Raw spreads and fast execution: what traders need to know in 2026

The difference between ECN and market maker execution

The majority of forex brokers fall into two broad camps: market makers or ECN brokers. The distinction matters. A dealing desk broker is essentially the other side of your trade. A true ECN setup routes your order directly to banks and institutional LPs — your orders match with actual buy and sell interest.

For most retail traders, the difference matters most in a few ways: whether spreads blow out at the wrong moment, execution speed, and whether you get requoted. ECN brokers will typically deliver tighter pricing but charge a commission per lot. DD brokers widen the spread instead. Neither model is inherently bad — it hinges on what you need.

If you scalp or trade high frequency, ECN is almost always the better fit. The raw pricing makes up for the per-lot fee on most pairs.

Fast execution — separating broker hype from reality

You'll see brokers advertise fill times. Numbers like under 40ms fills look good in marketing, but what does it actually mean in practice? Quite a lot, depending on your strategy.

A trader who placing longer-term positions, a 20-millisecond difference is irrelevant. For high-frequency strategies trading small price moves, execution lag means money left on the table. If your broker fills at 35-40 milliseconds with a no-requote policy gives you an actual advantage compared to platforms with 150-200ms fills.

Certain platforms built proprietary execution technology to address this. Titan FX developed a Zero Point execution system designed to route orders immediately to LPs without dealing desk intervention — they report averages of under 37 milliseconds. For a full look at how this works in practice, see this Titan FX review.

Blade vs standard accounts: where the breakeven actually is

This ends up being the most common question when setting up a broker account: do I pay the raw spread with commission or zero commission but wider spreads? It depends on your monthly lot count.

Let's run the numbers. A standard account might have EUR/USD at 1.0-1.5 pips. The ECN option offers 0.1-0.3 pips but adds a commission of about $7 per lot traded both ways. With the wider spread, you're paying through every trade. If you're doing moderate volume, the raw spread account is almost always cheaper.

A lot of platforms offer both as options so you can compare directly. The key is to work it out using your real monthly lot count rather than relying on marketing scenarios — those usually make the case for whichever account the broker wants to push.

500:1 leverage: the argument traders keep having

High leverage polarises retail traders more than most other subjects. Tier-1 regulators like ASIC and FCA limit retail leverage at 30:1 in most jurisdictions. Offshore brokers still provide up to 500:1.

Critics of high leverage is simple: retail traders can't handle it. That's true — the numbers support this, most retail traders lose money. But the argument misses nuance: experienced traders never actually deploy the maximum ratio. They use the availability more leverage to reduce the margin tied up in open trades — freeing up funds to deploy elsewhere.

Yes, 500:1 can blow an account. Nobody disputes that. But blaming the leverage is like blaming the car for a speeding ticket. When a strategy requires lower margin requirements, the option of higher leverage lets you deploy capital more efficiently — most experienced traders use it that way.

Offshore regulation: what traders actually need to understand

Regulation in forex operates across tiers. At the top is regulators like the FCA and ASIC. They cap leverage at 30:1, mandate investor compensation schemes, and generally restrict what brokers can offer retail clients. Further down you've got places like Vanuatu (VFSC) and similar offshore regulators. Less oversight, but that also means better trading conditions for the trader.

What you're exchanging real and worth understanding: offshore brokers offers higher leverage, lower account restrictions, and usually lower fees. The flip side is, you sacrifice some investor protection if there's a dispute. There's no investor guarantee fund like the FCA's FSCS.

For traders who understand this trade-off and choose better conditions, offshore brokers work well. What matters is checking the broker's track record rather than simply trusting a licence badge on a website. An offshore broker with 10+ years of clean operation under VFSC oversight can be more reliable in practice than a freshly regulated FCA-regulated startup.

What scalpers should look for in a broker

If you scalp is where broker choice has the biggest impact. When you're trading small ranges and holding trades open for very short periods. With those margins, seemingly minor variations in spread become the difference between a winning and losing month.

Non-negotiables for scalpers comes down to a few things: true ECN spreads at actual market rates, execution under 50 milliseconds, zero requotes, and the broker allowing scalping strategies. Certain platforms technically allow scalping but throttle execution when they detect scalping patterns. Read the terms before funding your account.

Brokers that actually want scalpers will say so loudly. You'll see their speed stats disclosed publicly, and usually offer VPS hosting for EAs that need low latency. When a platform doesn't mention their execution speed anywhere on their site, that's probably not a good sign for scalpers.

Following other traders — the reality of copy trading platforms

Copy trading took off over the past decade. The appeal is simple: find profitable traders, replicate their positions in your own account, collect the profits. In practice is messier than the marketing imply.

What most people miss is time lag. When the lead trader executes, your copy executes after a delay — and in fast markets, those extra milliseconds transforms a profitable trade into a bad one. The tighter the average trade size visit site in pips, the worse this problem becomes.

Having said that, a few copy trading setups work well enough for traders who don't have time to trade actively. The key is finding transparency around real performance history over at least 12 months, rather than simulated results. Metrics like Sharpe ratio and maximum drawdown tell you more than raw return figures.

A few platforms have built in-house social platforms integrated with their regular trading platform. This can minimise latency issues compared to standalone signal platforms that sit on top of the trading platform. Research whether the social trading is native before assuming the lead trader's performance will translate in your experience.