spread betting firms shenanigans

Hi,

I have SB accounts with IG and ODL and the other day I thought I'd try and make some money from the reult of the US bail out and set stop orders either side of the market to capture any movements with ODL.

The price (FTSE) spiked up as the yea's were winning triggering my long trade which quickly fell to a loss which I closed out. On the final no result the price duly spiked down and my limit order was not triggered (the error stated not enough margin available - I did the calculations 0.6% magin requirement and there was enough cash there) and I then trued to manually enter a trade and it wouldn't work.....I resorted to IG and entered a manual trade and managed to capture 100 points no problem and close out.

The following morning I set a stop order with IG on a particlar stock to go short , the price duly fell quickly though my entry level and was triggered - however it was triggered at 292 instead of the 305 entry I had entered and the quickly reversed entering into a losing trade.

Where do I stand on this, it seems to me SB firms are great for when they have a chance of making money but are complete and utter ba*tards when it comes to quick moving markets and honouring trades. I mean the stock trade with IG, I have a trade plan and hence the price I wanted to enter into was 305 for a reason, so surely I should be given the chance to enter into at 292 and not automatically be entered into it, I wouldn't have entered into the trade at that price!

With regards ODL, surely as the systems are computerisde it is irrelevant if the price spikes quickly, the trade should automatically be triggered - it wasn't that quick a price movement in that it was over a fair few minutes but the trade wasn;t triggered and manual trading would not work. What's the point in using SB if you can't trade when you really want to and can't get pre-empted trades to work. Is there any point in speaking to IG and ODL on these points?

In a word NO.

If for instance the price gaps from 310 to 292 you are never going to get filled at 305. Have a look at the charts - are there any ticks at 305? or did it gap through your trigger straight to 292.

0.6% margin doesn't seem right to me - that's far too low an amount - I think you may hav your figures wrong there. For stocks it's usually around 10%

Hoggums said:

In a word NO.


If for instance the price gaps from 310 to 292 you are never going to get filled at 305. Have a look at the charts - are there any ticks at 305? or did it gap through your trigger straight to 292.

0.6% margin doesn't seem right to me - that's far too low an amount - I think you may hav your figures wrong there. For stocks it's usually around 10%

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Thanks for the reply.

Yes there are ticks at 305, but I think this was fast moving upon open......surely I should be given the option as to whether I still want to open the trade otherwise it seriosly fu*ks up your trading strategy if you dont know if a price you want to enter into will be filled or not? i.e. I'd rather it not be filled at all than at a price I didn' want?

It was a FTSE 100 bet so minimum margin is 0.6% for ODL....when I placed the stop order it accepted it which it wouldn't do if there was not enough equity available in the account. Not sure why margin comes into play in any case as account is non leveraged with guaranteed stop loss.

booka61 said:

Thanks for the reply.

Yes there are ticks at 305, but I think this was fast moving upon open......surely I should be given the option as to whether I still want to open the trade otherwise it seriosly fu*ks up your trading strategy if you dont know if a price you want to enter into will be filled or not? i.e. I'd rather it not be filled at all than at a price I didn' want?

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That's how stop orders work I'm afraid. You're not authorising the dealers to take any discretion, but to trade at the best available price.

When I was working on a dealing desk, I reckon well over 80% the disputes we had were to do with fills on stops.

You guys should use E*Trade. Cr*p platform but I've never been slipped. Even in very fast markets and even sometimes when the price has gapped THROUGH my stop. (no guaranteed stop loss but stop still honoured).

trader_dante said:

You guys should use E*Trade. Cr*p platform but I've never been slipped. Even in very fast markets and even sometimes when the price has gapped THROUGH my stop. (no guaranteed stop loss but stop still honoured).

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I believe they're part of the London Capital Group. I could be entirely wrong however ! I found that Capital Spreads part of the same group also honour stops that the price just gaps over. World Spreads also honour stops in the same situation too. I have had problems with IG Index believe it or not, where the stop would only be triggered if the price actually touched that level.

the actual definition of a Stop order is an "at market" order if/when triggered.

ie you gave an order sell "at market" ie hit the first available bid, on a move below 305.

As the previous poster said this is a source of disputes for time immemorial , and my advice would be not to jump to the conculsion that the spread bet firm has shafted you, despite everything you read on these boards. Ring them up and ask them to show you why your trade was triggered. Most have a firm policy on this sort of thing and don't just make it up as they go along.

Also remember these are extreme times, and great care should be taken in trading these sort of market conditions.

Hope this helps.

Little one can do with slippage, it's part of the game. Yes, it often looks like people are being ****fy and of course it happens. This is the financial markets we're talking about and it's full of shifty people, although on the outside they don't project this image.

I once did broking business for one of the largest (own account) traders in London and he often got horrendous slippage (futures, not spread bets). He never complained once as he knew that in this game you have to accept the good with the bad. Personally though I think the reason that he didn't complain was that he was a master of setting off other people's stops and shafting them