'Best' company for intraday Indexes

Hi,

I have looked through the threads here and it seems that companies change regarding qulaity of service and spreads.

I am intrested in trading indexes (oops I mean betting on indexes) mainly DAX DOW and maybe the Russel or S&P. I make several trades a day so fast execution is important and of course tight spreads.

I was thinking one of the big bous perhaps CMC or IG? Any comments or suggestions welcome. Will I get better spreads than 2 on the DAX 4 on the DOW?

As I said I have taken the trouble to read all the threads here but the situation seems to change with some companies - up to date advice welcome

Cheers.

The general concensus on T2W seems to be that trading anything intraday using spreadbetting is unwise. I agree with that.
Lets see how many consistently succesful intraday spreadbetters disagree.
Glenn

Best compromise between S/B and underlying futures is TwoWayFutures, IMO. Pay market spread with a commission on top. In my book additional commission worth paying for tax free status of winnings. Sorry, earnings.

I'd agree with Jack o'clubs - if your going to go the spreadbet route, TwoWayFutures is way ahead of the pack. You're basically trading the underlying market but in a SpreadBet "wrapper" to retain the tax free status.

This means no market skew, requotes or any of the other tricks the mainstream SB firms will play on you to undermine your profits or edge.

Hi Glenn,

I can see the pitfalls, I would have to widen my focus somewhat to say an hourly chart (with a 15 minute for entries). I'm aware of the pitfalls.

Incidentaly CMC told me they fill stops at the price of the stop if trades go off in the underlying at the equivalent level. I was sceptical as they also say a broker manually vets stops. I was concerned about serious slipage in fast markets (DAX when its on a roll).

Any other views welcomed

Cheers.

Glenn said:

The general concensus on T2W seems to be that trading anything intraday using spreadbetting is unwise. I agree with that.
Lets see how many consistently succesful intraday spreadbetters disagree.
Glenn

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Arbitrageur said:

I'd agree with Jack o'clubs - if your going to go the spreadbet route, TwoWayFutures is way ahead of the pack. You're basically trading the underlying market but in a SpreadBet "wrapper" to retain the tax free status.

This means no market skew, requotes or any of the other tricks the mainstream SB firms will play on you to undermine your profits or edge.

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arbitrageur
by t way futs, do you mean futures betting as i think it is now known?. if so my spread has doubled in the last two days . was 2 points dow now 4, .48 footsie now .8.
yesterday i was told this was because of holiday but same today. was happy with company until last two days. no reply to my email. will give them 1 week to sort out.

dcarrigan said:

arbitrageur
by t way futs, do you mean futures betting as i think it is now known?.

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http://www.twowayfutures.com/ not sure if its the same company as futuresbetting, though they are registered in Gib

dcarrigan said:

if so my spread has doubled in the last two days . was 2 points dow now 4, .48 footsie now .8.
yesterday i was told this was because of holiday but same today. was happy with company until last two days. no reply to my email. will give them 1 week to sort out.

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from what I understand of how this is supposed to work with TWF, you trade directly on the underlying future complete with market depth. I also dont know how the footsie could have been quoted as 0.48 as you mention, because the FTSE future is quoted in 0.50 increments, and their "spread" / commission would be on top.

I'm not a client, perhaps Jack O'Clubs of another user can comment

Arbitrageur said:

http://www.twowayfutures.com/ not sure if its the same company as futuresbetting, though they are registered in Gib



from what I understand of how this is supposed to work with TWF, you trade directly on the underlying future complete with market depth. I also dont know how the footsie could have been quoted as 0.48 as you mention, because the FTSE future is quoted in 0.50 increments, and their "spread" / commission would be on top.

I'm not a client, perhaps Jack O'Clubs of another user can comment

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thank you for your reply.

dcarrigan said:

thank you for your reply.

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think i have managed to work out what has happened with spread. footsie .48 if 250 lots a month. dow 2 if 1000 a month. they must of given me them spreads for the first 2 months of trading. new rates not competitive. world spreads are 1point dow. footsie, dax. from friday. maybe time for a change in broker.

Jack o'Clubs said:

Best compromise between S/B and underlying futures is TwoWayFutures, IMO. Pay market spread with a commission on top. In my book additional commission worth paying for tax free status of winnings. Sorry, earnings.

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jack o clubs are you still with f betting/ twf.
if so do you mind me asking what is your spread on the dow and footsie. mine was brill for first two months. 2dow, .48 footsie. now 4 dow, .8 footsie, in my opinion the new rates i am been charged are not competitive?.

Hi DCarrigan,

Yes, like you they started me off with 0.24 on the FTSE (ie 0.48 round-turn) for my first month trading, but my volumes are under the 250-lots/month so they've moved me down to 0.4 on the FTSE (0.8 R/T). I'm still using them as it remains better than the normal 2-pt FTSE spread from a S/B co. I did get a courtesy call from them explaining why they were moving me down and the vols I needed to be doing to be on the lower spread, and they also said that if my vol was normally over 250-lots, but fell below for something like a holiday, then they'd take that into account, so I'd imagine if you call them they would do something for you (particularly if the alternative was taking your business elsewhere).

I'll have a look at World Spreads, if only 1pt FTSE, but I really like the market-depth platform of TwoWayFutures - being able to put the order in the book and work it through, rather than take a price at a moment in time, I find hugely useful. As Arbitrageur says, you also have the reassurance of trading the underlying market rather than a s/b price which may be skewed, requoted, etc.

Arbitrageur - the way it works is that you trade on the market depth screen, but they automatically add your spread to the underlying quote - so for example if the FTSE future bid/offer is 6100.0/6100.5 you'll see 6099.6/6100.9 on your screen.

Jack o'Clubs said:

Arbitrageur - the way it works is that you trade on the market depth screen, but they automatically add your spread to the underlying quote - so for example if the FTSE future bid/offer is 6100.0/6100.5 you'll see 6099.6/6100.9 on your screen.

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gotya, thanks!

Thanks for the info Jack sounds like a great concept if you are showing consistant black ink. (I guess if you are not CFD's are better as they are tax deductable!) I wonder if any of the mainstream SB companies will adopt this aproach? Probably not.

Have you noticed much in the way of dealy while they hedge the bet in the underlying? I guess I'm asking how there platform/infrastructures is. I suppose its no different to going through IB (for example) they still need to make the trade in the live market. Incidentally IB is pretty solid nowadays.

The only other disadvantage I can see is that the minimum size is equivalent to one contract. Another reason I was thinking about SB was to try some more sophisticated scale in scale out strategies.

Cheers.

Arbitrageur said:

I'd agree with Jack o'clubs - if your going to go the spreadbet route, TwoWayFutures is way ahead of the pack. You're basically trading the underlying market but in a SpreadBet "wrapper" to retain the tax free status.

This means no market skew, requotes or any of the other tricks the mainstream SB firms will play on you to undermine your profits or edge.

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I've looked at Futures Betting (I believe Two Way are a white label) and like their model but for the big players out there you are restricted to the underlying volume. With SB firms to get an immediate fill in £200 a point is a plus for them.

BrainStorm said:

Have you noticed much in the way of dealy while they hedge the bet in the underlying? I guess I'm asking how there platform/infrastructures is. I suppose its no different to going through IB (for example) they still need to make the trade in the live market. Incidentally IB is pretty solid nowadays.

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If there is a delay it's measured in 'computer time' rather than anything I can recognise - no basically the order is as good as instantaneous. The platform uses something called Citrix (I've used it previously when I was working for remote connections into my office server) to connect to them - sometimes this connection can go down but it's pretty rare, and has never happened to me mid-trade, as it were. All in all I'm a pretty happy customer of theirs.

Jack o'Clubs said:

Best compromise between S/B and underlying futures is TwoWayFutures, IMO. Pay market spread with a commission on top. In my book additional commission worth paying for tax free status of winnings. Sorry, earnings.

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Surfing around I came across http://www.futuresbetting.com/home.php these guys seem to have the same/simialr model. There web site isnt so apealing however

I notice they have a transaction cost on the rate card which is different depending on your monthly volume. I guess that's lumped on to the cost too? It looks high under 250 lots. I'm confused as they also say that the extra spread is all you pay, if thats so whats the transaction cost all about? Is it 'each side'.

Cheers.

Jack o'Clubs said:

Hi DCarrigan,

Yes, like you they started me off with 0.24 on the FTSE (ie 0.48 round-turn) for my first month trading, but my volumes are under the 250-lots/month so they've moved me down to 0.4 on the FTSE (0.8 R/T). I'm still using them as it remains better than the normal 2-pt FTSE s

snip

.

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BrainStorm said:

I notice they have a transaction cost on the rate card which is different depending on your monthly volume. I guess that's lumped on to the cost too? It looks high under 250 lots. I'm confused as they also say that the extra spread is all you pay, if thats so whats the transaction cost all about? Is it 'each side'.

Cheers.

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Hi Brainstorm

The transaction cost and spread we charge are actually the same. We show both on the spread rate card because some clients / prospective clients are familiar with charges in the form of spread and others in terms of commission.

i.e. As per DCarrigan's example, 0.24 point spread charged on the FTSE future is the same as £2.40 commission since FTSE trades at £10 per point per lot.

I hope this makes sense.

Kind regards


Adrian Buthee
TwoWayFutures

john88888 said:

I've looked at Futures Betting (I believe Two Way are a white label) and like their model but for the big players out there you are restricted to the underlying volume. With SB firms to get an immediate fill in £200 a point is a plus for them.

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do you mean that you think a bigger player would be better with non-direct access SB?

I dont spreadbet, but I'd have thought it would be the otherway round - you're only better off with SB if you cant afford to trade in the minimum lot size offered by direct access, which is essentially what TWF are offering.

£200 a point is only 4 lots equivalent in the underlying for the mini S&P, you would never be restricted by the underlying volume in the markets compared the SB with this tiny size??

dcarrigan said:

jack o clubs are you still with f betting/ twf.
if so do you mind me asking what is your spread on the dow and footsie. mine was brill for first two months. 2dow, .48 footsie. now 4 dow, .8 footsie, in my opinion the new rates i am been charged are not competitive?.

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dcarrigan,

remember that you are only paying the spread on the actual price of the Future. Therefore still likely to be better than a SB's spread as it wont be adapted as to their positions/views.
250 contracts a month is only 10 a day, so perhaps can see why they've increased your spread.
At the end of the day, I'd look at the service you've received from them in relation to other companies, we all know the problems encountered at most SB's.

rgds