Join me for lower spreads
You could always try
OANDA, The Currency Site: Foreign Exchange Services and Trading
they do have variable spreads i.e they got up in news times and weekends
and periodically
pip spread
eurusd 0.9
gbpjpy 4.5
gbpusd 2.5
etc etc
make your 500k there then move across
I've had an account there for about 3 years. I am actually quite a fan of Oanda. I've made most of my money there actually. But after I was making good money almost every week for about 3 or 4 months straight, they started manipulating the movement of the pair I was trading and I stopped growing my account, and moved most of my money about a month or two later back to MIG.
Honestly, if the EURUSD was the pair I wanted to trade, I would stay at Oanda. I used their API and it wasn't everything I can do with MT4 but it was good enough.
I am actually interested in the exotics more. For example, the EURAUD is 4 pips for part of the day, and then goes up to like 8 pips or more for the rest of the day. So 5 constantly day or night, for me is much better! I trade 24 hours a day, so I need the low spreads all day and night.
Oanda is great, but not as good as the Institutional account.
Another really good example where the Institutional Account is better than Oanda is AUDNZD. At the lowest, Oanda gives a 6 pip spread, and goes up as high as 15 at sometimes in the afternoon, with 25 pip spread at news times. For the Institutional Account, they advertise you will get a 5 pip spread on that same pair. Also, over the past 2 years that I have had a real account with MIG, they only widen the spreads a few pips when Oanda widens it 10+ pips.
But there are some drawbacks to MIG that Oanda doesn't have, but all in all, this is the best decision for me at this time, assuming I can get it.
Appearantly there's not a lot of interest in this. 
Has anyone reading this ever looked into opening an Institutional account at MIG? I am curious to see what others have found out.
Hi big Alcoholic 
When you have over 10 000 $, then why don't you move your money to ECN broker.
Like:
1.Hotspot
2.IB
3.Dukascopy
4.EFX/MBT
You will get better spread than MIG can give you.
.......
But there are some drawbacks to MIG that Oanda doesn't have, but all in all, this is the best decision for me at this time, assuming I can get it.Willis
Can you state the brawbacks? That you mentioned above.
Keit
I'm more interested in how you arrived at the conclusion that Oanda was manipulating the data on your account? That's doesn't seem very realistic unless you are scalping, and they flagged you.
Willis
Can you state the brawbacks? That you mentioned above.
KeitThey requote a lot. And more frustrating to me is the pending order/TP that hits on the chart and doesn't filll. When I point it out to them, they usually just tell me it was a "wrong quote." Other than that, I really like them.
I'm more interested in how you arrived at the conclusion that Oanda was manipulating the data on your account? That's doesn't seem very realistic unless you are scalping, and they flagged you.
No, I wouldn't call my style scalping, though it is really active. What I saw was comparing their highs and lows to MIG they were roughly the same, then they started delaying ups and downs to see if there was going to be a drawback and if there was, they wouldn't show the movement at all. If there wasn't a drawback, Oanda would gradually show the price going the direction over a few minutes usually. Anyway, it stopped me from profiting and I moved most of my funds back to MIG for now.
Oanda didn't complain to me about my trading style, they just started having a very different feed, though since I left, I've noticed that it is back to acting basically the same as MIG's feed.
Hi big Alcoholic
When you have over 10 000 $, then why don't you move your money to ECN broker.
Like:
1.Hotspot
2.IB
3.Dukascopy
4.EFX/MBT
You will get better spread than MIG can give you.As far as drinking, I don't even drink caffeine. But when I was a kid I loved playing Mike Tyson's Punchout on Nintendo, and Soda Popinski (in my pic) is one of the charactors from that game (notice it says "pop" on the bottle).
As for the ECNs, they do have low spreads, but they also have in some cases larger spreads. Also, I hate manuel trading, so I need to be able to run automated trading. Preferably MT4 as that is what I am the most used to. I know IB does have an API available, but their spreads with some pairs are worse than Oanda, and especially worse than the account I am trying to get. Like the other day I watched it for a while and saw the EURGBP was 3 pips most of the time and AUDNZD usually around 10 etc. Not very appealing for me as I am getting lower than that with a standerd MIG account right now, and Oanda is better too. But maybe I should look more into other ECNs.
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I am considering creating a joint account in order to have the $500,000 needed to open an Institutional Account at MIG Investments. I can invest up to about $100,000 of my own money, but I am unable to reach $500,000 with my own equity, even if I sold my house and put the whole thing in! But with a Joint Institutional account we would get a 1 pip spread on the EURUSD and USDJPY as well as lower spreads on many other pairs such as EURAUD and the GBPJPY for only 5 pips!
Anyway, in short, for very active traders such as myself, it would make the difference of about 90 pips on my more active days. No, I'm not making that up, that is what I calculated the other day when I had many trades on a Thursday either last week, or the week before, and it was trading the exotics.
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts about this idea or have serious intrest (meaning you can invest a larger amount of money like I am), please post here or send me a message.
Happy trading everyone!