Best Thread Capital Spreads

[zarif]

simon just a small request, I am very happy with my acount with capital spreads and whenever there is a glitch I find a friendly voice at the other hand to look into the matter and resolve it. (very rare that i have had to use the dog and bone ).
I would be a very happy bunny if you can increase the speed at which the prices are updated specially when I have open positions and even with the mini "close" window open. This update lag can mean either a profit,loss or breakeven in a trade. Also the worst scenario is when you click close on the mini window and then the price changes.
rgds
zarif

 

[ivorm]

Ivor & Roberto

Regarding your accounts with Capitalspreads following the positive attitude and comments by Simon on this thread, have you found them to be all that you expected. Could you elaborate.
Kevin

Hi Kevin,

So far, I have only used CS for forex trades - mainly EURO. I have had no problems at all with their online trading platform and so have not had a need to telephone them or use their support.

My only gripe (and I think this has been mentioned before ) is that it would be nice to be able to place stops nearer to the price than is currently allowed. On the EURO it is not possible to place a stop close than 10 pips to the price.

HTH

Regards,

 

[kevin546]

Ivorm

Thank you for your reply and nice to know that is your only problem with them.

Zarif

Can you elaborate regarding the delay, I was under the impression that the price quotes displayed in the order ticket were real time. From what you have said suggests this is not the case and would certainly make me think again about signing up. Unless I have misunderstood your comments it gives the impression that you cannot place much faith in the price on the screen and only see the price you are getting when you get the order.

Out of interest how far of a delay are we talking about, what sort of frequency is that happening and is it across the board or just on more volatile instruments.

Many thanks


Kevin

 

[starspacer]

Extended Hours

Simon

Any chance of extended hours trades (forex/Indices/shares/commodities)? Even if they were quoted just a few hours later in the day and a few hours earlier am, this would be a big help.

I'm reluctantly putting trades through D4F, simply because of their out of hours trading feature (especially useful for Nymex Crude and Forex).

Would anyone else benefit? I can't be the only one trading out of hours.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than closing my D4F account and moving in entirety to CS.

Regards

 

[kevin546]

Simon

I have had a look at your demo account and assume that this is representative of your real trading account. A couple of considerations:

The charting design is very good and fine for end of day analysis, but for intraday use it is of no value being 15 minutes delayed. I understand from your earlier response that the charting is out of your control. Do you have a time frame for real time charts being provided through your trading platform. Will they be of the FTSE cash index from the exchange as the present chart appears to be or will it be of your own prices. Will the charting design have to radically change to become real time or will you be able to keep the existing design.

I note that it is possible to detach the chart, I would find it very useful to do the same with the small order window, I know it can be moved but only within the main trading platform. It would also be useful to do this with other pages such as open orders rather than have to select this and lose the price data to do so.

I have completed an application form, but would like to be reassured especially concerning the charting that it is actually going to happen as it seems to be taking a long time for this development to become a reality and I prefer to use a chart of the spreadbet price , if I can..

 

[capitalspreads]

Ivorm

sorry ...we changed the min stop levels on all the daily FX a while ago but for some reason missed the Euro/USD I have now change it to 5 pips.

Kevin

the demo site has much fewer markets and some of the spreads are a bit wider than on the live site. When our live charts are launched they will be created from 'our prices' and will only be an indication of the real markets (allbeit a pretty good indication) When they are finally made live they will be in the same format as those shown.

It is unlikely that we will be detatching the order window from the trading area in the near future as this requires a different coding to acheive . the reason the charts are detatchable is that they are in Java whilst the trading screen is flash. If we were to change thae trading screen to a different base we would cut out a lot of clients whose work firewalls do not allow such trading platforms as IG and D4F through.

Starspacer

we are looking at extended hours through the night , but at the moment the figures do not really work out. This may change in the near future..... but depends upon other developments

Simon

 

[capitalspreads]

Kevin

I can assure you that our prices are not 'delayed' . How could we make money if they were, because the price would frequently be wrong and our clients (who mainly have real time data from several sources) would quickly take us to the cleaners.
Sometimes, as with any feed, when US data comes out the FX prices are often all over the place (one bank feed says 1.8050-55 and another says 1.8110 -15) we keep our daily FX prices up over these times (unlike some of our competitors) but this does mean that occasionally a client will not get the trade he is trying to do. I know this sounds unfair but ....we are a market maker not a 'best execution' service. In the latter a sell instruction would only go through if there was a genuine bid instruction on the other side, so there is no risk to the broker. In our case we take all the risk of the trade and so if we can see that the market has moved significantly in the last few seconds we have to apply some 'common sense' to trade acceptance.
I have to say that the only market, to date, that we (along with everyone else) have this problem is the FX because all other prices come from a single exchange not from twenty or thirty competing bank quotes some of whom may be a bit tardy (to be polite) with thier quotes.
I can assure all our clients that we do our very best to ensure fair trade service and will always continue to do so.

I think that you can take as read that if this was, in any way, a common occurence that these comment pages would be filled clients airing their greivances. As they seem to do for some firms that i won't mention.

regards
Simon

 

[Buk]

I have to say that the only market, to date, that we (along with everyone else) have this problem is the FX because all other prices come from a single exchange not from twenty or thirty competing bank quotes some of whom may be a bit tardy (to be polite) with thier quotes.

which further highlights & warns of the dangers to stepping into the breach around these 'lottery' numbers ........most of the platforms soon slip back into line anyway.....best to catch the next (directional) wave & avoid the mayhem & blood letting!!

 

[capitalspreads]

buk

i could not agree with you more !!

the best warning i can give to clients trading over big numbers (such as the nonfarm payrolls) is that they tend to be our (as in Capital Spreads') biggest P/L days. and dont take to much notice of the 'L'.

Simon

 

[zarif]

simon : thanks for the reply.

 

[ivorm]

Ivorm

sorry ...we changed the min stop levels on all the daily FX a while ago but for some reason missed the Euro/USD I have now change it to 5 pips.

Simon

Many thanks Simon.

Regards,

 

[capitalspreads]

zarif

sorry ..I missed your question..I am not sure whether you are being a bit sarcastic(!?)..or maybe i am just becoming sensitive.
I have spoken to our IT guys and we are going to move the Fx daily platform to immediate price flow. This should happen in the next few days. So that the whole screen will update real time rather than just the open deal ticket.

In the long term we are working on a 'push' functionality rather than the current 'pull' which will make the whole system more efficient.

good luck everyone

Simon

 

[kevin546]

Simon

Thank you for your replies. While I do not expect the new charts to keep up with the exchange I would like to think that as your price changes this will take place simultaneously on the chart.

Please can you advise what are the min stop placements on the FTSE cash daily.

Am I correct in assuming that the 1st deal placed on the FTSE cash will generate a CGSL of 125 points with a margin requirement of £30 per point; with a 2nd deal the CGSL the same or 80% at 100 points subject to your funds. Does this mean that each additional deal requires £125 for each point with the final deal reducing to £100 per point, in order to meet both requirements of margin and CGSL.

Kevin

 

[capitalspreads]

Kevin

min stop distance is 2

aside from min IMR (which is always 30 on the FTSE).............our margining is solely based upon where your stop is... if you have a position with a stop level of £1000 you will need £1250 on the account (1000 / 0.8) ..... so for any position you take it is easy to work out what margin will be required at whatever stop level you place.

The CGSL is just the maximum margin that the computer on its own will take against your position. This is so that a person placing a £1 bet in the FTSE with £10,000 on his account will not get a stop 10000 points away. You may then, once the computer has given you the stop, just go into the Order Book in the client area and amend the stop level to whereever you desire.

For practicable purposes, if you manage your stop levels, the important number is the Min IMR.

Simon

 

[kevin546]

Simon

Thank you for the explanation.

In respect of your prices what takes priority, the trading platform or the auto quote. I mention this because this afternoon I have noticed quite frequently there are periods where they are at odds with each other by a point. They would marry up but a number of times it was not instantly. If they are different should you close the auto-quote and get a new quote.

Kevin

 

[zarif]

simon : thanks for the reply


simpn it was a geniune thank you as in your earlier post u had answered all my question.

thanks
zarif

 

[capitalspreads]

kevin

the order ticket is always faster... if the price is at odds it is because the ticket has updated since the patform updated. You never need to close the deal ticket this will remain open until you decide to trade and will continually update with the latest 'dealable' price.

Simon

 

[kevin546]

Simon

Ok. Do you think you will offer in the future the facility to open more than one order ticket at a time, such as different instruments.

Back to those charts again. As it is unlikely they will be unavailable until sometime after the launch of your rolling cash bets will the charts remain on the conventional setting of being plotted between 8 - 5.30pm or will you be moving them to the 24 hour cycle Mon - Fri. I would prefer the conventional setting of 8 - 4.30pm or 5.30. If others require 24 hrs maybe this could be offered as a selection from the drop down menus or over a selection of the FTSE instruments to equal things out.

Kevin

 

[numspar]

Re :OCO orders

Hi Simon
I was wondering if you allow OCO orders to be placed. If so, do you take twice the IMR from the account while the order is pending, or just one.

Thanks in Advance

Nums

 

[capitalspreads]

numspar

at the moment we do not have OCO order capability until you actually have a position. i.e once you have a position you can have a limit and stop order in place as an OCO.

you can place as many 'new' orders on our site as you like but you must cancel the non filled orders yourself (or ring us up and instruct us that this is what you want)... until an order is activated it does not take any margin from the account .

the new OCO order capabilty should be available soon.

kevin

we are looking at extra deal boxes at the moment but not in the short term. ... charts will probably be just around live market data not out of hours pricing.