading strategy is, the greater chance it may encounter execution variances and discrepancies from one feed to another, and it very well may be better off executing on different types of data feeds or other shops. The only way to know this is of course to test it and compare. Unfortunately we cannot offer any type of guarantee as to the success of highly sensitive trading strategies and clients must be aware of this prior to deploying them.

DMA Clients should connect to the following servers:

• Live Accounts: MTCOOK-Live 5
• Demo Accounts: MTCOOK-Demo

1.) You first need to download and install the mobile app. You can download the iOS app for iPhones and iPads here and for Android smartphones and tablets here.

2.) Once installed you must “Login to an Existing Account”, and search for the broker’s server to connect to.

DMA Clients should search for, and connect to the following servers:

• Live Accounts: MTCOOK-Live 5
• Demo Accounts: MTCOOK-Demo

3.) After selecting your server, you will be prompted to enter your login (account number) and password. These are provided to you once your account has been approved by compliance. After entering these, click “Sign In” and this should connect you to your mobile trading account.

Unfortunately not. These orders cannot be guaranteed to fill at your specified price on a DMA stream. As per the slippage FAQ, these types of orders are sent as market orders, and thus depending on market volatility, it is possible to incur positive or negative slippage on these orders.

Unfortunately not. If your margin reaches the liquidation level, the software will begin to liquidate the position that has the highest losing amount. However please note that holding positions (especially large positions) or exposure on smaller balances in particular, can cause the % liquidation value to fluctuate rapidly, especially during fast moving markets.