IG ... it wouldnt close

Yesterday when the DOW was falling on opening, I had an open sell position @ £20 a point, As the DOW fell dramatically I try to close and take a profit of approx £7200, when I tried to close the position, I couldnt, it said 'not possibe I must enter a stop loss figure'

I tried many times, the same message appeared several times, by the time I managed to close the position, my profits had fallen to £3000.

Why did this happen, why have I lost money from a problem with your software, the same happened on a few trades with Finspreads, an 'never seen before' message pops up and I cant close, either losing money or profits. It fell on deaf ears at Finspreads they asked me if I had proof or screen prints, of course not the whole thing happens in seconds....

Imagine my anger yesterday when i wanted to bag £7000 and seen it drop to £3000 in 40 seconds.

Is there proof of the error on there side, can I do anything about it.

I normally day trade, scalping a few points, keeping positions open from minutes to an hour.

Whats the chances of my money back from this mistake, which other SB company would be better and faster for closing.

I have yet to hear back from IG index

KC

200 point drop in 40 seconds. This is why you didn't get filled. Set a stop loss or guaranteed in these volatile times and you will get filled.

Stop losses: Use them.

As for screen shots, it takes only one or two presses of a key at the same time and can be executed within a second.

When markets are this rapid, you are going to have problems. They (The companies) are getting better believe it or not.

When all this madness happened before a few years back. (These market conditions now are actually worse than before, (or better). People had problems just logging on to their trading software. And if you were on at the time, constant re quotes and spinning were happening, forcing you to close down software and try to log on again SB's and brokers didn't answer the phone. It was chaos, a stomach churning brown trouser making nightmare. Can you imagine being in your position and going 5 grand in the hole before you were able to close? Worse there was no redress. Their respective arses are covered in the small print.

It is easier to trade today then it was then. But in these conditions you have to expect and plan for **** ups. Having the close ticket ready and waiting on the screen while the action is taking place by the side of it. (You probably do this anyway). Phone number and contact name if poss ready by your side, on both mobile and landline.

To take an instant screen shot of what's happening on your screen, press Ctrl and the print screen Sysrq buttons at the same time. This will 'save' a capture in memory. bring up 'paint' in the accessiories section of programes. Go to 'edit' then paste and you can save screen shot as a jpeg to your pictures or document for attachment to an e mail, or to a screen shot for a post on these boards.

Good luck trying to get your money. At that time of day it would have been 'mental' at any trading company, and very frustrating for everyone.

Thanks folks

i didnt set stop losses because as always, i was sat there with an open ticket and my finger on the mouse, i was never losing on that position.

Its never happened before, its just my paranoia, that somebody in IG is thinking hes made to much, we want some.

Im just a newbie, so i will get upto speed with the screen shots ect.

Then go back to scalping a few points here and there on the S&P, its easier on the heart.

Karl

karl6666 said:

i didnt set stop losses because as always, i was sat there with an open ticket and my finger on the mouse, i was never losing on that position.

Its never happened before, its just my paranoia, that somebody in IG is thinking hes made to much, we want some.

Click to expand...

Always set losses. It only takes the phone to ring at the wrong moment, or your network connection to die inadvertantly, and all hell can break loose.

If IG start noticing your trades, what you'll probably see is trades referred to the dealing desk. Basically this means they take about a minute to execute while someone pokes at them, but I've never seen a trade rejected that way yet. I have seen "This price is no longer valid" (or somesuch), where the market turned against me as I was going to click.

Personally, I think IG and spread betting are great if you're going to be in for several hours/days/longer, but if you're doing scalping-like trading you'd be much better off with direct market access (DMA). It'll react faster, and you're not trading against your broker. IG do a DMA platform under the name IG Markets, but it's relatively expensive. If you can make the minimum account balance ($10k), I like Interactive Brokers myself.

karl6666 said:

Thanks folks

i didnt set stop losses because as always, i was sat there with an open ticket and my finger on the mouse, :!:i was never losing on that position.

Its never happened before, its just my paranoia, that somebody in IG is thinking hes made to much, we want some.

Im just a newbie, so i will get upto speed with the screen shots ect.

Then go back to scalping a few points here and there on the S&P, its easier on the heart.

Karl

Click to expand...

Always have stops set.

What if:

Your network goes down
Power cut
PC problems
Platform failure
Cant get through on the phone
Lines down
Market volatility

List not exhausted.

:!:Be aware. You would have been at a loss the moment you opened the trade.

I tried IG (for their trailing SL feature) but didn't like their trading mechanism at all.

Placed about 8 trades in three days, each and every trade the executed price was against my favour - different to the ticket price displayed, whether short or long.

I did telephone and was told to clear my cache and cookies, place site in trusted sites etc. They could find nothing wrong with trades. Fair enough, that's their system.


However, with CMC you get a ticket and if the execution price is different to the ticket it turns yellow and you have about 3 seconds to accept or reject the new price.

Hence you know exactly at what price you are executing.


Secondly, on a number of occasions if I'm going short and price moves up, they'll short at the higher price, rather than your ticket price, thus saving you pips rather than keeping difference I guess.


fwiw, imho CMC is a better platform using their Java based application.


After IGs explanation and advise on my trades - I've taken monies out and closed my account with them.

Atilla said:

I tried IG (for their trailing SL feature) but didn't like their trading mechanism at all.

Placed about 8 trades in three days, each and every trade the executed price was against my favour - different to the ticket price displayed, whether short or long.

I did telephone and was told to clear my cache and cookies, place site in trusted sites etc. They could find nothing wrong with trades. Fair enough, that's their system.


However, with CMC you get a ticket and if the execution price is different to the ticket it turns yellow and you have about 3 seconds to accept or reject the new price.

Hence you know exactly at what price you are executing.


Secondly, on a number of occasions if I'm going short and price moves up, they'll short at the higher price, rather than your ticket price, thus saving you pips rather than keeping difference I guess.


fwiw, imho CMC is a better platform using their Java based application.


After IGs explanation and advise on my trades - I've taken monies out and closed my account with them.

Click to expand...

With my recent experience at IG (they "manipulated" my Mar-09 contract open!)
I'm going to do the same. B******s!

Hi Karl

I can't add much more to the excellent advice that has already been posted on this topic. However, I wanted to give you a practical nightmare situation and make a small suggestion:

The DOW, yesterday evening, did one of its largest intraday rallies in its history (>800 points in an hour!). Imagine being short and using just a manual stop when you find your connection has gone. In 10 minutes you'd be near to 100 points offside!

I would, therefore, introduce the idea of an automatic safety stoploss which is only triggered should such a critical event occur. E.g. Your manual (finger on the button) stop is set at 6 ticks offside, your safety (auto) stop is set at 12 ticks offside. At least that way you get another level of protection. Move the auto stop up as a trailing stoploss.

Remember Murphy's Law: 'If it can happen, it will happen!'

Best

JD

Jaydee said:

Remember Murphy's Law: 'If it can happen, it will happen!'

Best

JD

Click to expand...

At the worst possible time

When you are least prepared

With maximum impact

To inflict the greatest loss you can sustain if you are lucky.


If you are unlucky you will not be able to sustain anything and you should kiss your **** good bye. :cheesy:

I quite like my sig link...

Atilla said:

I tried IG (for their trailing SL feature) but didn't like their trading mechanism at all.

Placed about 8 trades in three days, each and every trade the executed price was against my favour - different to the ticket price displayed, whether short or long.

I did telephone and was told to clear my cache and cookies, place site in trusted sites etc. They could find nothing wrong with trades. Fair enough, that's their system.


However, with CMC you get a ticket and if the execution price is different to the ticket it turns yellow and you have about 3 seconds to accept or reject the new price.

Hence you know exactly at what price you are executing.

Click to expand...

Fair enough. I'm regularly trading on a Mac, or even under Linux, so IG's multiplatform support was a major win for me (CMC's Java app was Windows only last time I looked, strange people). I've always had my orders filled at the price I saw, or not at all, so I'm happy enough with them. However, I certainly wouldn't (and haven't) stuck with a broker I was having ongoing technical issues with, it's generally just not worth the hassle.

Since then I've taken something of a step back, realised the massive benefits of reducing my per-trade costs over reducing the tax I pay on my profits (much lower chance of going bust, essentially), and am now all DMA. Still, as a rule, if you're making money doing something, don't stop just because someone else thinks it shouldn't work :-D

Thanks to you all

Im in writing with IG, as to why on all my trades with them it asked me to enter a stop loss, before I could close 'buy' the DOW on this occasion and no others. The stop loss was set at 50 points when I opened the position.

My profit was £7000, I tried to buy DOW close the position, it asked me for a stop loss, the stop loss was set at 50 points minimum when I opened the position.

It let me buy when my profit was £3000, why 3 k and not 7k the usual ticket came on the screen, and I closed by buying........

Are we saying the system is useless and must be kept away from when there is a panic on the markets, why does errors cost us cash.

Sorry to bore you folks, the trade was carried out as I have done many times before, this time I lost £4000, there have been times in the past when I have entered a trade,

eg

sell 9552 buy 9554

sell at £50 a point

I hit the sell button, Im - £350 loss

down 7 points by the time the button is hit, Im aware things move fast.....

Atilla, I think I will move over to CMC

Karl

Karl, have a look at these guys - I keep hearing more and more about them:

FuturesBetting - Financial Spread Betting Homepage

Jaydee said:

Karl, have a look at these guys - I keep hearing more and more about them:

FuturesBetting - Financial Spread Betting Homepage

Click to expand...

Hope they are not based in Iceland!

karl6666 said:

Thanks to you all

Im in writing with IG, as to why on all my trades with them it asked me to enter a stop loss, before I could close 'buy' the DOW on this occasion and no others. The stop loss was set at 50 points when I opened the position.

My profit was £7000, I tried to buy DOW close the position, it asked me for a stop loss, the stop loss was set at 50 points minimum when I opened the position.

It let me buy when my profit was £3000, why 3 k and not 7k the usual ticket came on the screen, and I closed by buying........

Are we saying the system is useless and must be kept away from when there is a panic on the markets, why does errors cost us cash.

Sorry to bore you folks, the trade was carried out as I have done many times before, this time I lost £4000, there have been times in the past when I have entered a trade,

eg

sell 9552 buy 9554

sell at £50 a point

I hit the sell button, Im - £350 loss

down 7 points by the time the button is hit, Im aware things move fast.....

Atilla, I think I will move over to CMC

Karl

Click to expand...

Bear in mind Karl, that CMCs web based trading platform is not very good for charting at all. Their Windows Java based platform until recently was very good imo. Still not too bad but their recent upgrade was a step back I think.

Try them and pick your best suited one I guess.

You need to remember order are First come, First served.

In order to have you ticket filled, it needs to be in the market.

The fact that prices traded through your range and prices is a reflection of your standings within order flow.

IF you hit the button within 1/1000th of a second, your order could still fall to last place and posibly be missed.


You can't be on the side of the road trying to jump on a bus passing by at 50 mph, it'll rip your arms right off.
You need to have a bus ticket and a 'place in line'.

IF you hit the button within 1/1000th of a second, your order could still fall to last place and posibly be missed.

Click to expand...

This applies to those who are trading within the true market and is not how it works with SB companies.


Paul

I have similar problems with orders being filled at reduculous levels. I can't trrade during market hours, so all of my positions are placed at night, ready to open the following morning. On Friday for example, one of my sector shorts was opened after about 20 minutes of market opening and in the middle of a massive downtrend. This meant that my order was filled at over 400 points lower that I intended, and was closed out on the subsequent upturn at 300 my 300 point stop. Ouch! The problem I have is that there was 20 minutes of stable trading beforehand.

I also find the IGIndex account totally inflexible when trying to edit positions after hours. Basically, you can plough more money into your (losing) position, but not secure any gains or reduce stops. Heavily biased in their favour I find.

Everybody

Thanks for all your responses, its nice to be welcomed into a forum as a new boy. Most forums you need 10,000 posts before you get any repect

IG email responses From the bottom up, I havent had a reply from the last email yet

vvvvv


Thanks for your prompt response.


I opened a position of £20 to sell Wall st daily cash. The minimum stop of 50 points was set.


The DOW dropped, I tried to buy at approx 350 points profit, I left the ticket open on my screen.


I hit the buy button, the screen asked me to set a stop loss. ?? I panicked this has never happened before, I closed the window and tried again, my profits were falling, the same happened again. A third time I tried to buy, again asking me for a stop loss, I punched the key board in anger, the amount entered was invalid.


I tried for the 4th time, the position was closed, in the same way as it has on all the trades Ive made in the past, I didnt enter a stop loss as it asked for in the previous attempts.


Why in all the trades I have had with IG, this happens when I have made most profit, I made approx £1000 on the FTSE in a trade earlier that morning, why did IG not stall and ask me for a stop loss then when I wanted to 'buy' and close the position then, it was the exact same type of transaction


Karl


----- Original Message ----
From: IG Client Services Helpdesk <[email protected]>
To: vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Sent: Saturday, 11 October, 2008 4:10:21 PM
Subject: Call Ref: vvvvvvvvvv


Dear Mr. Collins

Thank you for your email, I have looked into your query and examined your trading history from yesterday. I can only see that we rejected one trade at 14.39.25 where you attempted to buy to open Wall Street Daily Cash with a stop 8070 pips away, the trade was obviously rejected because the stop distance was entered incorrectly.

At no point can we see any record of any closing trades being rejected, please note that as you have a controlled risk account you are not able to buy or sell in order to net off trades that are already open, you must close trades from the "open positions" window.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

vvvvvvv
IG Index plc Client Services

Friars House | 157-168 Blackfriars Road

London | SE1 8EZ | IG Index - Financial Spread Betting |
Freephone: 0800 409 6789
International: +44 (0)20 7896 0079

Fax: 0207 390 3816

I can understand that my order would be in a queue, but why did IG ask for a stop loss when one was set when I opened the trade, of 50 points the minimum required

Karl