Spreads & Commissions

Electronic Communications Networks or ‘ECNs’ are off-exchange execution venues which allow market participants to trade with a range of counterparties anonymously. They are the main trading venues for OTC markets such as Foreign Exchange and Metals.

This basically means ECNs provide the technology and venue for price makers aka ‘liquidity providers’ to distribute their liquidity. Price takers (traders) can see these prices and execute trades against them. The ECN is therefore responsible for prices/quotes and the execution of orders.

See our ECN page for a detailed overview of the Global Prime ECN offering.

Spreads from 0.0 pips refers to a broker’s ability to price a product with a spread of 0.0 pips. This can normally only be done when a number of conditions are met, including: an aggregated or ‘ECN’ price feed (see ECN page) and no spread floor in place i.e. no minimum spread.

The term was first used in 2012 at about the same time that (news) ‘tick scalper’ automated trading systems were giving brokers headaches. Global Prime and a number of other brokers used the term ‘Spreads from 0.0 pips’ to help distinguish themselves from brokers who have spread floors/minimums and put restrictions on trading. Nowadays most brokers feature this term or ‘ECN’ in their advertising but they will have restrictions on trading due to their B-book model.

Global Prime has spreads from 0.0 pips with no restrictions and operates an ECN/STP model with no B-book. We prove this with trade receipts rather than fancy marketing terms.

The Spread is the difference between the market bid and ask price on a security for an immediate order.

The spread is represented by the bid and offer quotes and can be perceived as a measure of liquidity in the market.

Generally speaking, tight spreads are indicative of high liquidity whereas wide spreads are an indicator of scarce liquidity.

You can find the average spreads at the following link: https://www.globalprime.com/trading-conditions/spreads/

The bid price represents the maximum price that a buyer is willing to pay for a security and the ask price represents the minimum price that a seller is willing to take for the security.

Variable spreads deliver the best bid and offer prices available at a certain time as opposed to having the spreads fixed at a certain level.

Global Prime offers some of the most competitive spreads in the market. With the average spreads on majors as low as 0.1 pips, Global Prime offers some of the tightest spreads.

Yes, Global Prime is an ECN broker.

Global Prime runs an ECN that serves to facilitate trades between the LP’s and clients, ensuring the very best execution.

Global Prime does not have a dealing desk as we provide clients unfiltered access to our network of liquidity providers. We do not profile clients nor market make which ensures our interests are aligned with the clients.

Global Prime offers ‘straight through processing’ as our ECN enables direct access to our network of liquidity providers.