Best Thread Capital Spreads

[capitalspreads]

lancen

yes we will have more markets.... but most clients will have to pay to see these extra markets... (markets like Aussi shares as the ASX charges AU$40 per month per client (!!) which just means that all SB/CFD providers turn them off).

although the profligation of exchanges offering access may force this cost lower in the future (I hope) Chi X seem to be challenging nearly everyone.

Simon

 

[Huwee]

Hi Simon,

Great to see your presence here on the forum.

Quick question for you: Do your clients news trade on the Quarterly spread bets (effectively futures)? Or what are your restrictions on trading the news?

I notice that your spot forex SB would often become disabled during high-volatility as a result of news, but your quarterly SB seem a little less volatile and more often remain enabled (though can be subject to 'price not valid' dealer response which makes sense if the price has moved quickly).

Would welcome your thoughts and advice!

Cheers,

Huwee.

 

[capitalspreads]

huwee

our clients do trade the quarterlies but (as the spread is wider) in much smaller numbers. We also do not go further than the front quarter.

our prices do not actually go 'disabled' but we may go to 'trader acceptance' for about 15 secs after a big number .... we also have a system which basically checks the trade request price (by you) against the last two price updates in our price engine. If the trade request is not a the same level as one of the last two/three price updates then the client may get a 'price no longer valid' . this effectively means that in very volatile times (after data releases) that clients may get rejections. If you are trading on a very slow connection you may also have problems.

but i have to say that this is not a problem that our clients seem to get very frequently.

Simon

 

[Huwee]

Hi Simon,

I was pretty sure I saw the trade BUY/SELL button on the spot forex SB get disabled (greyed out) during high volatility, but maybe I'll check again and provide a screenshot if it can be reproduced - afterall it's not something you would see on the back-end!

The information you provide about the "trade acceptance" sounds good. I definitely have seen this occur during periods of high-volatility - which is understandable as the spreads of the underlying market are widening around this time.

Although my experience of trade acceptance does not exactly match what you have described. This morning, I had two trades (made as the news came out) cancelled after they had been closed. They were closed profitably back on May 12th, and then they were reversed today - May 19th.

So I don't know if this is a rare occurrence or something quite common that news trades may be cancelled a week later? Hence my original question. I can PM my account number if you want to look at the specifics.

Thanks!

Huwee.

 

[PipStar]

This morning, I had two trades (made as the news came out) cancelled after they had been closed. They were closed profitably back on May 12th, and then they were reversed today - May 19th.
So I don't know if this is a rare occurrence or something quite common that news trades may be cancelled a week later?

They are not allowed to cancel a news trade a week later but it seems that London Capital Group outfits including Capital Spreads have now adopted this practice. They fill the trade during news and then decide a few days later that they dont like it because it's profitable to the trader of course and the trade is cancelled. I know of someone else who is in that situation so your case is not isolated. You should send them a complaint which they will inevitably rule in their favour and then your only option is to go to the ombudsman and the FSA.

 

[gle101]

Yes I agree, if this is the case that up to a week goes by before cancellation it is very alarming. But again, we only heard one side of the story. Simon might and should reply to this matter, in order to explain, if this is a practice adopted by the company.

 

[Huwee]

Hey folks,

Thanks for chiming in - as you say gle101, mine is only one side of the story. Will wait for a reply.

I'm not interested in starting any broker bashing here - there's enough trolls on the internet! If Capital Spreads say they don't support news trading then I have no problem with that and can move elsewhere for the news.

But I would like that if in this thread it looks like they will either accept or reject a price and then honour it as per:

we may go to 'trader acceptance' for about 15 secs after a big number .... we also have a system which basically checks the trade request price (by you) against the last two price updates in our price engine. If the trade request is not a the same level as one of the last two/three price updates then the client may get a 'price no longer valid' . this effectively means that in very volatile times (after data releases) that clients may get rejections.

<snip>

Simon

Then we find out if this is 100% true or has some caveats - for the sake of transparency and for the benefit of other users who read this forum at some point in the future.

Likewise, where I've said:

I notice that your spot forex SB would often become disabled during high-volatility as a result of news

<snip>
Huwee.

I'll get a screenshot of that happening or else I'll edit my original post with a correction as Simon (CapitalSpreads) feels this doesn't happen.

Huwee.

 

[gle101]

Hey folks,

Thanks for chiming in - as you say gle101, mine is only one side of the story. Will wait for a reply.

I'm not interested in starting any broker bashing here - there's enough trolls on the internet! If Capital Spreads say they don't support news trading then I have no problem with that and can move elsewhere for the news.

But I would like that if in this thread it looks like they will either accept or reject a price and then honour it as per:



Then we find out if this is 100% true or has some caveats - for the sake of transparency and for the benefit of other users who read this forum at some point in the future.

Likewise, where I've said:


I'll get a screenshot of that happening or else I'll edit my original post with a correction as Simon (CapitalSpreads) feels this doesn't happen.

Huwee.

Well, if we try to see it from the SB side of things. There is definitely a problem for the SB with fixed spread during important news releases. This especially if you are trading FX pairs, when the underlying market has a much wider spread (at times up to 15 pips wider). Should they execute without a delay resulting in them actually giving away free money or should they practice some kind of delay? To be fair to CS, it is my experience they have really improved radically on all levels compared to going back a year or so. I try to avoid trading SB during news time, there is a risk of ending up with the order getting stuck resulting in unnecessary slippage.

 

[PipStar]

Well, if we try to see it from the SB side of things. There is definitely a problem for the SB with fixed spread during important news releases. This especially if you are trading FX pairs, when the underlying market has a much wider spread (at times up to 15 pips wider). Should they execute without a delay resulting in them actually giving away free money or should they practice some kind of delay? To be fair to CS, it is my experience they have really improved radically on all levels compared to going back a year or so. I try to avoid trading SB during news time, there is a risk of ending up with the order getting stuck resulting in unnecessary slippage.

If they fill you or me for that matter during news then they cannot turn around a week later and cancel the trade. That's totally unethical and it is a tactic used by unscrupulous and unregulated brokers. This is not something you would expect from a broker regulated by the FSA. Of course Simon will give his side of the story and we all know his usual defence is latency.

But ask yourself this question: How many traders have LCG contacted to refund them their losses because the prices they received during news or at any other time were due to latency? I mean without the trader contacting them first about it. I bet you the answer to this is Zero.

 

[capitalspreads]

reversed trades

i believe that Huwee is well aware of the issues involved here which are nothing to do with the integrity of LCG or incorrect prices or any possible bad faith on the part of LCG. The activities which resulted in this action have absolutely nothign to do with the normal trading activities of our clients .... at any time (whether over a data release or any other time).

pip star

if you actually read this thread you will see that there are many times when clients have been refunded for incorrect price fills. Also times when LCG reverses stops activated when equity prices 'widen out' sharply triggering them for activation but do not actually trade anywhere near the level. (you must remember that orders are activated on quoted prices in the underlying markets not on traded prices)

Those who have had funds removed from their account will always be more vocal than thise (far, far ,far more numerous) who are recredited or who have an order activation cancelled.

Simon

 

[Ross Spur]

This all just goes back to the same thing that's been churned over in other T2W threads: if SBs quote on a fixed spread, their prices will always be 'wrong' when the underlying spread widens. The wider the spread, the greater the error. After unusual market activity, the SB therefore have to decide how to correct all the 'mistakes'.
Most of the time a fixed spread is one of the advantages over the 'real' market, but I don't understand how you can have a pricing system that has this effectively deliberate fault. Why not just make the platform automatically reject trades when the spread has widened more than a certain amount, and honour all those that get through, rather than cancel them retrospectively?

 

[gle101]

If they fill you or me for that matter during news then they cannot turn around a week later and cancel the trade. That's totally unethical and it is a tactic used by unscrupulous and unregulated brokers. This is not something you would expect from a broker regulated by the FSA. Of course Simon will give his side of the story and we all know his usual defence is latency.

But ask yourself this question: How many traders have LCG contacted to refund them their losses because the prices they received during news or at any other time were due to latency? I mean without the trader contacting them first about it. I bet you the answer to this is Zero.

It is my experience with CS, that they might reverse a trade on a technical pricing error. But sure, as I also pointed out, if they reverse a trade after a week, it is way too late for them to refer to a incorrect price given at time of that trade taken place.

 

[capitalspreads]

GLE

a week is too late to come back with a price error? mmmm... what if the shoe is on the other foot and it is the client who has had the unfair deal execution... should we tell him.."oh, too late mate"?

We have (quite literally) only had a few serious trade reversals over the past year. All which were drawn to my attention long before they ever came onto T2W. Most are quite clearly an abuse of our systems and often a clever attempt to defraud LCG out of money. In most cases the clients have made quite a bit of effort to breach our systems (and when i say quite a bit of effort I really mean it !). And yet when they were found out they come 'all innocent' to this forum and bleat about how nasty LCG are and how LCG had been the guilty party.

I obviously cannot go into details about what they were doing in each case (as you can imagine) and so my responses are often lacking in detail.

So when you read that Capital Spreads "shot my dog" always take it with a pinch of salt. I yet again point out that for all the talk of reversed trades nobody ever seems keen to give the exact details of their actions to readers or can come up with a guaranteed sure fire example of CS reversing a vaguely dubious trade. When we reverse trades it is because it is QUITE CLEARLY a wrong price or QUITE CLEARLY an abuse of our systems.

I can honestly say that Capital Spreads gives its prices out in good faith and never (ever) attempts to bias prices, move markets, attempt to take out stops or act in any way to the detriment of our clients. Do you not think that (after eight years) LCG has numerous ex-employees (as do our competitors) who would be happy to dish the dirt on us both here and to the regulator if their was any to serve up.

All this "Men in Black, Area 51" stuff really gets boring after a while

Pip Star. I am really sorry to spike your obsessive theories about Spread Betting/Capital Spreads but we frequently contact clients to inform them of reversals that result in a event in their favour. Far, far more frequently than we ever reverse trades that takes away monies.

As I have said over and over again.. for us to reverse a trade means that the trade events in question are QUITE CLEARLY and beyond dispute either a massively incorrect price or a premeditated activity on the clients part to breach our systems or proceedures

simon

 

[Ross Spur]

GLE

a week is too late to come back with a price error? mmmm... what if the shoe is on the other foot and it is the client who has had the unfair deal execution... should we tell him.."oh, too late mate"?

We have (quite literally) only had a few serious trade reversals over the past year. All which were drawn to my attention long before they ever came onto T2W. Most are quite clearly an abuse of our systems and often a clever attempt to defraud LCG out of money. In most cases the clients have made quite a bit of effort to breach our systems (and when i say quite a bit of effort I really mean it !). And yet when they were found out they come 'all innocent' to this forum and bleat about how nasty LCG are and how LCG had been the guilty party.

I obviously cannot go into details about what they were doing in each case (as you can imagine) and so my responses are often lacking in detail.

So when you read that Capital Spreads "shot my dog" always take it with a pinch of salt. I yet again point out that for all the talk of reversed trades nobody ever seems keen to give the exact details of their actions to readers or can come up with a guaranteed sure fire example of CS reversing a vaguely dubious trade. When we reverse trades it is because it is QUITE CLEARLY a wrong price or QUITE CLEARLY an abuse of our systems.

I can honestly say that Capital Spreads gives its prices out in good faith and never (ever) attempts to bias prices, move markets, attempt to take out stops or act in any way to the detriment of our clients. Do you not think that (after eight years) LCG has numerous ex-employees (as do our competitors) who would be happy to dish the dirt on us both here and to the regulator if their was any to serve up.

All this "Men in Black, Area 51" stuff really gets boring after a while

Pip Star. I am really sorry to spike your obsessive theories about Spread Betting/Capital Spreads but we frequently contact clients to inform them of reversals that result in a event in their favour. Far, far more frequently than we ever reverse trades that takes away monies.

As I have said over and over again.. for us to reverse a trade means that the trade events in question are QUITE CLEARLY and beyond dispute either a massively incorrect price or a premeditated activity on the clients part to breach our systems or proceedures

simon

Nothing to do with Area 51 or conspiracy theories, but if you want to avoid these situations why does CS have pricing that will 'QUITE CLEARLY' produce retrospective errors? If you know how it happens, why not fix your system?

 

[gle101]

GLE

a week is too late to come back with a price error? mmmm... what if the shoe is on the other foot and it is the client who has had the unfair deal execution... should we tell him.."oh, too late mate"?

simon

Yes, if a client comes back a week later referring to an unfair dealer execution I would say generally speaking, he is too late. And it is not the same thing as making a general complaint within the existing law. In fact there should be a time limit for this kind of correction by the company, that is, corrections that doesn't involve negotiation with the other part, as it can very well be a case of dispute.

 

[Ross Spur]

A cynic might suggest that the longer they leave it, the more time they have to work out whether it lost them money.

 

[capitalspreads]

gle

if there was a time limit in law then both sides would have to abide by it. but there isnt... and certainly no law would have as short a time as 1 or 2 weeks.

Unfortunately in our world a client who has a sudden credit to his account due to an error will more often than not keep quiet about it (i do not blame them at all for this) ..after all it is up to us to find our errors if we can. If we do not find the error (and I am sure that there will be many instances over the years) then the client gets to keep his dosh.

If the client has been adversely affected by an error then he/she will naturally be on the phone to us immediately.

ross

please be aware that not everyone in the world is honest and above board. We are an online trading company and you may be aware that even the biggest and best funded institutions have deliberate attempts on their systems (Sony just a week or ago) or have minor bugs that do not become evident until someone discovers them and takes advantage of them.

often there is a change in price notification from an exchange of which we are unaware (this happened in the case of platinum a few months ago) or a different opening sequence or closing process all of which might lead to incorrect price feeds. Whilst we do our best there are always people who will try it on. Often it takes time to find out exactly what they are doing and then more time to develop a counter to it.

When we discover a reason for a price error then of course we develop a response but .... look at what happens on the exchanges (the flash crash last year in the US.. the LSE down for almost an entire day earlier this year). We are cleared through a variety of global exchanges, loads of them. Every single day (almost without exception) I receive emails from the exchanges changing trade prices/closing levels etc on some market or other.

If a client is harmed by an unrepresentative price move then we will address it.

Simon

 

[Huwee]

Hey folks,

Sounds like things can turn into a heated discussion here and - as I've said - not interested in broker bashing as it's not necessarily all productive and can make for a boring read! Sorry if I offend those sticking up for me, which I appreciate, but there's two sides to every story and if everyone is shouting we won't have a very professional looking forum that others want to join and partake in. Gosh, I sound like a moderator!

My question to the forum came after I received a somewhat generic e-mail from the Admin's of Capital Spreads which regards to the trades I placed on May 12th. I replied and I hadn't heard back from them when I began searching for references to News Trading and Capital Spreads on T2W to see what others had experienced.

Simon, you will have noted I didn't provide details of the trade - instead offering you my account number to examine. I didn't bother the forum with the oh I bought X amount at Y time and here's a graph, etc. I've read that plenty of times here from other people and I find it quite a boring read - I was more interested in a generic answer which would be useful to others partaking in this 'lively' discussion. In fact I think if I do provide a chronological account of details, it would only fuel the fire more. If you think it would provide a more balanced view, then I'll get around to putting together a long post with dates, trades, and graph.

i believe that Huwee is well aware of the issues involved here which are nothing to do with the integrity of LCG or incorrect prices or any possible bad faith on the part of LCG. The activities which resulted in this action have absolutely nothign to do with the normal trading activities of our clients .... at any time (whether over a data release or any other time).

<snip>

Simon

Unfortunately I am not well aware of the issues involved here - all I know of is one issue - which I received from customer support - and this is the price I was quoted and traded on did not reflect the underlying market. If there are other issues here such as the amount of trades, size of trades, timing, multiple currencies, two accounts, trading at 2.30am, etc., please feel free to share with the forum so that others can have a smooth experience at Capital Spreads. In fact I've been happy with your company for a few years now (directly or through white label) and I'm not getting grumpy that this trade was reversed (though of course it would be nice it is wasn't!).

I haven't come to the forum screaming refund, fraud, etc.! Just interested to get your opinion and advice on news trading with Capital Spreads. There's no long term benefit to being a customer if it's not beneficial to both your company and I.

Huwee.

 

[gle101]

Hey folks,

Sounds like things can turn into a heated discussion here and - as I've said - not interested in broker bashing as it's not necessarily all productive and can make for a boring read! Sorry if I offend those sticking up for me, which I appreciate, but there's two sides to every story and if everyone is shouting we won't have a very professional looking forum that others want to join and partake in. Gosh, I sound like a moderator!

My question to the forum came after I received a somewhat generic e-mail from the Admin's of Capital Spreads which regards to the trades I placed on May 12th. I replied and I hadn't heard back from them when I began searching for references to News Trading and Capital Spreads on T2W to see what others had experienced.

Simon, you will have noted I didn't provide details of the trade - instead offering you my account number to examine. I didn't bother the forum with the oh I bought X amount at Y time and here's a graph, etc. I've read that plenty of times here from other people and I find it quite a boring read - I was more interested in a generic answer which would be useful to others partaking in this 'lively' discussion. In fact I think if I do provide a chronological account of details, it would only fuel the fire more. If you think it would provide a more balanced view, then I'll get around to putting together a long post with dates, trades, and graph.



Unfortunately I am not well aware of the issues involved here - all I know of is one issue - which I received from customer support - and this is the price I was quoted and traded on did not reflect the underlying market. If there are other issues here such as the amount of trades, size of trades, timing, multiple currencies, two accounts, trading at 2.30am, etc., please feel free to share with the forum so that others can have a smooth experience at Capital Spreads. In fact I've been happy with your company for a few years now (directly or through white label) and I'm not getting grumpy that this trade was reversed (though of course it would be nice it is wasn't!).

I haven't come to the forum screaming refund, fraud, etc.! Just interested to get your opinion and advice on news trading with Capital Spreads. There's no long term benefit to being a customer if it's not beneficial to both your company and I.

Huwee.

Generally speaking I am not against SB reversing a trade on a major technical price error (notice I said a major price error). I think they have every right to do this. That is, if they can prove the price error being a mismatch with that of the underlying market. What I am opposed to is, the length of time it apparently can take at times for them to take this action.

 

[Ross Spur]

gle

if there was a time limit in law then both sides would have to abide by it. but there isnt... and certainly no law would have as short a time as 1 or 2 weeks.

Unfortunately in our world a client who has a sudden credit to his account due to an error will more often than not keep quiet about it (i do not blame them at all for this) ..after all it is up to us to find our errors if we can. If we do not find the error (and I am sure that there will be many instances over the years) then the client gets to keep his dosh.

If the client has been adversely affected by an error then he/she will naturally be on the phone to us immediately.

ross

please be aware that not everyone in the world is honest and above board. We are an online trading company and you may be aware that even the biggest and best funded institutions have deliberate attempts on their systems (Sony just a week or ago) or have minor bugs that do not become evident until someone discovers them and takes advantage of them.

often there is a change in price notification from an exchange of which we are unaware (this happened in the case of platinum a few months ago) or a different opening sequence or closing process all of which might lead to incorrect price feeds. Whilst we do our best there are always people who will try it on. Often it takes time to find out exactly what they are doing and then more time to develop a counter to it.

When we discover a reason for a price error then of course we develop a response but .... look at what happens on the exchanges (the flash crash last year in the US.. the LSE down for almost an entire day earlier this year). We are cleared through a variety of global exchanges, loads of them. Every single day (almost without exception) I receive emails from the exchanges changing trade prices/closing levels etc on some market or other.

If a client is harmed by an unrepresentative price move then we will address it.

Simon

No-one's condoning sabotaging or hacking into your system, but if the platform has minor bugs then it's up to you to fix them. In the meantime, it seems entirely reasonable that you should occasionally lose money as a result, rather than expect clients use their own time and money to do software development.
No comment about the problem with fixed spread pricing when the underlying market's spread widens?