Best Thread Capital Spreads

My experience today with capital spread today. Has been "VERY" mixed. been stooped out of profitable trades due to sloppy executions. But I will give they did execute some trades for me. Trying to close was a problem. i am feeling rather STRESSED! was battling to get in and out of trades and that has drained me.

In view of the fact that it was nfp I will say they did their best. My stops were being trigger even though I could not see the price getting to where it was but... I just took it like a trader.

Me Too

Hi,

Had a bad day with CS as well today, took ages (well, 2-3 minutes) for my orders to get filled (albeit at the right price) after the nfp data...

dave

yes serious delays sometimes I get filled sometimes I don't. Most frustrating was trying to exit my trades .

But as I said over all frustrating but not bad. their site did not go down and did not go to phone only.

Did for me, twice!

The whole idea of a customers trades being manually accepted or rejected by a human dealer at their end (who might be chatting to his colleague, leaving the client waiting for trade confirmation) just seems a bit amateurish in 2006. Perhaps all or most spreadbet dealers operate like this, but I do not see why automatic acceptance or rejection of trades isn't used like with reatil spot forex dealers, surely this would be easier and less problematic all round?

jtrader said:

The whole idea of a customers trades being manually accepted or rejected by a human dealer at their end (who might be chatting to his colleague, leaving the client waiting for trade confirmation) just seems a bit amateurish in 2006. Perhaps all or most spreadbet dealers operate like this, but I do not see why automatic acceptance or rejection of trades isn't used like with reatil spot forex dealers, surely this would be easier and less problematic all round?

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Yes, of course it would! CS will probably say that this allows them to prevent errors through rogue prices (Simon has said this before, I believe), however I would have thought that auto filling (at least to a fairly high maximum bet size) and manually sorting out a few problems would be easier than manually (and slowly) dealing with every trade...

Speed of execution isn't really important to me as a longer term (not daytrade) trader, but I can see that CS would not be the firm of choice for those who were trading shorter tfs.

Before Simon says this isn't possible, oanda for example fill instantaneously on up to big trade size, never any slippage so far as I can see and tighter spreads....No contest in terms of execution...

Speed of execution isn't massively significant to me either, as long as i were to get filled at the price i click on, without getting a requote after 20 seconds cos the price is no longer there due to the dealer being otherwise engaged chatting to his colleague! Not saying that this happens, as I have no experience of trading with CS, but with this type of human intervention it sounds possible................

When your operating in the technical and electronic field of trading, the last thing you want is a human having the final say on whether your trade is accepted, it just seems a bit strange to me and it sends out mixed messages...................

Are CS working on a fully automated trade confirmation system thats due to be released any time soon? if so, will this only be upto a maximum bet size, with orders higher than this value still being referred to the human dealer for confirmation?

I've said it before, but I am astonished that people persevere with Capital Spreads.

I made 6 trades yesterday afternoon after NFP (and plenty of money) with D4F.
The first one which was to close a trade on the initial spike at 1.30pm was requoted, but very quickly (about 15 seconds).; this cost me about 3 pips. - But this is acceptable in a very fast moving market after news.

Every other trade was very quick and smooth as always. - I place 5 - 10 trades per day and I just never have a problem.

Why do people persevere with a clearly inferior platform?

mburdge said:

I've said it before, but I am astonished that people persevere with Capital Spreads.

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Well, I haven't done, now using oanda...

I've also heard from a number of people that D4F/CMC are very good on execution, too...

mburdge said:

Why do people persevere with a clearly inferior platform?

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Don't know...

To me, human confirmation of trades just doesn't make any sense. What's the point? employ half a dozen people to click a mouse in order to confirm or reject a trade request every time one is received, or alternatively let a computer do it. I wonder what is the most efficient method?

I have no experience of trading with CS, and their spreads look to be the narrowest of the spreadbet companies that I am aware of................

But it's not like a human dealer would be able to say, "oh yes, I remember, client no. 25104597 sold BARC at 1502:53, and bought back at 1519:03."

jtrader.

I suspect that Simon has realised this was a weak link, and the automated system will address it - I suspect the design meeting went along the lines of 'This is pants, fix it' and then the doughnuts came out.
one of those things perhaps where he didn't fully think it through prior to launch, and is now scrambling a little to fix the problem. The speed of execution issue affects part of the market he's servicing, looks like this part wasn't regarded as critical.

Meantime he is bound to stick up for CS, and try to minimise the problem, don't blame him in the slightest for that. Like anyone selling a product he'd probably claim it cured baldness and came with free beer if he thought anyone'd believe him.

The problem seems to hit the Forex guys primarily, maybe bigger traders too - for those of us on stocks and indices etc it's not really an issue, it takes maybe 10-15 seconds to put a small bet through but it tends to go through at the price we picked.... occasionally I seem to lose a point (at most).

Capital Spreads are a nice bunch to deal with - I think the reason many stick with them boils down to the fact that for many of us small fry the execution speed isn't an issue, and we like the company. (Even sent me a Christmas card signed by the staff - mind you, it should have been attached to a hamper considering my record with SB - thank goodness it's not the only string to my bow or I'd be broke by now).

For bigger SBers and Forex types it's probably better to use others - I would suggest that as and when (Feb?) the automated system arrives it might pay to give it a try if you swap to another bunch meantime.

A big manual fix meantime would be to ensure that orders were processed at the price on offer when the user confirmed the buy or sell - the complaint isn't so much about a late fill, it's about the user deciding to enter at a specific price and then CS delays the fill, or rejects it... the user should be guaranteed a fill at the price on offer when they made the trade. Bet that'd kill almost all the criticism stone dead... I don't see why the manual system can't guarantee this.

DaveJB - A big manual fix meantime would be to ensure that orders were processed at the price on offer when the user confirmed the buy or sell - the complaint isn't so much about a late fill, it's about the user deciding to enter at a specific price and then CS delays the fill, or rejects it... the user should be guaranteed a fill at the price on offer when they made the trade. Bet that'd kill almost all the criticism stone dead... I don't see why the manual system can't guarantee this.

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I agree.

CS have said (but not guaranteed) that the price you click on is (usually) the price you get filled at, even if there is a delay in the fill, with the exception being periods of high volatility. For non scalpers, a 10-15 second wait shouldn't be a problem. But even for non scalpers, if you click on a price, decide it was a mistake, then have to wait 10-15 seconds to see if it was filled before you can exit, then have to wait another 10-15 seconds to see if your exit was filled.....................

CS (Simon) has certainly been frank and forthcoming on this thread in developing a sense of trust with T2W members (a good PR exercise), so the customer serivce seems excellent (on the phone also), based on this, I would prefer CS to CMC. I bet if you tried getting similar information from CMC, even through private email or by telephone, they would not provide it.

Hopefully automated fills should resolve most problems when introduced, and create a better trading experience. When CS do introduce automated trades, with daily rolling SP500 for example, with a maximum bet size of £400, have they indicated what type of size bet will be the limit for automated fills, with orders above this amount still requiring manual confirmation?

Cheers

jtrader.

I tried using CS on NFP day and its a nightmare...it seems that if you hit the tab and the price has gone more than 5 pips in your favour after waiting an age, they give you the 'price no longer valid' sign! But if you hit the tab and it has gone more than 5 pips against you whilst you wait you will get filled! Perhaps the FSA should pay a visit to CS on NFP day and monitor exactly what happens. We should also have access to some sort of market ticker tape read out so that we can independantly check whether the price actually triggered our stops or whether we are just being led like lambs to the slaughter.
I will now open an account with D4F as suggested above and see if they are any better! I won't hold my breath though!

Yup,

the price you click on is (usually) the price you get filled at, even if there is a delay in the fill, with the exception being periods of high volatility.

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Then it might be an idea to have an icon or something to denote ' volatility too high currently to fill at chosen price' so people are advised of the periods they can't handle properly. At least until the new system is running - perhaps quotes highlighted in yellow on the main screen or something like that?

It's the 'not knowing' that does for them, I think. It simply isn't fair to allow one side of the deal to reject trades that don't suit them.... there's no suggestion that when the price starts moving faster than a customer might like they can call a time out until it quietens down again. I am presuming that the basic issue is that the price advertised on the site is lagging the reality, and the cure for that is that the quote window for trade entry/exit updates in realtime tick by tick and you get the price you click on, guaranteed.

It is a bit of a nonsense for those in fast moving markets - I sympathise with CS because I doubt it's company policy to screw around - it'd just be too much hassle to keep up long term, but for a trader seeing these rejections you only need 1 in 3 to be against your interest to 'feel' like every trade is being manipulated. That is AWFULLY bad PR.

When all is said and done they're slightly upmarket bookmakers and SB is putting a fiver on trap 6 at Harringay. (Assuming they still have dog racing there...) I doubt the 'normal' bookies would even dream of trying to accept/reject bets after holding onto them for the first half of each race.

The cure is hopefully the upcoming auto system, which should lay all these ghosts to rest. It is not surprising that those trading more volatile markets will shift, and rightly so - it's bad enough having to get entry and exit right, without somebody playing silly B's with your attempts to make the trades.

Hmmm, interesting comments, guys.

I don't think they are deliberately trying to manipulate things, the delay situation is probably just inefficiency I suspect, where with increasing numbers of trades they get bogged down having to manually authorise everything.

I've nothing against CS at all, I like the simple operation, I like their helpfulness / admin efficiency, the spreads are good, it's just for me, until their 24 fx comes in, my edge is gone...

As long as I get the price to within a pip or two, I don't really care how long it takes to authorise the trade. All my entires / exits are on orders anyway, I never open or close at market.

I also never trade fast markets, so haven't realy experienced some of the problems other have seen...

I'll start using them again, as soon as the honour stops and limits 24 hours a day...

Just thought I'd post one in favour of CS.... as it seems so rare !!

A couple of times recently where I've had to use their limit order system (hate doing it because I don't trust them) The target price has ONLY just been reached (and I do mean bang on !!) before reversing yet the limit order has been filled.

It's not a big stake but people need confidence in a system before "larging" it.

Good job Simon.

Back from the dead

we are trying a new price feed (added yesterday) on FX which will hopefully solve most of our quoting probs... for the time being anyway!

The number of incorrect prices seems to be way way down and trade fills are almost (but not quite) 100% now.

Simon

capitalspreads said:

Back from the dead

we are trying a new price feed (added yesterday) on FX which will hopefully solve most of our quoting probs... for the time being anyway!

The number of incorrect prices seems to be way way down and trade fills are almost (but not quite) 100% now.

Simon

Click to expand...

That explains why we are seeing quote on gbp for 0.0000 -0.0003 only in capitalsspreads

Shame we can't sneak in a buy ready for it to come back in line!

Simon
Much appreciate addition of your charts
However there is a problem
For example GBP/CAD has a spike down to 1.4 (market 2.06 app)
The chart therefore condences to a thin line to accomadate the spike
Daily and weekly charts affected so will be present for a very long time
Any chance of a cure
This is not an isolated incidence but above a good example