Smart Live Markets - Spread Bet on MT4

[Smart Live Markets]

Hello SLM,

So there is an issue with requotes, nice to know that, I thought it was only me having this problem.
I am talking about requote after requote, keep clicking the buy button up to 10 times until I give up, same with the sell button. This is not when the markets are moving by the way.
It is when the price is still.

I did ask via email,
"Can you answer a question for me, has anyone else contacted you/SLM in the last few days with a similar issue?

The reply I got was,
"We have had no complaints of this whatsoever in the last few days."

So maybe I am the only one to report it to you/SLM via e-mail.

The gentleman/lady from SLM was very helpful looking into the matter for me and thought it might be due to an EA I had running.
So I uninstalled everything I had ever installed, indicators, templates, and an EA.

Just had another couple of requotes trying to open a long on EU/US.

It's only the last 2 or 3 days this has been happening ridiculously. Before that I don't mind a couple of requotes especially when price is moving.
The platform is good and so worth putting up with a little inconvenience but the last few days is really not a usable platform for me.
Shame because I was exchanging e-mails about the process of opening a live account.

I would be a lot happier if I knew there was a problem with others and not just me, then I would wait until its fixed instead of looking for another UK spreadbetting firm to make a deposit.

I seem to have spent a few hours trying to sort this out yesterday and today instead of concentrating on trading.

Can you please go into more detail about what you think is causing the requote issue when closing a trade when price is not moving?
I would apprecaite some information about the problem and to know if you/technical department may be able to fix it.

Regards

Hello
Thanks for the reply.

I did not say we had an issue, I said we have made some changes that should help those people who have been getting requotes.

The issue that some clients seem to having is their internet connection is not as good as they seem to think it is, so the time their request to deal at a given price hits our servers, the price has moved. To allow fo this and to help those types of clients MT4 servers have a tellerance level built it.

We have increased this still further in attempt to help those people, but there is a limit, and this is it.

There is no reason for you to be experiencing things any differently than last week. We made some changes over the w/e to other currency pairs, but not the EurUsd.

EAs can also cause problems depending on the way they are written, so it is always advisable to look into all aspects of events.

If you are still having problems then please contact me directly with your account number and I will make further investigations. But at this stage we have thousands of clients dealing absolutly perfectly, so I am at a loss to explain your situation if it is not the internt.

Regards
Paul
SLM

 

[t.ph]

I have had no problems over the last few days opening or closing trades & thats on a live account & have still have not experienced a requote in 2 months of live trading with them. Dont you really think that if there were so many problems at there end this board would be flooded with REAL TRUE problems! most of the problems posted on here are down to the traders inability to understand/use MT4.

 

[pineappleman]

If you are still having problems then please contact me directly with your account number and I will make further investigations. But at this stage we have thousands of clients dealing absolutly perfectly, so I am at a loss to explain your situation if it is not the internt.

Regards
Paul
SLM

See? Honesty, care, customer service and he knows his stuff. This is what I'm talking about. It's rare in the world of SB.

 

[Mornington Crescent]

no problems here either

 

[francisfinley]

I have had no problems over the last few days opening or closing trades & thats on a live account & have still have not experienced a requote in 2 months of live trading with them. Dont you really think that if there were so many problems at there end this board would be flooded with REAL TRUE problems! most of the problems posted on here are down to the traders inability to understand/use MT4.

nothing to do with ability.

a problem is a problem.

as i said use the oanda feed for your ea and just run a script to copy the trade or output to csv i have both if you want them FOC.

 

[t.ph]

nothing to do with ability.

a problem is a problem.

as i said use the oanda feed for your ea and just run a script to copy the trade or output to csv i have both if you want them FOC.

It is all about ability as the lack of it seems to be causing people problems using a platform they dont understand.

As for your second comment i havent a clue what your on about if it was aimed at me !

 

[busfarehome]

Hello
Thanks for the reply.

I did not say we had an issue, I said we have made some changes that should help those people who have been getting requotes.

The issue that some clients seem to having is their internet connection is not as good as they seem to think it is, so the time their request to deal at a given price hits our servers, the price has moved. To allow fo this and to help those types of clients MT4 servers have a tellerance level built it.

We have increased this still further in attempt to help those people, but there is a limit, and this is it.

There is no reason for you to be experiencing things any differently than last week. We made some changes over the w/e to other currency pairs, but not the EurUsd.

EAs can also cause problems depending on the way they are written, so it is always advisable to look into all aspects of events.

If you are still having problems then please contact me directly with your account number and I will make further investigations. But at this stage we have thousands of clients dealing absolutly perfectly, so I am at a loss to explain your situation if it is not the internt.

Regards
Paul
SLM

You are welcome Paul,

To help the requote issue.

The first 28 days with the platform were brilliant and hence wanting to open a live account.
Even with reading the people moaning about SLM here I posted that I was satisfied in my previous posts in this thread and that putting up with a few requotes is bearable.

It's only the last couple of days it has got really bad.
I did download MT4 through Alpari this afternoon and it is running fine with no requotes.
My internet connection never gives me a problem.

I wonder if those changes made to help others has made it worse for me
I have changed nothing my end.

As for EA's I uninstalled MT4 and reinstalled it so there are no custom indicators.
EA's or anything and it did not help.

Just to clear up those saying it is expected around news etc, this is all the time now.
As for the guy that said it's because of lack of ability causing problems with a platform we don't understand, lol.
It was great for 28 days and I had been doing well and want to go live. JHC!

I am pleased your thousands of other clients are having a trouble free time, I really am.
Would not wish this on anyone, well maybe 1 person.

I will have a go at sorting it out and tonight and tomorrow.

Regards

 

[easytimes]

sounds like your platform is screwed on your client as I haven't had a requote all week. Might be worth trashing the Smartlive install and re-installing. Perhaps try installing it on another client box if you're saying other brokers are OK on your machine. Might even be a conflict with the different flavours of MT4 you've.

 

[jimmc]

busfarehome - are you on Vista by any chance? I just tried uninstalling all my old MT4 and MT5 software at the weekend and found it didn't go away properly. Something to do with vista not allowing the app to write data to the 'program files' folder, so creating a copy under user app data (can't remember exactly where). So the old app doesn't uninstall properly. Got it sorted in the end. Google it and you'll find it if you think this may be the problem.

 

[twinj]

Hi guys,

I was wondering how the variable spreads has impacted you all? I trade GBPUSD. During this morning, I cannot say for sure but about 4 pips spread at 0930 announcement. But what took me aback was the 1315 announcement. It widened to 10pips. There was little volatility. I felt SLM were very good dealing with trades during announcements but I don't think I can do it now.

It brings back a memory of a trade I had with CMC but I think that time it widened considerably more.

 

[Mata Nui]

Hi guys,

I was wondering how the variable spreads has impacted you all? I trade GBPUSD. During this morning, I cannot say for sure but about 4 pips spread at 0930 announcement. But what took me aback was the 1315 announcement. It widened to 10pips. There was little volatility. I felt SLM were very good dealing with trades during announcements but I don't think I can do it now.

It brings back a memory of a trade I had with CMC but I think that time it widened considerably more.

Been trading EUR/USD today. Not really noticed the spread (although no setups for me at that time so i wasnt in). 10 pips seems beyond stupid though since price has been dead most of the day. In fact there is so little volitility at the moment that i have only had 1 trade and i scratched that one. if spread moved to 10 pips on EUR/USD that would probably blow my stop and if it happend on a day like today with no movement i would probably close my account and walk.

 

[t.ph]

Been trading EUR/USD today. Not really noticed the spread (although no setups for me at that time so i wasnt in). 10 pips seems beyond stupid though since price has been dead most of the day. In fact there is so little volitility at the moment that i have only had 1 trade and i scratched that one. if spread moved to 10 pips on EUR/USD that would probably blow my stop and if it happend on a day like today with no movement i would probably close my account and walk.

NO MOVEMENT!!!!

Plenty of movement for me today with an easy 50pips from EUR/USD & another 50pips from the cable. Thats the sort of movement i like :clap:

 

[montmorencyt2w]

NO MOVEMENT!!!!

Plenty of movement for me today with an easy 50pips from EUR/USD & another 50pips from the cable. Thats the sort of movement i like :clap:

Unusual for there not to be movement of that order on EUR/USD most days.
The trick of course is to catch it at the right moment.

 

[t.ph]

Unusual for there not to be movement of that order on EUR/USD most days.
The trick of course is to catch it at the right moment.

Your not wrong there & some might say the trick is also not to get out too early

 

[pineappleman]

Ok so it seems that:

- There may not be an issue overall with SLM just on certain people's PC's/MT4.
- Vista may be the issue (no shock there as Vista is the worst OS in the history of mankind - move up to 7 or down to XP)
- If you do an uninstall/reinstall of MT4/5 sometimes files are left behind and can maybe cause a conflict, causing the requote/trading issues
- having other brokers MT4/5 on your PC could maybe also cause these problems
- like someone said, a bit of googling may solve it specifically, else you need to go through your PC and manually delete all MT4/5 stuff completely and start all over again with an SLM MT4 install
- the variable spreads aren't causing too many issues but get a bit jumpy at news releases even if there isn't much movement, but that's obviously SLM widening ready for action... totally expected for a market maker to do this, let's be real. But yes if you're a news trader it's not good but I've said it before and I'll say it again... if you're trying to trade news or scalp or do anything that's not regular positional trading on longer intraday frames and above, then SB is not for you and you have to accept this fact - move on.
- Black Swan thinks I'm cute

I'm glad that people can bang their heads together and find answers like this. The quest continues, but it's looking more and more like SLM doesn't have MT4 issues perhaps afterall, just a few customers having issues perhaps due to their own PC setups. Interesting. I still stand by SLM's defence that there is no issue they know of else like someone else said 1000's of people would surely find thier way here to moan about the same thing, and it's just a very small few so far.

Would be great if you all (with problems) let us know if you resolve it with a full-delete and fresh MT4 install.

Thanks

pine

 

[easytimes]

One thing I have found out playing around with MT4 is that it runs without any issues on a Virtual Machine, I've managed to get 3 platforms running on one XP box by running them on VMs. One XP box with loadsa RAM then three XP (or Server 2003 or server 2008) VMs each with an different brooker MT4 platform running on on each one. Smooth as silk. With this setup you can use your main box for all of your regular PC functionality MS Office, email, browsing etc and run the MT4 on VMs running their own EAs. Just download a copy of Oracle's Virtualbox - completely free. A setup like that ensure MT4 is operating in it's own space without any other gremlins affecting resources or generating conflicts. If you want to access the VMs and trade manually you just Remote desktop to each one and click on whichever session you want.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

One thing I have found out playing around with MT4 is that it runs without any issues on a Virtual Machine, I've managed to get 3 platforms running on one XP box by running them on VMs. One XP box with loadsa RAM then three XP (or Server 2003 or server 2008) VMs each with an different brooker MT4 platform running on on each one. Smooth as silk. With this setup you can use your main box for all of your regular PC functionality MS Office, email, browsing etc and run the MT4 on VMs running their own EAs. Just download a copy of Oracle's Virtualbox - completely free. A setup like that ensure MT4 is operating in it's own space without any other gremlins affecting resources or generating conflicts. If you want to access the VMs and trade manually you just Remote desktop to each one and click on whichever session you want.

That makes sense. An essentially virgin environment each time it loads.
I guess running multiple VMs takes bags of resources though.

 

[easytimes]

VMs are memory intensive so you allocate a fixed size for each instance. I use VMs in a Dev environment so know ways to get max performance without affecting the performance of the host they're running on. They're not CPU intensive if you're running an instance of MT4 on each VM allocate say 500 MB per VM. One thing to watch though is the total memory of all of your VMs mustn't exceed the total memory remaining on the host. Once you get past that stage the host starts over utilising CPU and page faults start increasing on your virtual disk.

So if you allocated 500 MB per MT4 VM and you've got 3 VMs you're using 1.5 GB, you need 1.5 GB spare on your host to keep processing power under to a minimum to run the VMs. In my case I have 4GB but XP can only access 3.3GB I think being 32 bit. CPU utilisation is around 10-20% range running 3 VMs which is nothing. All this is based on is running MT4 platforms on the VMs though. The reason I need maximum resources is that I run scripts on the host XP system and it whacks the hell out of the CPU if you're not careful it' can take up to 100% cpu utilisation on a loop when it's processing. With the set up I've got it only hit 70% max now for 10 seconds in every 1 minute and that is with the other office / email stuff running.

 

[trader_dante]

Second complaint with Smartlive. Just woke up to a rolling transaction of 40 X my stake (yes you read that right) on a short SMI position. It's actually a dividend transaction but my God, this is unprecedented.

 

[JDTRADER]

Hi guys,

I was wondering how the variable spreads has impacted you all?

Just thought I would give my two cents on the change to variable spreads on SLM

In my view SLM is a good company to trade with and are always listening to you the customer but now moving to variable spreads who do they expect to attract ?

A new small company that started with TIGHT, FIXED spreads where you can trade Indices, Forex, Equities and Commodities. on the MT4 Platform. This alone put them ahead in the Spread Bet Market.

A RUBBISH platform like CMC (this is my view) was pumped full of advertising but where was the adverts for SLM ?

I understand why the move to variable than fixed, small company starts competitive gets to a number where the company hits the target for Live accounts then moves to variable to increase profits.

In reality who will be attracted to use SLM ?
New Traders - I see SLM has a London office, well why don't they run half day workshops on how to Spread Bet and how to use MT4 to trade. Your London competitors are doing this and there platforms are not as good as SLM. I feel a number of new traders are put off by using MT4.

Existing Traders - With the Tight, Fixed Spreads of before and with a good advertising campaign SLM could of got more Live clients which would of increased profits and by further word of mouth got even more live clients.
BUT !
Now with the increased and variable spreads what's the attraction for existing MT4 trades on other platforms to switch over ? NONE now I think.

I think SLM has taken a backward step but I will still trade there and I think most traders will stay but will they attract new clients ? well we will see and I just hope the variable spreads are not widened to much. Watching with interest as with a lot of sites with variable spreads you get a lot more SPIKES (or stop hunting) from these brokers.