Best Thread Capital Spreads

[zuke]

Sorry to say, serious chart problems again with the USD/SEK on CS. At about 3:15 today, the chart and the price were over 120 pips different! No sign of a reolution from the helpdesk either


At worst, the chart was 5 minutes lagging behind the price.

Absolutely ridiculous! Happened on Friday as well. At some points CS was 50-80 pips away from IG and Esignal!

 

[romik]

Sorry to say, serious chart problems again with the USD/SEK on CS. At about 3:15 today, the chart and the price were over 120 pips different! No sign of a reolution from the helpdesk either


At worst, the chart was 5 minutes lagging behind the price.

You shouldn't trust any broker's data, only when it matches your primary data source. I recall using X_Trader and you will not believe, but X_T's feed was pure ****. totally unreliable. It used to just lock at times of increased volatility and if you were to base your decisions trusting X_T's data it was impossible to exploit its main purpose - speed and efficiency of execution. Later I switched to NT & it was a lot better, but IQ feed never locked in the last year that I've been using it, so I would always recommend to base your decisions not on your broker's charts/tape, but on another reliable source. Especially when scalping, a practical impossibility due to unreliability of CS's chart data, and it's not just CS, all others as well. One would have thought that reliability of quotes/charts would be a number 1 priority for a broker that is neutral to client's dealings, but all these bad data experiences suggest that a lot of retail brokers/bookies have another agenda, otherwise why not rectify ongoing problems.

 

[The Pear]

You shouldn't trust any broker's data, only when it matches your primary data source. I recall using X_Trader and you will not believe, but X_T's feed was pure ****. totally unreliable. It used to just lock at times of increased volatility and if you were to base your decisions trusting X_T's data it was impossible to exploit its main purpose - speed and efficiency of execution. Later I switched to NT & it was a lot better, but IQ feed never locked in the last year that I've been using it, so I would always recommend to base your decisions not on your broker's charts/tape, but on another reliable source. Especially when scalping, a practical impossibility due to unreliability of CS's chart data, and it's not just CS, all others as well. One would have thought that reliability of quotes/charts would be a number 1 priority for a broker that is neutral to client's dealings, but all these bad data experiences suggest that a lot of retail brokers/bookies have another agenda, otherwise why not rectify ongoing problems.

romik - you could pay for reuters or bloomberg and trade off them......what you get from cs etc is something for free - they are the ones effectively paying for the feed. it must be put into perspective esp as its a given tht you should not use their (or any other SB firm for that matter)charting to trade on. They clearly state it is indicative.

 

[capitalspreads]

zuke jbat100

as with all things we are at the mercy of our IT. Over the christmas and new year period we reached (unknown to 'the management') our limit on the charting package due to the surge in new clients over that period. This is being rectified as we speak and should be back to normal v.soon.

romik

i am not sure what your point is here. Why on earth would we facilitate the ability for clients to 'scalp' us??

Pear

thanks

cheers
simon

 

[romik]

romik

i am not sure what your point is here. Why on earth would we facilitate the ability for clients to 'scalp' us??
QUOTE]

exactly, I simply stated the obvious to people that are new to spread betting and the message was - do not trust their charts. It is a free tool, but I personally fail to see positive uses for a free charting package from SBs, perhaps just to lure a newbie into losing some dosh, otherwise why bother providing them in the first place?

 

[JP1966]

I am staggered how anyone chooses a broker with reference to 'free' news or charts.

The broker is there for ability to get good fills, end of.

You want news pay for reuters, bloomberg or market news. Ditto with charting packages.

 

[capitalspreads]

romik

our charts are actually pretty good. They come from 'our quotes'.

Most complaints about FX charts are comparisons between providors but the problem is that in FX there is no 'exchange' so one quoting banks high price may not be the same as another and depending on who is providing the prices to the charting company will depend on what highs and lows you will get. You will also get the problem as to what is being shown ... is the chart taking 'the bid', 'the offer' or a 'mid point.'

In reality our charts do at least show real levels at which trades could be made on our platform (unless there is a misquote of course) which means that for practicable purposes they are of rather more use than most.

Your argument that we just provide charts to 'lure newbies in' is disengenous in the extreme. You could say the same about any improvement or service offered on any financial trading platform. Maybe we should all just go back to telex and telephone systems and leave the trading business to the 'professionals'. You obviously have never run a business especially in a cut throat market like SB. We must keep up with other companies offerings or try to get something new out first otherwise we will lose business to them. We must run too stay ahead.

Simon

 

[capitalspreads]

jp1966

well yes, but if you look at our data it is not actually provided by us. We just pay for the data from Digital Look and from Stockcube who are totally independent from us. We have no input into the data seen by clients whatsoever. I can assure you that their info is as good if not better than the two mentioned by you. They are fighting for a place in the market whereas the behemoths that you mention are the entrenched 'status quo' as most of their money comes from the 'big boys' not from the retail arm.

Simon

 

[romik]

romik

our charts are actually pretty good. They come from 'our quotes'.

Most complaints about FX charts are comparisons between providors but the problem is that in FX there is no 'exchange' so one quoting banks high price may not be the same as another and depending on who is providing the prices to the charting company will depend on what highs and lows you will get. You will also get the problem as to what is being shown ... is the chart taking 'the bid', 'the offer' or a 'mid point.'

In reality our charts do at least show real levels at which trades could be made on our platform (unless there is a misquote of course) which means that for practicable purposes they are of rather more use than most.

Your argument that we just provide charts to 'lure newbies in' is disengenous in the extreme. You could say the same about any improvement or service offered on any financial trading platform. Maybe we should all just go back to telex and telephone systems and leave the trading business to the 'professionals'. You obviously have never run a business especially in a cut throat market like SB. We must keep up with other companies offerings or try to get something new out first otherwise we will lose business to them. We must run too stay ahead.

Simon

FWIW your fills are probably one of the best when compared to other SBs, but all SBs charts are rubbish, hence I do not see the point of providing them in the first place. Forget FX, I've seen spikes on S&P & not on my other charting platform.

My response was to a poster who complained about your charts & I simply advised him not to base his/hers decisions based on your charts, scalping or not. Might as well use Yahoo!'s bad data, it's also free.

 

[capitalspreads]

Romik

fair enough.

your point about the S&P is that we quote off the futures not the 'cash' therefore there will often be sudden moves in the futures which are then reversed in just a few seconds. The 'cash' market does not have time to respond as there are 500 shares that must move and so a chart for the S&P500 'cash' will not look exactly like the S&P500 futures chart and therefore 'our chart'.

but i take your point that if we are price provider and chart provider how do you 'trust us' . Difficult to answer and no matter what I say here there will always be those who believe that we somehow fiddle the prices to affect their positions. ce la vie

cheers

simon

 

[Pippppin]

Capital Spreads charts are, in my opinion, not rubbish. I find them to be very useful. I do not expect them to be 100% error free, since I have discovered errors in all the charts I have ever used, paid for, or otherwise. The "error threshold", if that is an appropriate term, is acceptable given that they are free for account holders

 

[romik]

...The "error threshold", if that is an appropriate term, is acceptable given that they are free for account holders

And IMO they are acceptable for tightwads. I would only place a trade if CS's quote matches my chart's data from IQ, if they don't match then there is no trade.

 

[romik]

The main issue with using SBs chart data is that it is based on SB's quotes. I've just done a quick reference on SPX's major Support on daily 28th Nov 06- Actual low was 1377.83 & CS's low was 1375.90. Here is another major Support on the weekly 12 June 06 - Actual low was 1219.29 and CS's low was 1217.50.

So if one was to trade a potential breakdown of these levels & went with CS's quote, which could have been ~2pts off actual market quote, then chances are that person would have been ****ed. Do not rely on broker's data, always double check! I can't say any more than that.

 

[capitalspreads]

romik

you are not comparing the same thing here

as i mentioned before our quotes come from the S&P futures. Looking at a chart for the SPX is pretty useless BECAUSE YOU CANNOT ACTUALLY TRADE IT. The SPX is just a calculated index you cannot buy or sell it except through its derivative which is the futures market. The SPX index also only gives prices from 14.30 to 21.00 which clean misses out the important US data releases at 13.30 when prices can move quite dramatically.

We quote the Rolling S&P from 07.00 to 21.15 from the futures markets so there is a good chance that on quite few days a month that the highs (or lows) will be printed before or after the SPX has actually opened or closed.

If you want to compare our prices to the S&P futures (plus or minus fair value) using the front month futures contract I think that you will find exact correlation in price activity.

Simon

 

[Visaria]

Simon,

Why do you (and the other Sbs) offer daily/rolling cash contracts like on the FTSE and S&P? Client demand?

In that case, why do clients prefer these over the daily futures contracts which, unlike the cash instruments, prices/orders on these can't really be manipulated by SBs. In over 15 years of trading, I still haven't figured this out!

visaria

 

[capitalspreads]

we do offer the 'daily futures' contract with the same spread as the rolling markets but for some reason they have never really been of interest to clients. The fact that they close out at the end of the day and that it is not so easy to get the current price on the contracts probably accounts for the lower interest. The live cash FTSE general price can be found from a variety of sources and is mentioned on the news etc.

We used to offer both the rolling and the daily cash (which expired at 16.30 every day) but within a couple of months of opening the rolling market we hardly got any trades in the cash market at all (maybe 2 or 3 a day) and the shenannigans over the 'auction ' at the end of the day to get the official sttlement caused so many complaints from clients that we eventually decided to remove it.

Simon

 

[Jbat001]

More of the same problems with the feed and the charts on USD/SEK. Chart is a full nine minutes behind the market. This is no fun

 

[capitalspreads]

jbat

upgrade due tommorrow (!!) according to my IT. So fingers crossed shud be back to normal.

Simon

 

[minx]

More of the same problems with the feed and the charts on USD/SEK. Chart is a full nine minutes behind the market. This is no fun

Sorry to say it but there really is no substitute for paying for your own charting package. I wouldn't dream of trading without my own charts, studies, etc all on a reliable system with a reliable data feed. There are lots of fairly cheap ones out there if you dont have much of a budget. I view it as a necessary cost of my doing business (trading).

 

[capitalspreads]

minx

although I would like to disagree I cannot. We provide charts as a free service but quite a bit of trading psycology is 'confidence' . Our charting package is very good (or has been up to the last couple of week) but there will always be the nagging feeling (because we quote and chart) that somehow we 'adjust' the prices.

to give that full sense that you are getting the full story a complimentary chart package may provide the confidence that you need.

simon