So you’re saying that the SB’s aren’t as bad as before but still practise the same hedging methods on the FX?
Yep, that's it! They used to have untradable spreads on everything years ago when they were young and IG ruled the world. Today IG are still expensive on some things and some instruments have unfair spreads with all SB brokers to this day. We all love EURUSD and GBPUSD for tight spreads and movement potential, but look at some FX pairs, comms, stocks etc and you will see a spread:movement ratio which will make you feel sick.
1 point DJ30 or 0.8 EURUSD and 1 GBPUSD type spreads are all loss making for a bookie, how can they profit from that???! This is where alarm bells ring so I wouldn't trust too-good-to-be-true spreads - something is wrong and you are probably in for a fall (dodgy games) somewhere.
SBs are now in a very saturated industry so the consumer will win; when one broker messes up and fools around the word soon gets out in places like this and they wont last unless they buck up their ideas. SLM have the best customer service and really do seem to help where possible because, being newish yet having staff who have previously worked in the industry, they must have realised that this was the only way to stand a chance.
In a nutshell, SB brokers/bookmakers in the past (when there were few) could do what they wanted with the price as they didn't have to quote the true underlying plus they were free to widen spreads whenever they wanted/needed to, which made trading even harder. Now, because of competition, they have had to smarten up. Spreads have to remain tight most of time, fills need to be good, etc.. else we walk.
So now if you trade something outside FX you can compare the bookie price to the real price and see how close it is....and it should be close these days. If you see a dodgy data spike anywhere you can ring up and moan, they should sort it for you else you walk. But with FX this has been hard as no central exchange, so Peter says 36 was the high, Paul says 39, who is right? So this is still an area the "bookie" side of the business can fiddle the numbers a bit to balance the losses on their books, while the "broker" side of the same company hedges as and when it can. Again, with technological advances and stiff competition, it's getting better all the time - it has to.
I would seriously look at things outside FX to trade for peace of mind with regards to dodgy data tactics, plus non-FX is often easier to trade.
But as for the old idea of "the broker takes the opposite side of the bet so wants you to lose" - this is long dead and buried. They want you to win so you keep trading with them, but yes the unhedged scatty leftovers on their books have to be kept like a regular bookie so check your stoploss takeouts and statements carefully.
