prospreads.com

[gle101]

Ya that's what I said.

Visaria, if you're on the bid and the bid is being hit then the market has 'gone through' the price. PS has explicitly said that you can take liquidity from the actual market. If I'm 100th in the queue according to PS and 200 contracts trade but I don't get a fill they're full of ****.

What is the point of giving me an imaginary queue number?

I would be very surprised if they can take the order queue from the actual market and execute on that figure and in the right order. As Visaria is pointing out, PS is after all a market maker. I guess PS representative need to answer this question as it is of rather importance.

 

[Vasco da Banana]

I don't think you guys understand that your limit orders etc are not actually being placed on an exchange. The only other third party that can see your limit order is another Prospreads client. Therefore you can only be filled when either another Prospreads client wants the same price as you (in the opposite direction) or if the underlying market trades through your price level.

Poor platform, wide spreads, execution problems... what reason is there
to use Prospreads instead of a 'normal' SB?

 

[rawrschach]

Spreads are much smaller than SB for futures. I'd much rather pay £50 in comms than £200 for the same trade/same size.

On another note, why are your ZC futures quoted like this and not in quarter ticks?

 

[A Dashing Blade]

I don't think you guys understand that your limit orders etc are not actually being placed on an exchange . . .

Any evidence to back up this assetion?
No? Thought not.

First of all i don't trade shares with them. Secondly, i doubt if they use the LSE for anything!

Do you or have you ever traded with them? If not, on what basis do you make your second assertion?

Anything they hedge they probably use an investment bank product especially made for them (i know this for a fact btw, not relating to Prospreads per se, but SBs in general).

My emphasis. I've got 25+ years City experience (front office, major IB's, all products bar commodities) and a) I've never heard this and b) am not quite sure how such a structure could be efficiantly designed. Would be professionally interested in the background to your "know this for a fact" assertion.

. . .
Best thing would be if Prospreads could clear this matter up.

TBH the best thing would be for posters not to speculate about issues where they are lacking expertise.

 

[gle101]

Any evidence to back up this assetion?
No? Thought not.

In fact I read a while ago a statement from Simon. If it was from CS Simon or PS Simon I don't remember. He clearly pointed out that the orders are not sent to the real market exchange, this unless they need to hedge. If I am wrong about this, PS Simon needs to make it clear.

 

[WR1]

The silence is deafening

both Simons seem to of disappeared

from this we (or at least i) can take it
Prospreads is just the same as every other spread betting company and seeing as its owned by LCG why would the model be very different
it just has a fancy name and ladder

but most of the same issues

slighty off topic - but are there any good brokers - at all
im slowly coming to the conclusion there are nt and when some on the internet say Forex and the like is a complete scam, sadly im starting to believe

if anyones really happy and makes great money with Prospreads, id pay to hear what they say
(only joking)

 

[A Dashing Blade]

In fact I read a while ago a statement from Simon. If it was from CS Simon or PS Simon I don't remember. He clearly pointed out that the orders are not sent to the real market exchange, this unless they need to hedge. If I am wrong about this, PS Simon needs to make it clear.

Suspect you misunderstood
Think it through . . . their model is "cross in-house or immediately put it through to the exchange if you can't" . . . the more likely probability is the latter which is what was meant by "hedging"

 

[capitalspreads]

the product is DMA 'functionality'. The word functionality was originally brought in for clients who want to trade in sizes of less than the (often quite large) contract sizes on the exchange. These clients trade on the exact Exchange prices but their trades do not actually impact the exchanges.

BUT The vast bulk of Pro Spreads business is directly placed on the the exchanges

the point about who SB companies hedge with is a tad difficult as everyone nowadays uses "a brokers portal" to access the various global markets as we cannot have a different account with dozens of individual brokers across the globe as we would have to place margin with all of them. LCG currently uses both Goldman's and Fortis' platforms as our brokers. Through one broker we can trade on global exchanges as (effectively) do our clients when they trade with us. We assume that our business goes directly on the LSE/ChiX/Eurex/NYSE etc etc and we usually see our trades take up the liquidity available.

But of course a very clever trading system 'might' be able to obscure this but ... if I worried about this then I would never end... frankly I do not care if someone else make money out of my company's hedging trades. The trades are not there to prove a point ..... they are there to hedge our risk. Whether the hedge is with some person on the other side of the liquidity or with my broker it makes no difference to us.

Simon

PS.. mind you from some of the comments you see here one wonders if anyone believes anything... even if you bought/rented a futures access platform from a broker... what real proof do you have that your trades have gone through to the exchange? You never see the counterpart (only your broker) .. you never have to call anyone for margin nor will anyone other than your broker call you for margin...
so who is to say whether the trade went anywhere other than into your brokers book?

 

[tar]

PS.. mind you from some of the comments you see here one wonders if anyone believes anything... even if you bought/rented a futures access platform from a broker... what real proof do you have that your trades have gone through to the exchange? You never see the counterpart (only your broker) .. you never have to call anyone for margin nor will anyone other than your broker call you for margin...
so who is to say whether the trade went anywhere other than into your brokers book?

This can be easily verified by checking a different provider price ladder and check if your trades went through the bid/ask , T&S ... etc

 

[capitalspreads]

Tar

Thank you for reminding me of this.. so the answer to the question is that if you do a trade on Prospreads you will be able to check on time and sales that your trade actually hit the market. Of course the next question is "how do I know that is my trade" ? Sorry can't help there. You will just have to believe it.

The point is that ... does anyone really care? If you win .. you win .... if you lose.. worrying who you lost to seems pretty pointless.

Simon

 

[gle101]

Tar

Thank you for reminding me of this.. so the answer to the question is that if you do a trade on Prospreads you will be able to check on time and sales that your trade actually hit the market. Of course the next question is "how do I know that is my trade" ? Sorry can't help there. You will just have to believe it.

The point is that ... does anyone really care? If you win .. you win .... if you lose.. worrying who you lost to seems pretty pointless.

Simon

I kind of agree with tar. When I used to trade the Swedish Stock exchange (through a broker) it was very helpful knowing when your order hit the market. I knew this by actually watching time&sales as tar is correctly pointing out. Anyway in order to make this clear, the mini-lots is not placed in the real market (understandable) but the full lots are always through the brokers you mentioned?

 

[capitalspreads]

GLE101
not always but usually... you must realise that individual client accounts must be classified because if a client did two mini lots of £5 a pip in the FTSE and then sold a 10 lot (£10 being the equivalent of 1 real future) then we cannot end up with the client actually trading one side of a deal via MM and then closing it via an exchange .. as the closing trade would actually create an exposure for us on the exchange.

if a client insists on all futures trades going via the exchange then they will (but he will be restricted to trading solely in exchange size) and as i said the vast bulk of these trades with Prospreads are cross exchange. On the equity side we are just changing from one broker to another so the trades are currently MM deals but they will be back via Exchange again very soon. The reason being the broker we and many others used .. pulled out of offering the service a few months ago and it takes time to get interfaces etc working satisfactorily

Simon

 

[tar]

Tar

Thank you for reminding me of this.. so the answer to the question is that if you do a trade on Prospreads you will be able to check on time and sales that your trade actually hit the market. Of course the next question is "how do I know that is my trade" ? Sorry can't help there. You will just have to believe it.

The point is that ... does anyone really care? If you win .. you win .... if you lose.. worrying who you lost to seems pretty pointless.

Simon

T&S is just an example you can put a limit order between bid/ask at quiet times and then cancel it , it is not that hard this can be verified and if i have a prospreads account i will check this out ....

 

[gle101]

GLE101
not always but usually... you must realise that individual client accounts must be classified because if a client did two mini lots of £5 a pip in the FTSE and then sold a 10 lot (£10 being the equivalent of 1 real future) then we cannot end up with the client actually trading one side of a deal via MM and then closing it via an exchange .. as the closing trade would actually create an exposure for us on the exchange.

if a client insists on all futures trades going via the exchange then they will (but he will be restricted to trading solely in exchange size) and as i said the vast bulk of these trades with Prospreads are cross exchange. On the equity side we are just changing from one broker to another so the trades are currently MM deals but they will be back via Exchange again very soon. The reason being the broker we and many others used .. pulled out of offering the service a few months ago and it takes time to get interfaces etc working satisfactorily

Simon

OK I understand, thanks a lot.

 

[gle101]

T&S is just an example you can put a limit order between bid/ask at quiet times and then cancel it , it is not that hard this can be verified and if i have a prospreads account i will check this out ....

Yes as you say, extremely easy to check out. As PS seem to be between changing to another broker it might not work currently, maybe this explain the reason for the complain earlier on this thread.

 

[ceydababy]

TBH I'm not bothered about who PS hedge with or if I can see my spreadbet in the market. I've only been on this for an hour, but the platform is not at all intuitive. If there is a complicated fiddly way to do something you can bet your bottom dollar they've thought of it and included it in the package.

Also if you click twice to close a position it opens you up going the other way !

I'm used to Ninja Trader and whilst that is not everyones cup of tea it's simple and functional and does what it says on the tin. Within 15 minutes of looking at ninja trader I had a very good feel for what was what.

I've just managed to sell 28 lots of oil by clicking on the positions window ! The positions window shows your positions through the day, not broken down but cumulative.

I clicked to see if it would break this down in to the positions Ive taken rather than a cumulative total.

All of a sudden a deal ticket pops up. I close the deal ticket 30 secs later there is a noise and I'm short 28 lots.

I will persevere and maybe it will grow on me but so far it's a flippin nightmare.

 

[ceydababy]

The charts have EPIC Fail written all over them. The charts I used to get in 2006 on Capital Spreads were easier to use. These charts are fiddly to zoom in and out on and the cross hair has some kind of magnet effect so only shows a certain price point on the candle. Hover the pointer over a candle it gives you no information what so ever. No OHLC information nothing.

This has the feel of something knocked together on the cheap. Gekko global has better charts than this.

 

[ceydababy]

Last post:...Comparing to Ninja trader. When you click to trade there is an audible voice saying " order pending" so you know your mouse click has been recognised and you get "order filled" when you're in the market. On this platform you click and nothing happens to tell you that the order is being worked. Using a 1 minute chart on oil speed is of the essence so having heard nothing I've clicked again. Then some kind of computer generated noise and I'm short 2 lots rather than 1. Annoying.

ON a positive the spread is better for CL than usual SB Companies.

 

[Vasco da Banana]

Last post:...Comparing to Ninja trader. When you click to trade there is an audible voice saying " order pending" so you know your mouse click has been recognised and you get "order filled" when you're in the market. On this platform you click and nothing happens to tell you that the order is being worked. Using a 1 minute chart on oil speed is of the essence so having heard nothing I've clicked again. Then some kind of computer generated noise and I'm short 2 lots rather than 1. Annoying.

ON a positive the spread is better for CL than usual SB Companies.

Prospreads originally offered Ninja, I believe, which as far as I can see was the only reason for using them rather than other SBs. Some of the other non 'DMA functionality' SBs now have narrower spreads still, and better platforms, so why use PS?

 

[P4chira]

the cross hair has some kind of magnet effect so only shows a certain price point on the candle.

If you use the 'Screen crosshair' option then there is no snap-to effect.

Hover the pointer over a candle it gives you no information what so ever. No OHLC information nothing.

OHLC data is on the top left of chart as you move your pointer (rather than an overlay).