FOREX Trading Platform Technology

zuffa · #1 (**permalink**) 04-15-2008, 02:12 PM

Hello y'all:

I am a recently retired software company professional. I am new to FOREX and am very interested in understanding what FOREX platforms are made of...

How are they developed? Using what technology?
How are they composed in their design?
Are the completely custom or do they leverage vendor technology like Oracle, Sun, Redhat, M$, etc.?

In my limited FOREX trading I have noticed some reliability issues on the client application (hanging, crashing, general slowness) and latency (slippage and rejected trades). This has peaked the engineering curiosity I have and thus my inquiries. Any insight would be interesting to the techies that do FOREX trading.

Thx in advance...

-Z

David Waring · #2 (**permalink**) 04-16-2008, 10:15 PM

Hi Zuffa,

Welcome to the community.

I am not a techie but I do know a little about trading technologies so I will do my best to answer your questions here as they relate to FXCM's platform which I am familiar with since this is where I used to work.

The first thing that it is important to understand from a forex technology standpoint is that because the market is over the counter there are no where near as many standards for forex trading technology as there are in the equities and futures markets where the exchanges are the backend of the platform and therefore the standard.

When someone develops a forex platform they have to go from start to finish in terms of developing the GUI, Backoffice, Trade Processing Etc. So as I understand it this makes it pretty difficult to build an FX platform in relation to other platforms.

In regards to your other questions I have contacted one of my former associates who has provided the below explanation:

Quote:

The FXCM platform is coded in C++ and follows industry standard in terms of the ports retail applications of this nature should be using for connectivity (ports 443 and 80). Using any other ports for connectivity (as we've seen with other retail trading platforms) would be odd and probably more a function of poor design.

There are platforms coded in many other languages as well so C++ is not the end-all when it comes to retail trading platforms. Depending on the complexity of the platform, trading volume and the execution systems supporting it would in part determine which language is better to use over another. From our experience with experimenting with various programming languages, C++ was the best solution for our Trading Station II platform to provide robust capabilities while keeping the application as "light" as possible in order to avoid bogging down a trader's computer. This could of course change in the future as new technologies emerge and/or the nature of trading and the industry evolves.

With all of this said I am surprised if you are in the US and having stability issues with the FXCM platform as I trade on the platform regularly without issues. With this in mind if there are issues I would recommend contacting FXCM as they are normally pretty good in my experience at responding to client and perspective client queries. Email is probably the best way to give them the opportunity to get your query to the right person.

As far as additional questions relating to the technical specifications of the FXCM platform I recommend contacting FXCM as well.

If there is anyone who has experience with other platforms please feel free to post below.

Best Regards,
Dave

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