IC Markets vs Pepperstone on XAUUSD: cost and fill notes

[LondonScalper]

IC Markets vs Pepperstone on XAUUSD: cost and fill notes -- desk log, not affiliate copy.

Gold costs are where venue differences show up fastest for me: open spread, slippage into round numbers, and whether partials are common at my size. I log side-aware fill vs quote, and I separate quiet London from post-data chaos.

Compare apples
Account type, markup, commission, and symbol contract specs. A "tighter" headline spread with worse slips is not tighter. Contract size quirks also skew mental R if you are careless.

I re-check quarterly because products change. Last quarter's winner is not a marriage.

If you have parallel logs on gold across these two (or others), which field actually moved your choice?

Gold contract specs and margin on peak days also matter for scalp size math. A venue can look cheap per ounce until margin forces awkward lot steps. Put that in the checklist beside spread. Costs are multi-dimensional on XAU.

[Shadow Trader]

The margin point at the end is worth expanding. On gold, margin requirements can change around big events or weekends, and some venues raise them without much warning.

If your scalp size is calculated from a fixed stop in dollars, a sudden margin increase can mean you can't open the size your plan says. I had a Friday where my usual 1 lot gold trade was rejected for margin on an account I'd sized for normal days.

So my checklist has a line for how much free margin I need for the largest position plus a buffer, and I check it on Monday mornings and before US data weeks.

The other quieter cost is swap, which doesn't matter for pure scalps but catches you if a trade drifts past rollover. Gold swaps can be larger than people expect.

Do you include swap in your cost log for the occasional trade that crosses rollover, or treat those as outliers?