New account at Jade FX
I’ve finally gotten around to opening a MT4 ECN account. I have, for the last month or so, been actively searching for a alternative to my Alpari UK account to run scalpers on basically. I’ve been running demos loaded with FAPT (all four pairs) and MD Pro (also all four pairs) at multiple brokers and have now come to the conclusion that JadeFX offers one of the best (demo) data streams available to us mere mortals. Spread wise it is often even tighter on the majors than DukasCopy (with the JFOREX retail platform at least). But of course, it would have been better to run this test on live accounts, but I think that isn’t possible for most of us. As for commissions JadeFX has the lowest I’ve found at 5 USD / lot.
I’ve also opted to use their VPS service. The servers running my MT4 will be in the same datacenter as Jade FX’s live (and demo) trading server. I’ve not had time to do more than log in and run a simple ping as of yet, but it is really nice with sub 1ms latency. I see one problem with the actual VPS service and that is that it is run using VMWare (ESX i presume) and that we as customers isn’t offered our own sandboxes (with full Administrator privileges). I would have preferred Virtuozzo and Datacenter edition offering containers with Virtual Servers that we ourselves can reboot and such. I’ve asked support about the possibility to run as Administrator. I really want to be able to use AlwaysUp in order to run my MT4 sessions as services, with the possibility to restart them daily to avoid memory problems. The VPS service is quite cheap at $25/month plus Paypal fees ($27 for me) and you get 1 gig of ram.
As for funding and support I must say that they are really fast. My application for the account was processed in one hour and my VPS was setup in 3 hours. Support have answered all my emails (3 as of yet) within one hour every time. Very impressive I would say, and the answers have been helpful also, not just some bonehead answers I’ve been getting from some help desks over the years… (I’ve actually worked at a Help desk back office and I know not everyone employed at such places are Einsteins or even remotely interested in their work. No offense.)
I will start with just trading MD on EURUSD on Monday on my small deposit of just $500. I see it as kind of a live test to see that everything is working before starting FAPT and MD Pro on it (and add more funds). The main reason is that I have a spare MD license (left over from my Forex.com/UK account) so it is the easiest and cheapest to setup 
I am contemplating setting up a FXCBS account also as I’ve noticed that they are offering quite a lot better spreads in EURCHF during the important scalping times. In the other important pairs like EURUSD they are not as competitive (compared to JadeFX), so I would primarily run EURCHF with FAPT and MD Pro there if I go for it. As you know my strategy have been to find a few different brokers and EAs to run as a mean to diversify my currency trade operation. I think it would be wise not to put all the eggs in one basket. Remember to sign at FXCBS through cashbackforex.com if you go for it, they’ll give you 15% back (brings commission down to 0.68 USD / lot)
Oh, have I forgotten about DukasCopy and FAPT Evo? Well, I have applied for an account there and I still own the license, but I won’t be going live right now. First of all I won’t be able to fund the $10K account this fall as I first thought (because I’m going backpacking for three months instead, need the funds for that) and second FAPT Evo really haven’t impressed me that much. Original FAPT on the right broker (hopefully JadeFX) have been keeping up with it. So hence my decision to wait with it.
I’ll keep you updated on my experiences with Jade FX over the coming days / weeks.