Day Trading & Forex Forum

1 of 1 members found the following review helpful:

Good for newbies
7/10
The recently updated platform is much better than the one it replaced and I like a lot of the features such as emails generated you when you trade or place/amend an order.
I am only a recreational user looking for 75+ pip movements so I probably don't get affected so much by slippage as traders or scalpers looking to make their living from spreadbetting.
A good platform for someone looking to dip their toe into financial spreadbetting

I like Cap Spreads
8/10
A lot of companies use cap spreads platform, with their own badge.
Generally I like the Cap Spreads platform.
I do like the fact that if you trade overnight your profits are shown based on your original entry price and are not closed and re-opened each day which makes it much more work to keep tabs on your positions

2 of 6 members found the following review helpful:

Duh !!
10/10
there is an obvious reason for this difference but in your haste to condemn you did not ask.

the 2nd June (tuesday) is ex-div date. IG take the dividend out immediately at 16.30 as their market rolls at this time. We take it out at 21.00 as this is when ours rolls. The dividend effect on the 2nd was 15 points.

1 of 2 members found the following review helpful:

really bad
1/10
you should stay way from them. for example today on 02.06.09 the ftse price on igmarkets or othe websites is 4463 and on capitalspreads trading platform is 4476. is unbeleable?????????

15 of 16 members found the following review helpful:

Worldspreads beats Capital
6/10
I have been with Capital for several years, and in general not bad, despite their rather lax response to any suggestions. Specifically I trade the DAX, which has a 2 point spread but a few days ago I opened with Worldspeads, and WOW, what a difference. INSTANT FILLS, and only a 1 point spread. Despite that their server went down twice this week, but its a breath of fresh air to have a spreadbetting service that feeds directly off the futures, doesn't skew the spread and gives a faster fill than a futures broker.

22 of 23 members found the following review helpful:

Unreliable
2/10
Firstly, in terms of the spreads offered, CS is very competitive on some markets, and roughly equivalent to competitors in most. Unfortunately, they seem to have a myriad of IT and Customer Service issues which make them a difficult company to deal with. They do not employ dealers overnight to look after their 24 hour markets, and their pricing engine has several weaknesses which leads to rogue prices occurring frequently. Clients can get stopped out on incorrect prices, and orders can be filled at incorrect levels. They are aware of the issue, and seem unwilling or unable to correct it. This leads to clients having their trades adjusted the following day if they have been incorrectly stopped out or have traded on an incorrect price. Their failure to correct this problem as of this date does not inspire confidence.

While their staff are polite and helpful in general, they are less amiable when dealing with account issues. Withdrawals are a problem, and are generally not processed in a timely manner or on the first request. They have recently had problems with their systems which led to incorrect debits from clients accounts. Unfortunately they appear to have a "act first, ask questions later" policy when it comes to account adjustments, and it is a matter for the client to call and argue for a solution. However, in my experience, they have always paid their liabilities (even if it has been overly complex to arrange a withdrawal).

I feel it important to mention their attitude to fills in this review. Other SB firms do take different approaches, and it is important to know how CS approach this. With TradIndex, you can place "market orders" and are filled at the next available price, regardless of whether the market has moved in your favour or against you. With CMC, in a fast moving market, if you attempt to buy or sell at a price you can be re-quoted, and can choose to accept the new price or not trade. This also applies whether a market has moved in your favour or against you. With Capital Spreads, if the market has moved outside the spread by the time a dealer gets your order (depending on the market and activity on your account you may get automatically filled or it may go to a dealer), your order is filled only if the price is within the original spread or has moved against you. You will not get filled if the market has moved in your favour.

This seems a little unfair, as in a fast moving market the price will be correct at the time you trade, and you cannot cancel the order while it is pending a fill, and sometimes this can be as long as forty seconds. Unnerving to say the least in a fast moving market. No other spreadbetting company does this to my knowledge. With TradIndex, you will get a fill on a market order at the next price, and with CMC you can cancel an order at any time before a dealer fills it. With Capital Spreads it is at their discretion whether to fill you at all, and this will depend on whether the market has moved in your favour or not.

In summary, Capital Spreads falls short of any reasonable client expectation that they would provide services with reasonable skill and care. Platform issues aside, their customer services leaves a lot to be desired, which is most unfortunate. When your own funds are at stake, and the markets being as challenging as they are, problems with a bucket shop make it impossible to trade effectively.

2/10 - for their good spreads and their initially helpful staff. I regret to advise that I have seen necessary to close my account, so I will be contacting them to arrange this shortly. If there are any further difficulties in closing my account, I will post them here.

3 of 3 members found the following review helpful:

Prefer them to the others
9/10
I have used a couple of other brokers in the past and in comparison CS beats them hands down. customer service is excellent and narrow spreads tops that.
I find their charts very effective too, then again I only trade the DOW.

5 of 5 members found the following review helpful:

Good service, poor platform
8/10
I've been with CS for some time now. Spreads are good, service is very good. Dont trade the news with them, they jam up! I use a seperate screen for all charting (MetaTrader). Very happy If they used MetaTrader I would be theirs for life!

6 of 7 members found the following review helpful:

So far good
8/10
I like the spread on S&P, I think it's the most narrow I've come across in Spread firms. Don't like the Java API though, customer service pretty good. I wouldn't rely on their charting though, as it's based on their quotes, which can vary from the futures quotations, so TA patterns would not be 100% reliable, best to use another platform/feed for charting IMHO. So far a satisfied client. P.S. I actually switched from a US brokerage firm to this firm.

2 of 2 members found the following review helpful:

Simple but effective
8/10
I've been using this service for the last few years and have never had any cause for complaint. It's so easy to use and very efficient - although I do tend to use tools offered by other providers.

1 of 1 members found the following review helpful:

Capital Spreads
9/10
Ive been with CS since July 05 and have had no problems at all. Their charting package is fine, however doesn't have volume for some reason. In terms of spreads they are competitive, as for customer service, they're great; always quick to answer the phone and adjust/amend a position.

Real-time charts
8/10
Just to inform you that Capital Spreads do now do real-time charts and they're pretty useful. Could be a bit more featureful, but I'm happy. This is my first entrance into spread betting so I don't know how it compares to others.

5 of 5 members found the following review helpful:

Capital Spreads
8/10
having been with CS for a short while now; for me, I can say the following :-

DOWNSIDE:
compared to other products on offer, my first impression of the trading platform is that it is somewhat behind the others in terms of facilities. and the markets on offer could be broader.
also I wasn't all that keen on the charts.
it should be remembered though, that the site is fairly new, and the CS team appear fully commited to improving the offering and listening to their clients needs.

UPSIDE:
the platform has in fact proved perfectly functional in all aspects for my needs. [trades, orders, stops, etc]. the team are very helpful, particularly with newcomers.
their policy is to aim for fairly tight spreads generally, with only a VERY SMALL MARGIN REQUIRED. [i.e. you don't have to leave your trading capital in a zero-interest account unless trading it !].

CONCLUSION:
I would definitely defend any harsh criticism of CS, as I know they are trying hard and are sure to improve over time.

2 of 2 members found the following review helpful:

Capital Spreads
7/10
I’ve been considering opening an account with Capital Spreads and have been testing their demo platform, but taking a scan across the market, they seem to be some way behind the innovations of competitors who are offering big advantages:-

·3 point spreads on major FX pairs/ no spread at all on VOD from one enterprising company.

·Guaranteed stops (slippage can be a major hazard and I now see that CS have a new ‘warning’ on their frontpage “stoplosses are automatically allocated with every bet that you make but are not guaranteed – you may lose more than your initial deposit” – apparently small SB’s with low-capitalisation are not allowed by the FSA to guarantee stops, as it could undermine their financial position.......so the 'punter' pays instead.....)

·24hr trading – quite an advantage for covering ‘after hours’ trading moves in US markets/Asian markets, and essential for 24hr FX trading (with CS closing at 21.15 you miss all this, and when they open at 7am the market could have gapped over your stop if you held overnight, leaving you with a very unpleasant bill from CS)

Having tried the CS demo platform, I can only observe that it is very basic, cumbersome and apparently underdeveloped (rushed to market..?); hence the comprehensive wishlists frequently posted above – not being able to set your stop/ limit prior to trade entry and not being able to close ‘part’ of your position stick out like sore thumbs….having to use different windows to open/close/ adjust stops & limits does not help……(the automatically allocated stop eats most of your account - dangerous...!)

However, I do like the plain ‘black and white’ price display – constantly flashing reds/greens etc are uneccessary….

The excellent FXCM trading platform might be a suitable model for CS to work towards.

Capital Spreads certainly need a good helpdesk/customer relations and the CEO’s ongoing T2W ‘clinic’ (appreciated….!) to mitigate the considerable shortcomings of the operation.

Solid SB Service - tighter FX Spreads pls!
9/10
Have been using CapitalSpreads for about 6 months now, and as I have been relatively happy with them for this long I would recommend them to others to try.

I have only been trading FX with them.

Their platform is very quick and simple to use so you don't waste time going through clunky interfaces. Their customer services (by email) have always been rapid to respond, courteous and accommodating.

They are not as advanced when it comes to placing things like limit orders, and they have a minimum stop size which I find annoying.

I quite often get slippage of 1 pip when placing trades. However I haven't seen any of the other usual SB "tricks" so am pretty happy with this.

Their spreads on cable and eur aren't as competitive (at time of writing) at 5 and 4 respectively as CMC which is 3 on each.

All in all a good, solid, simple and fast service, the only criticisms really on the features side.

3 of 3 members found the following review helpful:

Good move!
10/10
I've recently opened an account with CS and I have to say it was a good move.

Every trade I have executed has been filled at the price I was quoted - no requotes and their customer service is excellent.

Being fairly new to SB I had lots of questions but the guys at CS have loads of time for you and help you all they can.

Only disadvantage is their charts are delayed by 15mins but if you find a good charting system this company is well worth a try.

1 of 1 members found the following review helpful:

New, but doing okay
8/10
Ive been using these for 2 months now and have found they are generally very good, especially on the spreads. The support is pretty good and they seem to deal with issues in a acceptable and prompt manner.

The only problem I have had is with stops not being hit for a long time (although they do honour the price the stop is set at). Also if you role over a position they remove you old stops/limits and in my case didn't put them back on. I asked them about getting real-time charts and have been told they are looking into this, but are yet to find a supplier at a reasonable cost.

No other problems and much better than the others I have used. I would recommend them to anyone, especially someone new to SpreadBetting.

2 months on
8/10
Just an update as I was the first to use CapitalSpreads here. All the executions have been done at the prices they say and all the stops have been spot on. Their graphs are quite useful but quite often do not work so that is something they need to work on. They also seem to have had a few hiccups recently with their web link in that you can suddenly find yourself with a screen full of telephone only trade messages. A few minutes later it is back up again. Can be scary if you are watching a fast moving index e.g dow opening. But mostly ok in my first couple of months.

Brokers
10/10
With my last SB company the price on the screen was not the price you paid, then you were penalised a wider spread for having a deposit account. (Amazing really, you pay money into their bank account and they charge you more for the privalidge) also the total profit and loss which was displayed on screen was no where near the closing price.

Capital Spreads convinced me to use them last November, a virtual and real account was set up in minutes. Their trading Platform is very simple to use and What you see is what you get, quick and reliable.


So far so good



Mr Squad

Capitalspreads
9/10
After using their simulated account for some time I have now done 15 trades for real. I am happy to say that every one of the trades was filled at the screen price, and the stops were activated at the correct level. The site is sooooo easy to use. Inputting to your portfolio is hassle free as is removing. But the best thing is when you want to exit a trade. Simply press close, the screen comes up with the 'opposite' trade button. No chance of mistakenly doing another trade. Wonderful!.

Capitalspreads account
9/10
Just opened up a Capitalspreads account and have traded my first few trades. As a newcomer to the SB market I feel that I can give areasonable view of their offering. The online trading interface looks clean and simple and is a joy to use. They still need and isots guide to it though and I could have used it for my first trade as I pushed the trade button by mistake and waited half an hour before I realised nothing was going to happen. After a quick call (and they were very helpful) I was up and running. Still not sure of all the market terminology for the indices but I guess you learn quickly enough. The spreads are as close as any other as far as I can tell, and they are very helpful on the phone. I'll keep you updated how I get on but overall I would say they rate very well.