Starting to get 'Please Wait for a Quote' after making 150% return

I've been trading for the past 5 months with City Index, initially losing a lot of money in the first month. Since then i've made it all back and then some. In the past 3 weeks i've made back 150% return and all was going well until the past two days. I've been suddenly getting the dreaded 'Please wait for a quote' message whenever I try to close my position.

Now thankfully this has actually worked in my favour, I tried to close out yesterday at around £100 profit instead they didn't let me close until I was at £360. Today similar thing happened. This sounds good now but I won't be smiling if it happens while i'm trying to cut my losses. The waiting times haven't been terrible so far, they let me close within a minute or so of my first attempt but even that minute could be the difference between a small loss and wiping out half of my capital.

My question is - why is this happening? Is it because they have been busier lately and it's all a coincidence or are they trying to sabotage me for being too successful? Initially when I heard these stories I would've thought the latter but so far it has been working in my favour.

Is there anyway to bypass this issue?

Liquid-Ocelot said:

I've been trading for the past 5 months with City Index, initially losing a lot of money in the first month. Since then i've made it all back and then some. In the past 3 weeks i've made back 150% return and all was going well until the past two days. I've been suddenly getting the dreaded 'Please wait for a quote' message whenever I try to close my position.

Now thankfully this has actually worked in my favour, I tried to close out yesterday at around £100 profit instead they didn't let me close until I was at £360. Today similar thing happened. This sounds good now but I won't be smiling if it happens while i'm trying to cut my losses. The waiting times haven't been terrible so far, they let me close within a minute or so of my first attempt but even that minute could be the difference between a small loss and wiping out half of my capital.

My question is - why is this happening? Is it because they have been busier lately and it's all a coincidence or are they trying to sabotage me for being too successful? Initially when I heard these stories I would've thought the latter but so far it has been working in my favour.

this industry is never too busy to run risk the right way.. the models and systems work to a huge scale. they wont be trying to sabotage you either, its not personal, they want to find out how you're beating the odds so much and what makes you different to the vast majority of their clients.

Is there anyway to bypass this issue?

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have you asked them outright if you're on dealer referral? I'm not talking about asking the girl who answers the phone and fobs you off with scripted responses, you need to talk to one of the traders on the risk desk (preferably one of the traders there who will be part of the team hedging your business)

They wont lie to you as they don't have any reason to. They're entitled to be analytical about their clients and if they've made the conscious decision to route your trade requests through their manual processes rather than straight through like the vast majority of their trades because you're very good that's their prerogative, but you'd rather know for sure than assume you're being treated poorly.

If you're on dealer referral (sounds like you are) then you need to move because those odds that were slightly against you to begin with are now big against you.

consider what you're trading and how you're trading it. for example, if you lost all your money trading G7 FX pairs but then found City had a latent price in their far month NOK/JPY that you could guarantee profit in every time you traded, then you're not making that 150% return at all, you're actually acting in a pretty scummy way and once the s/b firms see what you're doing any trust they had in you or benefit of the doubt they gave you will be gone in an instant and they will watch you like a hawk - cant blame them right, you're trying to rip them off.

but, if you are trading eur/usd 4 times a day and holding positions for a reasonable time and are still on dealer referral you should be asking why and then you should be moving your money somewhere else.

What size are you trading? £100 to £360 while you wait for dealer conformation, sounds pretty high!

ffsear said:

What size are you trading? £100 to £360 while you wait for dealer conformation, sounds pretty high!

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he's talking about trying to cut out for £100 profit.. I imagine the stakes are small but he's clipping them after numbers or similar. I'd like to see more detail from him regarding his strategy. I know some good people at city index and they are nobodies fool.

it's all been seen before. if this guy is the first to go on dealer referral just because he is good and trading with a nice etiquette then he is one of a very very small group of people.

It makes no difference if your opening or closing a position as far as the dealer is concerned. Its either coming in or out of his book so dealer referral apply's to closing trades as it does for opening.

ffsear said:

It makes no difference if your opening or closing a position as far as the dealer is concerned. Its either coming in or out of his book so dealer referral apply's to closing trades as it does for opening.

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yes you're right.. he was the one who mentioned he was on dealer referral when trying to close his trade for £100 profit.

the dealer doesn't care if hes being clipped on a price that the guy is using to open or close a position.. that's a given.

highbury fx said:

have you asked them outright if you're on dealer referral? I'm not talking about asking the girl who answers the phone and fobs you off with scripted responses, you need to talk to one of the traders on the risk desk (preferably one of the traders there who will be part of the team hedging your business)

They wont lie to you as they don't have any reason to. They're entitled to be analytical about their clients and if they've made the conscious decision to route your trade requests through their manual processes rather than straight through like the vast majority of their trades because you're very good that's their prerogative, but you'd rather know for sure than assume you're being treated poorly.

If you're on dealer referral (sounds like you are) then you need to move because those odds that were slightly against you to begin with are now big against you.

consider what you're trading and how you're trading it. for example, if you lost all your money trading G7 FX pairs but then found City had a latent price in their far month NOK/JPY that you could guarantee profit in every time you traded, then you're not making that 150% return at all, you're actually acting in a pretty scummy way and once the s/b firms see what you're doing any trust they had in you or benefit of the doubt they gave you will be gone in an instant and they will watch you like a hawk - cant blame them right, you're trying to rip them off.

but, if you are trading eur/usd 4 times a day and holding positions for a reasonable time and are still on dealer referral you should be asking why and then you should be moving your money somewhere else.

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I'm afraid of calling them as this may put me on their radar when I wasn't in the first place.

My trading strategy is not based on price latency at all, I wouldn't even know how to do that. It's purely based on analysis, using an economic calendar, bloomberg, graphs and my own perception. I solely trade the ftse 100.

The only issue I can think of that they would have with my trading technique is that my trades typically last from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. I understand that this a typical reason why people are put on dealer referral.

Assuming this is it for me with City Index, are there any alternatives? I guess I could open accounts with competitors (IG, CMC etc...) and use this same technique until i'm put on dealer referral again.

I've also been looking at Prospreads as a permanent alternative but don't know enough about them at this point.

ffsear said:

What size are you trading? £100 to £360 while you wait for dealer conformation, sounds pretty high!

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£25 per point, today I upped it to £35.

Give IG a try ...

Yea as Tar says try IG. City index i think are more geared towards the smaller sized trader.

Liquid-Ocelot said:

£25 per point, today I upped it to £35.

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Sounds as if you are closing @ market price.

Have you considered using stop and limit orders, which are lodged on their systems in advance...thus no argument about getting closed out at the price you want .

Liquid-Ocelot said:

I'm afraid of calling them as this may put me on their radar when I wasn't in the first place.

My trading strategy is not based on price latency at all, I wouldn't even know how to do that. It's purely based on analysis, using an economic calendar, bloomberg, graphs and my own perception. I solely trade the ftse 100.

The only issue I can think of that they would have with my trading technique is that my trades typically last from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. I understand that this a typical reason why people are put on dealer referral.

Assuming this is it for me with City Index, are there any alternatives? I guess I could open accounts with competitors (IG, CMC etc...) and use this same technique until i'm put on dealer referral again.

I've also been looking at Prospreads as a permanent alternative but don't know enough about them at this point.

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you're on their radar. that's for sure. phone them, talk to the relevant risk desk and ask them this question "Is my account on dealer referral" they won't lie, if you are they'll tell you and if you aren't ask them why your trade requests are not being automatically executed and what do you need to do to remove the dealers intervention. it may be they didn't like a particular trade you done and put you on manual to keep an eye on you and will remove you from these checks if you assure them you aren't trying to rip them off.

are you trading the moment data is released? if you're sniping over the release of key data you're a s/b firms nightmare and the 2 of you will never have a good partnership until you start dropping money by punting at other times of the day....

you may be better trying an STP broker although a lot of STP brokers are now part of the liquidity that they're meant to be hedging in to! STP brokers (relationships with their liquidity providers aside) don't have the same paranoia regarding your trading prowess if they're not inheriting your risk.

Prospreads seem an obvious place to start but you could do better than that. I'm not going to ever recommend any s/b, cfd or stp broker because I want to remain impartial.

highbury fx said:

Prospreads seem an obvious place to start but you could do better than that. I'm not going to ever recommend any s/b, cfd or stp broker because I want to remain impartial.

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Hi highbury fx,
I understand the desire to remain impartial and not wanting to recommend any one broker in particular. Nonetheless, as it stands, this comment is a bit of a tease. How about telling us what - in your opinion - other firms offer that ProSpreads doesn't, or do better than them and/or identifying the elements that you would look for in a broker if you were in the OP's shoes? That shouldn't compromise you in any way and be useful and helpful to everyone following this thread.
Thanks!
Tim.

timsk said:

Hi highbury fx,
I understand the desire to remain impartial and not wanting to recommend any one broker in particular. Nonetheless, as it stands, this comment is a bit of a tease. How about telling us what - in your opinion - other firms offer that ProSpreads doesn't, or do better than them and/or identifying the elements that you would look for in a broker if you were in the OP's shoes? That shouldn't compromise you in any way and be useful and helpful to everyone following this thread.
Thanks!
Tim.

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Hi Tim

The OP asked a question about city index and being referred to dealer and that was what I was helping with. The thread then digressed to asking me who is an alternative to city index and as I have some good mates at city I don't feel comfortable mentioning other firms. my insight in to this industry should be more valuable than having me suggest where to do your business. There are many different firms out there to choose from and most of them are all much for muchness.

More often than not acrimony begins with the client being misinformed and jumping to conclusions.. the better firms will have an open dialog with you where they don't act defensive but act as an educator and justify their acts to their clients.. the bad ones have no interest in interacting with their clients at all and these are the shops that you should avoid.. these firms are more like call centres than brokerages and their model is to treat everyone very hard because the lifespan of the account is too short for them to bother investing resource in to forming a relationship. avoid these.. I wont mention the names because Trade2Win has plenty of threads critiquing these firms already.

I am close to lots of influential people in sb, cfds and fx and will be happy to offer an anonymous view in to the workings of this industry but if people press me for my identity i'll retreat and disappear. Having said that, I would look for exactly the same assurances that any other sensible person on here would : security of funds, security of funds, security of funds, regulated within the EU with a representative office or branch in the country where you are resident, good free trading tools such as news wire and charts, direct access to the dealing desk if need be, tight (not the tightest) spreads, competitive margins (who needs 500:1 gearing), evidence the platform is robust and has 99.9% uptime (they should all have this % as standard)

you can all make your own minds up where to deal, you don't need me for that. I'll continue to jump in and out of threads and hopefully will provide some information to you all that you may not have been aware of. I have no ulterior motive, am not here for business or to make contacts.. its because i'm nosey and I like to help

Liquid-Ocelot said:

I've been trading for the past 5 months with City Index, initially losing a lot of money in the first month. Since then i've made it all back and then some. In the past 3 weeks i've made back 150% return and all was going well until the past two days. I've been suddenly getting the dreaded 'Please wait for a quote' message whenever I try to close my position.

Now thankfully this has actually worked in my favour, I tried to close out yesterday at around £100 profit instead they didn't let me close until I was at £360. Today similar thing happened. This sounds good now but I won't be smiling if it happens while i'm trying to cut my losses. The waiting times haven't been terrible so far, they let me close within a minute or so of my first attempt but even that minute could be the difference between a small loss and wiping out half of my capital.

My question is - why is this happening? Is it because they have been busier lately and it's all a coincidence or are they trying to sabotage me for being too successful? Initially when I heard these stories I would've thought the latter but so far it has been working in my favour.

Is there anyway to bypass this issue?

Click to expand...

So far as I know there is only one way - open an account with a good sb company or a proper broker.

I wouldn't listen too much from others giving you all sort of excuses why they shouldn't execute your orders. They are supposed to execute them straight away unless they want to artificially reduce your profits/make you lose money.

highbury fx said:

. . . I'll continue to jump in and out of threads and hopefully will provide some information to you all that you may not have been aware of . . .

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Amen to that!


highbury fx - would I be correct in thinking that you work within the industry? If so, may I ask in what capacity?
Tim.

markobr said:

So far as I know there is only one way - open an account with a good sb company or a proper broker.

I wouldn't listen too much from others giving you all sort of excuses why they shouldn't execute your orders. They are supposed to execute them straight away unless they want to artificially reduce your profits/make you lose money.

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City Index are a good sb company. As far as I am aware they are professional, ethical and have good capital adequacy. I have no association with City Index.

This is not about making excuses for orders not being executed instantly. I will try and help you understand how s/b firms think and operate. We have already established they invest millions of pounds in ensuring they have the hardware and resource to compete. They will commit to huge marketing spends in their pursuit to on board clients to their platforms where they invariably offer tight spreads, low margins and free trading tools on thousands of products, 24 hours per day. They spend a lot of money to acquire the client on to a platform they consider to have everything the retail trader needs to have a good experience. The SB firm in return expects to have a good opportunity to make money.

If the spread bet firm has reason to think that any of their clients are acting in a way that they do not like they will take steps to protect their investment. There are a couple of ways to do that but putting clients on dealer referral is the preferred method as it shows you in real time what the client is doing rather than waiting for some post trade analysis and acting retrospectively. If the client is trading on (what the s/b firm considers to be) the correct price then the s/b firm will put him back on auto fill but may re-categorise him as A book. If the client is dealing on latent or incorrect prices what do you expect the s/b firm to do? clearly they won't let him continue to make money that way. They'll tell him to stop, if he doesn't they're at liberty to close his account.

This is very very rare. Most accounts will go straight through with no prob, but the ones that are unprofessional are the ones that will have steps taken against them and those 'traders' do not like that. Spreadbet firms are not there for these people to just help themselves to money. They are there as a fantastic way for retail traders to access markets with great spreads and play those markets with a fair chance of winning, and fortunately there are tens and tens of thousands in this country that enjoy doing that every day.

If you are on dealer referral it is definitely time to move on. No reason to stay or ask them as your experience of delayed execution is correct. Don't think you can continue winning with this kind of illegal manipulation, this game is hard enough without it. There are others around that might suite you better. With that kind of stake size I am surprise that you trade SB, if you have enough capital with proper money management the real market is the place to be.

If you like to stay with SB look for companies with a very fast price feed and instant execution, a company that don't blame your winnings on a crappy and lagging price feed. Not many around, I know, the only way to find out is to try them out to see if they can deliver a good and lasting service.

gle101 said:

If you are on dealer referral it is definitely time to move on. . Don't think you can continue winning with this kind of illegal manipulation, this game is hard enough without it. There are others around that might suite you better. With that kind of stake size I am surprise that you trade SB, if you have enough capital with proper money management the real market is the place to be.

If you like to stay with SB look for companies with a very fast price feed and instant execution, a company that don't blame your winnings on a crappy and lagging price feed. Not many around, I know, the only way to find out is to try them out to see if they can deliver a good and lasting service.

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so many things wrong with your post

1. Putting a clients orders on to manual referral is not illegal.

2. £25 a point of FTSE is not big enough to raise a red flag at ANY spreadbet firm

3. "The only way to find out is to try them out" is probably the worst advice ever. Yes, try them all out, theres only hundreds of them to get through.

What's 'A' book. Where the broker shadows the customers trades?