I think everyone is mental. Thinking brokers try to stop you out. To start off with, noone here trades big enough size for them to even care about trying to stop you out. Secondly i don't think any spreadbetting companies have the technology to manipulate the price to stop you out. What you have to remember is that if they stopping you out they might be filling someone else on a limit at the same time. It's a bit complex and they arent as clever as you may think.
SB’s hedge their clients trades, as most clients lose the SB’s win. If clients start winning then the SB’s start losing, so it’s in the interest of the SB’s that their clients lose.
I agree that stop hunting may be counter productive and therefore difficult to implement, but slippage and re-quotes may be used on individual profitable accounts.
The SB’s are market makers, they create the market. The price you see is not the true market price but has been manipulated by the SB, therefore they must have the technology in order to create the business. Metatrader have created both the client software and the SB management software for use on their dealing desk.
I’ve no idea at what point the SB’s start to implement these strategies, if at all. If the majority of their clients are losing and their winning clients are just over break even there may be no need to use these strategies. Some SB’s are better than others. From what I’ve read, SLM are one of the better SB’s.
If you are now unhappy about SB’s having read the above, then you need to consider a move over to an ECN/STP broker that do not use a dealing desk. Profits are made from spreads and/or commission, they do not trade against you and their prices come directly from the market. It is in the brokers interest that you are profitable, otherwise they loose your custom and their profit. Unfortunately, you will have to pay tax if you are from the UK, but at least you will know whose side the broker is on.