Best Thread Capital Spreads

Capitalspreads

Take your point, however if trading the daily it will only be good for that day and it really depends what the market is doing. The current deal may not be worth holding till close depending on the trend. Most days the final 15 mins is not at the optimum position for the day so I would generally close before hand and therefore do not see a benefit from your close policy for my own circumstances. I would in the vast majority of cases if dealing through your company currently be facing a spread of 3 points at the close of my deal before the close of session and not 2 that I have with D4F.
 
As my namesake at Capitalspreads has so rightly pointed out, it is an absolute disaster for s/b firms to have losing clients. The cost to open an account is considerable after all the paperwork and checking has taken place. Then you have systems infrastructure costs and wage bills. So the last thing a spread betting Company wants is to have a load of losing clients.

Penny betting is proven to add liquidity and profit to a s/b firms house book, and was a good way to get a lot of small clients. The bad news was that these people cost a lot of money to service and maintain. The bigger problem though was that very few would ever progress from 5p/10p bets to the #5/#10 size that was the aim. That therefore made it uneconomic to continue in an unlimited form. Product innovation and reduced spreads all add to the overheads of s/b firms.

For Cantors to say they want their clients to win is only echoing what every other s/b firm keeps on saying; but the man in the street doesn't understand the reasoning behind that statement.

Simon
 
Smallfry - I have no idea what 'lack of logic' ajgriff was specifically referring to, but there are a couple of issues that jump out at me.

SB companies have wage bills and infrastructure issues/costs to an extent which is pretty much independent of the number of clients.

What's the opposite of a losing client....? And who do the winning clients win from...?

If I were an SB I'd be delighted in churning my losing clients through the sign-up process as quickly as possible.

One-off setup and admin cost, and you can bank on 95% of their capital within 6 months. The quicker they lose the better - less admin/support overhead.

Great business!
 
Simon - sorry I didn't add to my 'logic' comment last night - got distracted.

I agree with TheBramble's observations. From my limited experience it seems to me that spread betting firms are no different from traditional bookmakers. In other words they make their money from losing punters - big and small.

Willing to be proved wrong.
 
Kevin / Ajgriff / Others .......

I have spent a long while looking into the actions of different spreadbetting companies and have come up with a number of theories.
Obviously in an ideal world a spreadbet company would identify its regular winners and do one of two things, 1) Hedge everything that customer does, or 2) Try to make that customer trade somewhere else. (In other words, build up a network of losing punters). I know for example that when I used to daytrade / scalp S&P's a particular spreadbet company adopted a policy of purposefully delaying the filling of my orders in an attempt to make me trade somewhere else (or effectively put up with a 'hidden' increase in spreads as they would requote in their favour but rarely in mine).

As others have already pointed out, the spreadbet companies are bookmakers - their aim is to make money.

It is my opinion that as soon as a particular company detect a punter as a regular winner they adopt a stance against those individual customers.
As some will know, I am currently involved in a legal battle with IG Index over their failure to allow me to close one of my open positions at the advertisied price. IG claim that the market moving while my order was in a queue to be dealt with is grounds for refusal of that order. Obviously I have no control over how long they can queue my order and in this case it was almost 1 minute.
IG's terms and conditions do support my claim that the order should have been filled at the price I submitted it at but IG are still refusing on the grounds that there are other terms not listed.
The point I make regarding IG is this, before this incident arose I was on a nice winning run with them. My bet size didnt change yet suddenly instead of orders taking 1 or 2 seconds to complete and confirm they started to take almost 1 minute and sometimes longer. At no point did IG inform me that they were processig my orders any differently. Therefore from what has happened it has become clear that IG's method is to cheat. The basically detect winning customers and place those customers orders in a queue. Once in that queue an element of time is introduced. IG are then at liberty to 'cherry pick' orders that, if executed, would be against customers after the said period of time has elapsed. Of course orders, like mine, which would have seen me closing with a big fat profit are rejected on the grounds that 'the market is no longer at that level'. All this is allowed to go on even though IG advertise "the price you see is the price you get".

Steve.
 
This isn't true, by the way. I work for IG and we don't (and never have) acted like this.

But I'm sure the "legal battle", if it exist, will demonstrate this.
 
probookie,

What stevespray is saying is 100% true, however i dont hold
it against the SBs. They have to make a profit
just like i do. I can still make money even when the SBs are
using these tactics against me, some would say 'dirty' tactics but i
wont go that far.

At the end of the day the SBs are providing a service and i can
take it or leave it. If they force me to close my account tommorow
and say they dont want my business then i wouldnt complain,
ive had a really good run made alot of tax free money since i
opened my account ... i would just take my business elsewhere.
 
Probookie.....what I have written is, to the best of my knowledge, completely true. Which part of my posting are you challenging, I'd be happy to provide transcripts of telephone conversations or letters between IG and myself if you really want to discuss this matter. Coming on here and simply writing "It's not true" isn't going to cut much ice I'm afraid. I look forward to your considered reply.

Steve.
 
Further questions for Probookie......

I have, over the last 30 odd minutes, read back over some of your previous posts regarding goings on at your company. I have what I feel are some interesting questions. Firstly let me quote from a submission you made in the following thread....

http://www.trade2win.co.uk/boards/showthread.php?s=&postid=45052#post45052

The section I am particularly interested in is your reply in section 2 from which the following passage is quoted.....

"2. The most successful clients are arbitrageurs who, by definition, always win. These people open up spread betting accounts with 4-5 online bookmakers and then spend their time trading on arbs when daily prices get out of line. For example, at 7.15pm on the night of a chaotic FOMC announcement, you might see one company with a daily FTSE price of 4200-08, and another with a price of 4212-20. The arber buys the first, sells the second and locks in a certain profit.

Clients who do this are very obvious to the dealers on duty, as arb trades stick out like a sore thumb on a client's trading record (all trades are opened out-of-hours and are on daily products, all trades are left to expiry). After a brief honeymoon period they find that an unusual number of online trades are being rejected. Arbers hate this, as it typically leaves them with an exposed position on the non-rejected leg of the trade, which they then have to either take a chance on or close off, incurring spread."

I am very interested in the line where you say "After a brief honeymoon period they find that an unusual number of online trades are being rejected". I am interested for the following reasons, firstly and most importantly, the terms and conditions which are written in your customer agreement state that for IG to reserve the right to refuse a bet they must meet a criteria laid out in section 5(5) of the agreement. Suspecting that a customer may be an 'arber' is not in the criteria listed, furthermore, if a dealer were to reject an order on this basis then IG would have acted outside of the T&C and therefore would run the risk of being accountable if the customer suffered financial loss.
Secondly, it is clear from your comments that IG do (as I have suggested in my post of 8.16am) look for customers who maybe playing a winning formula. Arbing is in no way illegal and is a perfectly normal technique used by thousands of traders the world over at various times. It is therefore clear that you do in fact look for customers who maybe upsetting your system of odds which you feel are determined by the law of large numbers.
Thirdly, on the basis that you advertise that dealing is 'automated' how can you possibly stop arbers unless you detect them before they trade. Once detected all you can do is alter the way in which their trades are dealt with ie place them in a queue for manual dealing instead of confirming inside 2 or 3 seconds (which again is what I have suggested in my 8.16am post). Once 'selected' for manual dealing a period of time passes before the customer is dealt with. The customer has no control over this time period. Your dealer, as you have stated in your remarks, may then decide to reject the order if he/she thinks that the customer is a known 'arber'. Again this fails to take into consideration that IG Index makes certain claims in its advertising along the lines of “The price you see is the price you get” and “all prices are live and tradable” etc etc. As a consumer any customer could claim that IG have acted in a manner which infringes advertising laws as you have clearly not provided the service that you are advertising.
Fourthly, Your detection methods for ‘arbers’ are not as full proof as you might think. Let me give you an example. Personally I have accounts with most of the spreadbet companies which exist, this therefore gives me a huge choice of prices to choose from when trading certain products (I’m mainly talking about Dax / Dow / FTSE / MIB / IBEX etc). Lets talk about Dow as that seems to be the most popular market. The average spread on dow cash is about 5 or 6 points with any given company, however, if you were to compare 6 or 7 different companies then you can almost always reduce this spread down to 2 or 3 points without any problem whatsoever (what I mean by that is to review the best ask and the best bid). This can then lead to the following. Lets imagine that the market suddenly starts to move upwards (maybe news or data or something) so you buy the best ‘ask’ and get yourself net long. The market then rises 15 points or so and you decide to close out. You could of course just close you existing position with the company you opened it with but you would be forced to except their current ‘bid’ in order to close your position. This may not be the best ‘bid’ on the table from the several bids available to you. A different company could quite easily be making a ‘bid’ 4 or 5 points higher for a number of reasons. It therefore becomes prudent (providing of course that the margin is available with the second company) to ‘sell short’ an equal amount of dow with the second company in order to position yourself flat overall. Both positions will then obviously close out at exactly the same price once the settlement is known shortly after 9pm. This is a great way to extract maximum value from all the spreadbet companies available to you. The downside however is that you can loosely be called an ‘arber’ or at least be detected as such by certain companies purely on the grounds that you let bets run until expiry at 9pm.

I would therefore have to ask you if you feel that IG Index and its dealers are taking a rather big risk in simply refusing trades on the grounds that you feel that a particular punter maybe and ‘arber’. Any customer who has a trade refused is perfectly entitled to ask questions surround the refusal of their trade. Wouldn’t you agree that it would quickly become clear to an experienced customer that a dealer had refused a deal without meeting the criteria clearly laid out in the T&C ?

Steve.
 
Steve

I have read your comments with interest and it might explain why most pro traders I have come into contact with say you are wasting your time with SB's and should move to direct access.

I day trade but I wonder if these same tactics would have the same affect on longer term trading, such as a swing trader holding for several days at a time. That is where I would have thought SB offer better value. Delays in addition to wider spreads are the death bed of day traders and would convince me to move to direct access for my day trading which would be a shame due to the tax position.
 
Kev, I would agree, I use direct access and it is, as they say, 'different gravy'. I think you are also correct re longer time frame trading. I would be harder for a company to rip you off if you position traded over days rather than minutes. However, what you have to consider is that longer time frame instruments have larger spreads, added to this is the need to have to trade in and out of them (unless you plan on letting positions run to expiry which only occurs quarterly). This all leads you towards the bigger law of large numbers which indicates that over an extended period you will lose the spread on most trades you do (on average) which is basically what the spreadbet companies bank on.

It's my opinion that most spreadbet companies will not like anyone who consistently makes money in a short term timeframe, what I mean by that is minutes rather than hours and days.
People who trade shorter term will obviously use the 'daily' instruments which have tighter spreads. If you open a position with a company which has a spread of 6 (on dow daily) and then leave it to expire at end of day then in effect you have really traded with a spread of 3 as the position is closed out at a mid price with no spread. This is what happens if you follow the methods detailed in my previous post. It's my guess that the spreadbet companies don't like this as you are clearly getting better value for money than they might want to give. I think that they bank on most 'daily' bets being closed before expiry thus extracting the maximum 6 spread. Obviously if they feel a punter is extracting value from them then they work out that over an extended period of time that the same law of large number applies and hence the punter stands to win from them. They are a business after all and they much prefer to make money rather than lose it.
I would suggest that problems occur for companies when they have to try and treat these customers slightly differently in an attempt to stop their activities. It’s a problem because the customers activities are quite legal and above board yet as a company you want to try and stop those activities. The spreadbet company is therefore is a rather difficult situation. It has entered into a legal agreement with a customer saying that it will treat that customer (and that customers orders) in certain way yet in order to prevent activities such as ‘arbing’ it has to act differently from the services they advertise and are contracted to.

Steve.
 
Steve

The part of your post that was not true was the suggestion that we close down "winners" or make it difficult for "winners" to trade.

You've clearly skim-read my previous postings; if you read them properly you'll see a full explanation of why we don't bother trying to try to identify "winners" and "losers". We do reject deals under some circumstances (and we have every right to do this), but we have one of the lowest rejection rates in the idustry. Whatever the reason for the deals in question getting rejected, it was nothing to do with your P&L.

As for your convoluted arguments over terms and conditions, I'm sure the FSA will be able to rule on who's right.

Cheers
 
"The part of your post that was not true was the suggestion that we close down "winners" or make it difficult for "winners" to trade."

I'm sorry, but in a previous post you clearly state, when talking about people who you feel my be arbers that "Clients who do this are very obvious to the dealers on duty, as arb trades stick out like a sore thumb on a client's trading record (all trades are opened out-of-hours and are on daily products, all trades are left to expiry). "..........in my mind you are clearly stating that you are seeking to indentify a certain type of trader.

Secondly you then go on to say "After a brief honeymoon period they find that an unusual number of online trades are being rejected".....this clearly indicates that you are making a conserted effort to 'upset' the plans of a potential arber. I would suggest that you are therefore admitting that you are making it more difficult for these 'arbers' who, as you points out, "always win".

And for your information, the reason that I have been given for my position not being closed as I instructed was that "Our order book shifted while you order was waiting to be dealt with". I think you will find that, according to the T&C, that is not a valid reason for rejection as the price was correct at the time I submitted it. I think you will also find that you advertise "the price you see is the price you get" so it is hard to work out how you can offer such service if trades can be rejected on the basis that your order book moved while IG decided to place me in a queue.

I'd suggest at this point that you actually read your T&C to see what they say. I'd especially draw your attention to sections 5(4) and 5(5) which directly deal with order rejection and rejection criteria.

It is in fact IG Index who are making convoluted arguements over T&C and not me. As I consumer I can simply rely on your advertising claims made about the service you offer, advertising which goes to great lengths to asure me that I will have "Genuine one click dealing", "Live tradable prices" and that "the price I see is the price I get". Thats all I need mate.

Steve.
 
The FSA are dealing with the matter already. With a bit of luck the initial findings should be known in the next few weeks. I will of course update the thread as and when information becomes available.

I have also sent a report to the Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) regarding your advertising cliams made in respect to the services that you are prepared to offer. Given that they have already found you guilty of misleading advertising in the past I would suggest that you might be in for a bigger slap on the wrists if found guilty this time.

In the meantime, can I ask who I am actually talking to here ? You obviously know my identity and I'm perfectly happy with that as I have nothing to hide, would you be so bold as to reveal your identity ? I'm also interested in the position you hold at IG Index ?

Steve.
 
Steve

I find the issue of dealing the cash/daily and leaving to expiry some what complex but I think I understand the benefit of the spread at close.

I do not think this will affect me as I tend to close before the close (FTSE) unless I am in a trade that is trending towards close as it may continue into after hours.

I sympathise with your situation because SB implies it is a genuine alternative to more conventional trading and on a balanced playing field. It allows you to start at a much lower level and so it is ideal for establishing a strategy. What annoys me about the whole SB industry, certainly for day trading is that it clearly is not offering a service on a balanced playing field to conventional trading. They already benefit from a wider spread. .

So why play other games to restrict trading. For the life of me I cannot understand why SB companies do not stick to the basics of charging a wider spread and making that the only difference to direct access or share dealing. It seems to me they want more than one bite of the cherry. Placing deals way below the NMS or contract sizes and still causing significant delays and always negative re-quotes regardless of what the market has done during the delay for your order to be filled. Then there is the fixed spread it maybe only 2 points but where is it in relation to the real market price. They IMHO can benefit from the strategic placing of there price and so further hinder your short term trading.

For SB companies to become a real alternative to conventional trading and obtain greater respect and standing within the financial industry then they need to offer the service at there own price and then in all cases follow the true market in everything they do. Not make up there own rules to suit themselves.

Kevin
 
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