GFT UK Spreadbetting......

stevespray

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Can I just say that I recently signed up at www.gftuk.com and have been overjoyed with both the level of their service and their highly competitive quotes on UK, European and US stocks. I would rate their dealing software as the best around with a quote and chart package to rival that of a paid service. You can apply online for a demo account and the prices that you see are real and live. You can even trade a dummy account. For me this has to rate as the best serivce around.

On top of that the staff are pleasant to chat with and can not do enough to make you feel 'taken care of'. Given all the negative comments on the boards regarding these companies (and most of it deserved negative comment in my opinion) it is actually a pleasant and refreshing change to post such a positive feedback.

Steve.
 
hi,

any comments on spreadbetting on FX?

thanks

j

So far as I can make out (and I must stress that I havent traded any FX with them yet) the spreads look okay. Cable is 3 ticks. Feel free to ask for other spreads. Being part of the GFT Group I would expect them to be up there with the likes of Oanda and FXCM.

The nice thing about the dealing platform is that it offers a wide array of methods to enter your orders. You can use a simple market order which can involve slippage in a fast market - they simply fill you the moment that your order is received. Because fills are more or less instant the slippage doesnt appear that bad. I got slipped 4 ticks on the Dow last week when I tried a quick exit on a pretty sharp move. I quick review of the futures tick chart showed that the fill was spot on. You can create what is effectively a market limit order by limiting the maximum slippage on your market order (this is a fill or kill type of order where the order is cancelled if the market has moved beyond your specified limit of slippage). After being slipped of the Dow I have set my default slippage to zero - this means that if the screen price is not there then I wont get filled. I am using this account for position trading on UK & US stocks so slippage is rarely a problem anyway. Another key point is that they offer 'trailing stops'. I know this has been asked for lots before by users of other platforms - I've yet to use it because my trading style doesnt demand it but I can imagine that FX users might find such a tool to be of use. As far as I can see, the system is, for spreadbetting purposes, as near as direct market access as you will get.

Hope this helps,
Steve.
 
Hi Steve, sounds good so far. Is there a limit as to how close you can place your stops to your entry / current price ? It is 6 points with the firm that I currently use and that is a big handicap.
 
Hi Steve, sounds good so far. Is there a limit as to how close you can place your stops to your entry / current price ? It is 6 points with the firm that I currently use and that is a big handicap.

I havent had a problem yet. Which instrument are you trading?

Steve.
 
thanks steve,

will have a look next week (im away from home) and dig into it properly.

j
 
I trade Ftse, Dax and YM with Worldspreads who don't allow stops closer than 6 points ( they say officially 5 but in reality it's 6 ).
 
Spreads aren't too bad. How close to the market action are the prices? Do they skew and swing them to suit themselves or do they straddle the market price ( utopia ) ?
 
Hmm, i don't like GFT too much. As soon as i was having problems they never replied/ returned calls/emails etc. And I showed them the problem on there 'open day'
 
i think GFT's overall business structure is very similar to CMC's - but with better customer service, and safety measures in place to liquidate a clients positions when minimum margin requirements are breached. As far as i know CMC don't do this, placing stops is the clients reponsibility, and CMC are more willing to see your account balance become negative.

GFT & CMC have similar spreads, operating hours, and both have moved into SB'ing from a specialist forex background.
 
Gftuk

In the first 5 mins trading this morning from 0800 - 0805 the FTSE went up to 6721, on GFT it only went up to 6711.9. Is this because its the morning and just the open and the SB companies are just adjusting the price or something the like?

This may be the same with all SB companys but I dont know, can only talk about GFT.
If someone thinks different or I have got it wrong then please tell me by all means, I can take being told that I am wrong in some way.

Thanks
 
Execution speed

Why is it that SB company's say instant execution???

I have been with GFT for a while now and 80% of the time takes over 1 second and nearer 2 and sometimes over 3 seconds to close my positions as well as opening, makes alot of difference when its moving.
Not arguing whether its goes my way or there way but please when I want to trade that it gets executed in less time it takes to make a cup of tea......1 sugar and milk.

Is there a SB firm thats is quick most of the time. NOT slow 80% of the time. Seems to be getting worse.

I do understand that when NEWS is out it will be a lot slower, I do not trade around the news at all. Mainly indices and with small amounts.

Thanks for any replies
 
Why is it that SB company's say instant execution???

It's an oxymoron dreamt up by idiots that work in marketing. There is inherent latency in any network particulalrly a public one such as the Internet, so "instant" is a contradiction in terms.

Still if you're getting filled most of the time at 1- 3 seconds it sounds pretty good compared to some of the SB firms around.
 
Price Difference in Morning

GFTUK was over 10 points difference at 0810 on FTSE100.

At 0815 it looks more in line. WHY is this.

Don't tell me ......... they are bookmakers or Bucket shops.

Still 5 at 0818

Thanks
 
GFTUK was over 10 points difference at 0810 on FTSE100.

At 0815 it looks more in line. WHY is this.

Don't tell me ......... they are bookmakers or Bucket shops.

Still 5 at 0818

Thanks

Their prices are based on the FTSE futures market (plus their own algorithms) rather than the FTSE cash market.
 
Price Difference

This is not to "Have a go" or anything but just showing how much the spread can be.

About 1340-1345 Today

Just cannot believe it could be so off............

Cheers

**Just reviewed picture and quite a bad one so sorry about that.**
Sharescope high was 6264 while GFT was 6258.8
 

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Hi, i recently opened an account with GFT. I tried out a demo account and it worked perfectly fine but then when i started trading live, the order execution was very very slow, taking nearly 20 seconds for my order to fill. I spoke to GFT about this - they say you can change some of the setting on the platform to remove intermediate screens so that whn you want to place a trade you do so more quickly. They avoided the question of why it was taking then so long to fill the order. Just imagine, you place a buy or sell and then you watch the screen - it says pending and you can see the price move in your direction - by the time the order is actually filled you've missed most of the move and so end up in a loss. I placed a few trades with them but on each occasion it was taking them far to to long. I will not be trading with them again and have applied to close my account. I have an account with IG also and they are much much quicker.
 
I don't understand "it says pending and you can see the price move in your direction - by the time the order is actually filled you've missed most of the move and so end up in a loss" !

Are you saying for eg: when the screen shows FTSE 5288-5290, and you click on sell @ 5288
that it waits for 20 sec?!!! , and then actually opens your order @ a price OTHER than 5288 ?!!!
 
Yes, chilltrader, that's exactly right. The chart shows you your entry point once the order is filled and it is at a price other than intended.
 
Hi all

I read this thread with great interest as I have traded the markets for a considerable period of time, pre 1984. The history of spread betting is in my view anyway quite interesting as I understand it was simply a private gamble between professional traders just to spice up their lives. Somebody though had the idea to take this public and hence today we have the spread betting companies.

When spread betting initially hit the general public the companies involved at the time practiced some very dirty tricks indeed to rob their clients and indeed I fell foul of these myself to the point of vowing never to spread bet again.

The tricks employed included closing accounts of clients who were lucky enough to have a couple of winners. One of the most widely employed was filling orders way after the buy/sell button was pressed hence the trade took place just where you did not wish to trade ie support or resistance against your position.

Another trick was the widening of spreads by an extreme amount to trigger stops and limits, I once witnessed an entire bull market taken out and over a weekend!! The response of the company in question was basically "tough". I notice above an attachment showing a differnce of 6 pts, try a difference of 60pts as may have occured historically.

Now when we talk of delays in filling orders in terms of seconds well consider this, in the past the spread betting platforms would go down at crucial points in time ie fundemental announcements for perhaps three hours, once they had cleaned everybody out with wild swings which had not the slightest resemblance to true market activity then the platform would flash up again.

I could go on with this but really enough said, so lets consider today and GFT the original topic of this post.

As previously stated I vowed never to spread bet again, indeed someplace on this site perhaps that very thread still exists. However a friend suggested I try again as I was complaining about CGT, my inital reaction was some friend you are, I would rather make love to the tax man. He persisted and directed me to GFT.

I opened a small account so as to access their real time data, this I compared with my real time data feed from a seperate source and the differences are miniscle. Then I looked intentionally for wild spikes in the data and found none historically, still suspicious I tracked GFT forwards against the futures markets and once again no wild spikes. This left me with only the issue of fundemental announcements, and I must state that not once has the GFT platform gone down during announcements and volatile periods.

However still not 100% content I made a point of visiting GFT by attending one of their seminars and discussed my concerns directly with people there, the response was that GFT cannot afford the bad press as a result of underhand tactics, they are too big in the currency markets to risk the fallout that may ensue. Now of course they might well just be saying that but certainly I have had no reason since to doubt what they said.

So I am back spread betting with GFT and very happy indeed.

Their charting package is in my view is one of the best I have used this includes those on which I have spent a lot of money in the past. For me though it does have only one drawback as it's a web style platform the date axis stops at last data point. Not much use if you wish to project future points in time. This though is not a show stopper.

Gft's customer service I have found to be prompt, polite and effective. It has not been required that I tackle a serious point with them as none have occured.

So my overall my view is that if you wish to spreadbet then choose who you use with caution. The company that was once called Deal4Free and became known as Steal4Free is still out there.

Nut
 
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