sleazy, dishonest, avoid these guys
First, to be 'objective', here are a couple of good things about them.
1) They have a nice colourful platform (CMC NextGen platform)
2) Their staff is polite - at least, more polite than other brokers' staff. Of course, they are also very condescending.
I am a professional trader. I KNOW all the stuff about technical analysis, money management, position sizing, stop losses, etc. I make money when I trade via regular brokers.
I opened a CMC account to hedge - eg when regular markets are closed; eg to go short easily without loaning stock.
I have lost so much money on CMC over a few years that it isn't funny.
These guys are scammers in so many ways I don't know where to begin. OK, sure, some of their shennigans are common. But it doesn't make things right, especially when they project an air of respectability.
Let me reiterate the key points:
1) Their prices don't reflect the real market. Even Dow Futures can be 1% off at times. Hello, 1% off Dow, more than 140 points. HUH?
2) They love to run your stops. Do you guys know what a long tail doji or dragonfly is? When Dow trades in a tiny range, CMC can give you a long tail doji where they happily trigger your stops over 100 points away from where the futures cash market traded. Don't waste time quarreling with them. As I've said, they are very polite - and condescending.
Many people have observed that it isn't worth it to hold positions overnight on CMC, because they love using illiquid hours to hunt stops. But doesn't that defeat the purpose of hedging???
3) They have slippage like nobody's business, and it can happen even in an orderly market where the freaking stock DID NOT MOVE ALL DAY IN THE UNDERLYING MARKET!
On CMC, the stock conveniently moved up in one of CMC's characteristic price spikes and triggered my stop and I was stopped out at a price 5% above the day high during some mysteriously illiquid point of day.
I'm not talking about regular market volatility here - I don't get that kind of slippage on regular brokers who actually go into the cash market.
4) If there are mistakes (eg wrong feed; price not working, stock split not reflected, all kinds of weird stuff), you have to take forever to prove it to them.
One time they made a mistake and admitted it. It took them 2 months to refund me money that they took from me up front. TWO MONTHS!
5) They constantly change the rules of the game. On average I got 1 new email every month informing me of a whole bunch of changes. New fees, new rules, new limits... the playing field is already tilted 90 degrees in their favour and they still want to plant cactuses where I am running.
6) Even though they are market makers, they make you pay for data feeds which cost them nothing to conjure out of thin air.
I have just terminated my business relationship with them. There is no way you can make money from CMC unless YOU ARE AN IRRESPONSIBLE TRADER.
EG I've actually had a friend, a normally conservative trader on his other accounts, who opened a $4000 account, leveraged it to the max during a momo period, rode the momentum stock up, pyramided with no stop losses and closed out for a $143,000 profit after 8 months.
CMC is absolutely great for this sort of thing because your losses are limited to $4k.
If you want to make money consistently and not have some scammers play your stop losses, AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!