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

The difference between ECN and market maker execution

A lot of the brokers you'll come across fall into one of two categories: dealing desk or ECN. The difference is more than semantics. A dealing desk broker becomes your counterparty. An ECN broker routes your order straight to liquidity providers — your orders match with actual buy and sell interest.

In practice, the difference becomes clear in how your trades get filled: spread consistency, how fast your orders go through, and whether you get requoted. ECN brokers generally deliver tighter pricing but apply a commission per lot. Dealing desk brokers pad the spread instead. Both models work — it comes down to how you trade.

If your strategy depends on tight entries and fast fills, ECN is almost always the better fit. Tighter spreads more than offsets paying commission on high-volume currency pairs.

Fast execution — separating broker hype from reality

Every broker's website mentions how fast they execute orders. Claims of "lightning-fast execution" sound impressive, but what does it actually mean in practice? It depends entirely on what you're doing.

For someone placing a handful of trades per month, a 20-millisecond difference won't move the needle. But for scalpers trading small price moves, every millisecond of delay translates to money left on the table. If your broker fills at under 40ms with zero requotes gives you an actual advantage compared to platforms with 150-200ms fills.

Certain platforms have invested proprietary execution technology to address this. Titan FX developed a proprietary system called Zero Point designed to route orders straight 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 review of Titan FX.

Raw spread accounts vs standard: doing the maths

This is something nearly every trader asks when setting up their trading account: is it better to have commission plus tight spreads or markup spreads with no fee per lot? The maths varies based on how much you trade.

Take a typical example. A standard account might offer EUR/USD at 1.1-1.3 pips. A commission-based account offers the same pair at 0.0-0.3 pips but applies a commission of about $7 per standard lot round trip. With the wider spread, the broker takes their cut via the markup. If you're doing moderate volume, ECN pricing saves you money mathematically.

Many ECN brokers offer both account types so you can pick what suits your volume. The key is to work it out using your real monthly lot count rather than trusting marketing scenarios — those tend to make the case for one account type over the other.

500:1 leverage: the argument traders keep having

The leverage conversation splits the trading community more than any other topic. Tier-1 regulators like ASIC and FCA restrict leverage to relatively low ratios for retail accounts. Offshore brokers still provide ratios of 500:1 and above.

The standard argument against is simple: it blows accounts. Fair enough — the data shows, traders using maximum leverage do lose. The counterpoint is something important: experienced traders never actually deploy 500:1 on every trade. What they do is use having access to high leverage to lower the money locked up in open trades — freeing up margin for additional positions.

Obviously it carries risk. That part is true. But blaming the leverage is like blaming the car for a speeding ticket. When a strategy requires reduced margin commitment, access to 500:1 lets you deploy capital more efficiently — and that's how most experienced traders actually use it.

VFSC, FSA, and tier-3 regulation: the trade-off explained

The regulatory landscape in forex exists on different levels. At the top is FCA, ASIC, CySEC. They cap leverage at 30:1, enforce client fund segregation, and put guardrails on the trading conditions available to retail accounts. Tier-3 you've got places like Vanuatu (VFSC) and similar offshore regulators. Less oversight, but the flip side is higher leverage and fewer restrictions.

The compromise is real and worth understanding: going with an offshore-regulated broker offers 500:1 leverage, fewer account restrictions, and typically lower fees. In return, you get less safety net if there's a dispute. There's no compensation scheme like the FCA's FSCS.

Traders who accept this consciously and choose better conditions, offshore brokers are a valid choice. The key is checking the broker's track record rather than only reading the licence number. An offshore broker with a long track record and no withdrawal issues under tier-3 regulation may be more reliable in practice than a freshly regulated broker that got its licence last year.

Scalping execution: separating good brokers from usable ones

If you scalp is where broker choice matters most. When you're trading tiny price movements and holding positions for seconds to minutes. At that level, seemingly minor differences in fill quality become the difference between a winning and losing month.

What to look for is short: raw spreads at actual market rates, fills consistently below 50ms, a no-requote policy, and no restrictions on scalping and high-frequency trading. Some brokers claim to allow scalping but add latency to execution for high-frequency traders. Look at the execution policy before depositing.

ECN brokers that chase this type of trader tend to make it obvious. They'll publish average fill times on the website, and they'll typically throw in VPS access for EAs that need low latency. If the broker you're looking at avoids discussing fill times anywhere on the website, that's probably not a good sign for scalpers.

Following other traders — the reality of copy trading platforms

Social trading has become popular over the past decade. The concept is obvious: identify traders who are making money, replicate their positions automatically, benefit from their skill. How it actually works is more complicated than the advertisements imply.

The biggest issue is time lag. When the trader you're copying opens a position, your copy goes through milliseconds to seconds later — and in fast markets, those extra milliseconds transforms a winning entry into a bad one. The tighter the profit margins, the more the impact of delay.

That said, certain implementations work well enough for traders who don't want to develop their own strategies. What works is platforms that show real performance history over at least 12 months, rather than visit this simulated results. Looking at drawdown and consistency are more useful than the total return number.

A few platforms offer proprietary copy trading within their main offering. This tends to reduce latency issues compared to standalone signal platforms that bolt onto MT4 or MT5. Research the technical setup before assuming historical returns will carry over to your account.