Best Thread Capital Spreads

[davecrom01]

Hey there Laptop.

You may find taking the low end (3 pips etc) of your spectrum difficult in practice. I find CS can be quite slow at getting you into trades at the point you hit the buy/sell. Don't get me wrong, they don't slip you on the price, and they (to their credit) get you in at your price even if the market has moved in your favour.

But it does mean the price can move before you are allowed to pull up the "close trade" button to get out.

Cheers

 

[lurkerlurker]

5m and more probably okay, but don't "overtrade"

I would like to know from you guys who trade with Capitalspreads, will they allow you to trade picking up 3 to 10 ticks through the day trading their forex instruments?. Basicaly short term trades where I can be in a trade from 5 mins to 30 mins.

Cheers
LT

I don't think they would have a problem with this. However, if you are in and out of positions in less than 5 minutes, I don't think they'd like this. If they think you are overtrading your account, you could be placed on dealer intervention. Try CS, their auto execution is very good, and you might never get placed on dealer intervention - if you ever are though, stop trading with them as it is near impossible to make money if they only fill trades which have moved against you and reject the trades which have moved in your favour as "invalid price" - they are very busy, and it can take them 30 seconds or more to fill, which is life and death in fast markets.

Some comments from Simon (emphasis added):

no, we would not consider this scalping... scalping is when you are attempting to continuously jump on sharp price action. because the 'quoted price' on CS is just that, a quoted price, we cannot 'pull our price' as and when we wish ....our only protection is to have a client on dealer confirm ..... this is the single biggest difference between SB and DA as in the real exchanges there must be a counterparty on the other side to get your deal done(i.e if you want to buy there must be a seller willing to sell at that price)]

over 99% of our clients are on auto trade (not over data releases of course) if their trades are below a certain stake size (different for each market)

There are many reasons why clients can get put onto dealer intervention and it is difficult to innumerate all of them.. but the biggest reason is if a client is 'overtrading' his account. (i.e trading 20 30 times a day). .. or we suspect that a client is scalping fast moving markets. We cannot "scalp" a client so we do not really like clients to scalp us

If a client goes to dealer acceptance then that is a desision taken by Capital Spreads alone.

 

[ceydababy]

Hey there Laptop.

You may find taking the low end (3 pips etc) of your spectrum difficult in practice. I find CS can be quite slow at getting you into trades at the point you hit the buy/sell. Don't get me wrong, they don't slip you on the price, and they (to their credit) get you in at your price even if the market has moved in your favour.

But it does mean the price can move before you are allowed to pull up the "close trade" button to get out.

Cheers

agree with this 100%

 

[laptop1]

I don't think they would have a problem with this. However, if you are in and out of positions in less than 5 minutes, I don't think they'd like this. If they think you are overtrading your account, you could be placed on dealer intervention. Try CS, their auto execution is very good, and you might never get placed on dealer intervention - if you ever are though, stop trading with them as it is near impossible to make money if they only fill trades which have moved against you and reject the trades which have moved in your favour as "invalid price" - they are very busy, and it can take them 30 seconds or more to fill, which is life and death in fast markets.

Some comments from Simon (emphasis added):

Cheers lurkerlurker

If they play tricks on me I sure let this thread know about it.There should be no excuse to leave me trade taking 3 to 10 sometimes more points on a trade as I don't trade news. I look for a basic trend and jump in and out on pull backs nothing fancy...I may give them a try. Further if they see somone who can make money from being in a trade from 5 to 30 mins day in day out. They should follow the trades on the interbank market and make a few quid themselfs .

 

[shortorlong]

I know what you might say: .. volatility

but a 35 point minimum gap between the actual price and the price we can place an order on the Dow is utterly useless! 10 points was bad enough, but just about workable.

Please reduce it forthwith

 

[lurkerlurker]

Cheers lurkerlurker

If they play tricks on me I sure let this thread know about it.There should be no excuse to leave me trade taking 3 to 10 sometimes more points on a trade as I don't trade news. I look for a basic trend and jump in and out on pull backs nothing fancy...I may give them a try. Further if they see somone who can make money from being in a trade from 5 to 30 mins day in day out. They should follow the trades on the interbank market and make a few quid themselfs .

They won't play tricks on you. I'm sure they won't even notice you unless:

-you trade in a manner which makes them suspect scalping (short term trading is perfectly legitimate where no price latency exits, but SB firms need to err on the side of caution if a client is successful)

-you trade in a manner which makes it difficult for them to hedge your risk

-you "over trade your account" - whatever that is supposed to mean

All SB firms have their flaws, but in terms of transparency this firm seems to be one of the better ones, however please do post any issues which may arise.

 

[trader_dante]

lol Lurker - this might as well be your thread you are on it so much!

 

[davecrom01]

RIght now I'm stuck in an AUDUSD trade I cant get out of.

I'm sat watching the graph, ticking around slowly, a few ticks in my favour. Come to put my stop and target in place, platform bombs out. Refresh a few times, every single instrument is marked as closed.

Answer machine on the dealing number, noone in customer support.

So here I am, no stop, no target, no platform, and noone to call.

Pretty miserable right now.

 

[davecrom01]

Managed to refresh and get a stop on... its further away than I would have liked - at the mininum distance that CS permit... still no charts or instruments....

 

[laptop1]

How long you been trading with them and do this happen often?

Seems to be working now

 

[davecrom01]

Hi Laptop,

I haven't had this happen to me before. I know there is always a "temporarily closed" window around 9pm when they do the rollovers, but that's just a few minutes and all stops / targets are honoured fairly.

An update, it is up now yes. AUDUSD came back 50+ pips the wrong side of my stop loss.

I am happy, and down right relieved, to report that CS have honoured my original stoploss (the one that I didnt think had gone on as I had no confirmation due to the crash). They did this without me having to call them or complain.

I don't like that it happened. It's making me think. But I have to say full-marks for resolving the issue.

I'm left wondering that if the market had gone in my favour FIRST (and given I rarely use hard take profit figures), and then retraced to my stop loss - what would have happened? I can't prove I would have gotten out at 2R, or 3R or whatever.

Simon, if you happen to read this - please be aware that the paragraph above is hypothetical as the trade did NOT reach my mental Take Profit - and the loss of 1R that I have ended up with is fair and proper - I am not trying to put one over on you but would appreciate your thoughts.

Goodnight all.
Dave

 

[capitalspreads]

13/11/07 early morning .. problem on the night dealer system ... all orders were filled at the requested levels and the systems were eventually returned to normal. We are attempting to put a large number of system upgrades through over the next two or three weeks. This was one which appeared to go ok but then gave a blip in the middle of the night. It happens.


shortorlong
this is another unforeseen consequence of an upgrade. we certainly do not want the minimum order distance as 35 points. This is being worked on as i write. and i think has been solved.

simon

 

[oiltanker]

upgrades?

anything interesting?

like personal pre sets for stops, limits and size?

 

[ceydababy]

Price Not Valid....

Not quite sure whats happened to Capital Spreads over the past few days. I am trying to close out positions and keep getting "price not valid" I have tried to close out 3 different positions this morning and on all occasions the price has slipped by at least 2 points because I keep getting "price not valid" errors.

Furthermore the bid price is running out of sync with the chart, but it seems the chart is correct and the bid price isn't !

The problem is that when taking a position you get filled pronto, it's just on the exit there is a lot of messing around.

I phoned to inform Capital Spreads of the problem, and was treated like I was trying to scam them ! The woman was like "well sorry we have no record of you trying to close your positon...we'll look in to it !!" At no point did I mention refund ! I was calling to let them know there was an issue. I really wasn't lying, or making it up, or inventing a story...I have better things to do with my morning.

BAD ! POOR SERVICE...Not experienced before at CS

 

[knight_trader]

I've had exactly the same thing and received exactly the same response. Waiting for it to happen again so I can get a screenshot over to them. It angers me when I do around 20 trades a day with them without issue and when I have a problem am treated....as you say....like I am trying to scam them. Even when you don't ask for a refund but just merely are reporting a problem they are *nearly* always on the defensive.

 

[knight_trader]

Just had another chat with CS off the back of your comments and now they have multiple reports they seem a lot more receptive to the issue.

 

[ceydababy]

Just had another chat with CS off the back of your comments and now they have multiple reports they seem a lot more receptive to the issue.

Problem sorted...just closed out my ftse short...no issues at all.....

Frustration lifted !

 

[lurkerlurker]

I've had exactly the same thing and received exactly the same response. Waiting for it to happen again so I can get a screenshot over to them. It angers me when I do around 20 trades a day with them without issue and when I have a problem am treated....as you say....like I am trying to scam them. Even when you don't ask for a refund but just merely are reporting a problem they are *nearly* always on the defensive.

Careful, you might be "overtrading your account". Are you on dealer intervention yet?

Problem sorted...just closed out my ftse short...no issues at all.....

Frustration lifted !

Pleased to hear it. Although it is concerning that you are saying they are on the defensive...

No doubt they'll be back to their "sunny selves" in due course, but I suppose reporting issues here helps too!

 

[laptop1]

I notice last night and would like Simion to responed. Why is it, AUD/USD spread is 2 pips all day. but after around 9.15pm AUD/USD goes from 2 pips to 3 pip spread,

CMC offer 2 pips on AUD/USD 24 hours a day...

 

[lurkerlurker]

I notice last night and would like Simion to responed. Why is it, AUD/USD spread is 2 pips all day. but after around 9.15pm AUD/USD goes from 2 pips to 3 pip spread,

CMC offer 2 pips on AUD/USD 24 hours a day...

CMC have always had better FX spreads than CS as far as I can remember (although I know CS tightened their spreads substantially recently)*. Use the right tool for the job. 0.4 point ES - CS. 1 point FTSE - CS. Tight FX, and 24h prices on all FX pairs - CMC. CS doesn't quote certain FX pairs between 9pm and 7am, which can be a bit of a pest.

As far as the spread widening - I would assume that there is less volume on this instrument during the night, and as clients are not trading as much CS are more likely to need to hedge as they don't have a large number of clients with diverse views offsetting each other, so they need to protect themselves with a wider spread. CMC have more clients than CS (I think) or can bear more risk (I think) and therefore don't need to widen their quotes. I also think CMC is active in the FX market, and can most likely hedge cheaper than CS.

Just my best guess until Simon replies. Also, does anyone else notice that CS quote the wheat per full point rather than per 1/4 like the other SB firms and the underlying?

* - this isn't too much of an issue any more, but I remember when GBPJPY was 10 with CS and 8 with CMC, and the same for some other crosses.