And what about the biggest loser? If this is something you would like to reveal.
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Best Thread Capital Spreads
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"Take control with Risk & Money Management"
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/pla...140296-visualrmm-interactive-new-concept.html
capitalspreads
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gle
i agree extreme risk taking worked out for him (as it does for a few) but generally Definately Does Not
simon
i agree extreme risk taking worked out for him (as it does for a few) but generally Definately Does Not
simon
capitalspreads
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we have had big losers the biggest (by miles and miles) would be the "professional debt" which was mentioned in our YE accounts for 2010 and 2011 . where the client ended up owing us several million €uro
Simon
Simon
Yes that was a lot of money. I hope you were able to retrieve the most of it. If not, I guess you by now have looked over your internal risk & money management routines.
He must have been a latency trader without a shadow of a doubt :whistling
Did he leave after you put him on dealer referral?
fibbinstarchi
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Hello Simon
Do you not like to read and answer questions properly?
Truth seeker clearly asked you what in terms of pounds per point would it be advisable to go to before unexpected problems with trade fills would be experienced? I myself would like a reply.
capitalspreads
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fibbinstarchi
as i stated .. this is not a real question...it starts with an assumption which is incorrect. Yes above a few hundred quid a point in many markets the deal will go to a dealer this is not because we are somehow mean and horrible and nasty it is because at this level you are trading in larger size than is actually available in the markets.
we might like to think that 'the markets' are massively liquid but they are not.
as i write the FTSE futures are 1 pip wide with 19 contracts on the bid and 15 on the offer. (i.e £190 bid/£150 offer) and this is a busy time. if you go to 2 pips wide on LIFFE you are still under 40 contracts a side. I think you will find that SB companies will accept trade size automatically that you just would not get on DMA. So please try to think in terms of 'the real market' as well. (not only this buy in the futures market you would be expected to put up vast multiples of the margin required to trade with us) minimum margin for £10 in the FTSE is £300 with CS but you would need over £2000 to do such a trade with a futures broker.
Large size traders will get deals on our platform that they would have to 'go to market' for on DMA (and get an average price that is worse).
If you trade over a certain size per point then you may find that your trades require confimation but every single market has different levels. Your personal activity has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Pip Star
typical statement ... thanks.. he took positions and ran with them.... of course he lost sometimes (and big!) but in general he won. We have no problem with this ...
Capital Spreads does not close accounts down for trading practices we only close abusive clients.
Simon
as i stated .. this is not a real question...it starts with an assumption which is incorrect. Yes above a few hundred quid a point in many markets the deal will go to a dealer this is not because we are somehow mean and horrible and nasty it is because at this level you are trading in larger size than is actually available in the markets.
we might like to think that 'the markets' are massively liquid but they are not.
as i write the FTSE futures are 1 pip wide with 19 contracts on the bid and 15 on the offer. (i.e £190 bid/£150 offer) and this is a busy time. if you go to 2 pips wide on LIFFE you are still under 40 contracts a side. I think you will find that SB companies will accept trade size automatically that you just would not get on DMA. So please try to think in terms of 'the real market' as well. (not only this buy in the futures market you would be expected to put up vast multiples of the margin required to trade with us) minimum margin for £10 in the FTSE is £300 with CS but you would need over £2000 to do such a trade with a futures broker.
Large size traders will get deals on our platform that they would have to 'go to market' for on DMA (and get an average price that is worse).
If you trade over a certain size per point then you may find that your trades require confimation but every single market has different levels. Your personal activity has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Pip Star
typical statement ... thanks.. he took positions and ran with them.... of course he lost sometimes (and big!) but in general he won. We have no problem with this ...
Capital Spreads does not close accounts down for trading practices we only close abusive clients.
Simon
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Little confused here Simon,
Been following this thread for a while, and at every available opportunity you seem to shoot down DMA....isn’t ProSpreads (DMA) part of the LCG group??
I assume i’m right in coming to the conclusion that CS is obviously more profitable than ProSpreads hence your insistence that SB through CS is far better than DMA? If I then put two and two together....ta da, CS must be more profitable due to the fact they profit from client losses!!! (it’s all starting to make sense now as to why you constantly put down DMA, LCG only make profits from ProSpreads through comms rather than through other means)!
I have tried CS along with many of the other main SB providers over the years, and from my experience, unnaturally large slippage occurred pretty much everywhere, bad fills definitely occurred everywhere, being put on dealer referral/closing of my account/making it impossible for me to trade, because constantly profitable, extremely irritating!!
I switched to DMA a couple of years back, first with ProSpreads may I add (I still actively trade there) and more recently with FP Markets and personally, whilst it may be more expensive as you keep pointing out, the only slippage that has occurred has been natural market slippage, bad fills tend not to exist....and guess what....no dealer referral/closing of my account/making it impossible for me to trade!
Funny you say that from £200+ a point you will struggle to get filled through DMA...as long as the liquidity is available (which 9 times out of 10 there is, if not, you may have a couple of the contracts filled at the next level), no issue....attempt to get filled through CS or any other SB at £200+ a point once you have a running history of being profitable...nearly impossible!
You also say that you get "better fills without DMA (and get an average price that is worse)". Why then do all the bigger traders use DMA? If you use DMA then the fill will take out each price level at a time, giving you the best price available not just re quote the whole order at a lower price such as CS do.
After my many experiences with numerous SB firms, personally, there is no better option than DMA (though I appreciate this is not the case for everyone)! You don’t get half the issues you do with SB providers such as CS yet still get the same tax free trading...
Only close accounts of abusive clients? By abusive do you mean people who constantly win?? They are just playing the game, just as CS and all the other SB providers do...ever heard of the saying ‘the pot calling the kettle black’?
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capitalspreads
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DJS1
thanks for the comment
there are a few points that should be taken here. And i must say i agree with prety much everything you say.
But
Firstly... our average stake size for absolutely everything is around £5 .. now this average takes into account the big punters (i.e one trade at £100 requires 24 at £1 to get an average of £5 for 25 trades) and also includes equity traders who generally trade in much (much) bigger sizes. From this you can see that the average client of CS just would not trade on markets like the Dax, S&P or FTSE futures or the FX markets as their risk would be just too much for their appetite.
Unfortunately I have to make generalistic comments on these threads for the overall bulk of our clients not just individuals who might have specific requirements.
You talk of slippage but i cannot see how this can be the case. On CS your trade request will be filled at your price or not at all. If you are leaving standing orders close to market levels over economic release figures then you may get slipped but that is all. But if you did that on a DMA exchange/ or ECN FX platform then with a big move your fill could be really extreme. Whereas even on quite large moves CS will just fill the vast bulk of orders at the levels requested (really!)
Our Prospreads unit was certainly not a retail product as the Gibraltan regulators only permitted professional clients (by Mifid definition) and until FP came along was the only DMA provider. But to be honest the spread on trading (if you include the commisions) makes the product massively more expensive than a normal bog standard spread betting company. Particularly for our usual clients.
You sound like a big punter who demands that when you want a fill you get it but you must admit that sometimes you try to hit a price but someone just takes the volume available before you.
I agree that in my comment i should have added the word "may" be filled at worse etc but in reality you are talking from the view point of a very big trader (in Spread betting terms). Neither did i say you would "struggle" to get filled. I said that the volumes were often not there to trade over £200 a point. In a one hit trade as you could easily get filled in say 150 and be left offering 50.
You must remember that the risk on these DMA platforms is strickly limited to individual market makers who are under no obligation to quote 100% of the time or to market make in all the markets. Conversely Capital Spreads quotes its market prices 100% of the time that the market is open and with a fixed spread (generally very tight) and in a very reasonable size. so we are taking the risk on all these markets not just the ones we happen to choose to be in on that particular day.
When times get volatile the spreads on the Dow and FTSE can widen out horrendously to massive point spreads (in august they were often at 10 to 15 wide) . but we were still there with 2 and 1 respectively.
i do not like DMA for our type of client as the costs for their style/size of trading just makes it expensive.
On how we make our money... errrr... i am pretty sure that the product says Spread Betting. which does make us a bookmaker. I would wonder at your question if you asked "how does Ladbrookes make its money" ? in a ten horse race only one horse 'won' all the 'on the nose' bets for the other nine 'lost'
The point is that (unlike regular bookmakers) we accept the winners as we really can just hedge them ... if we did not treat our winning clients well we would just not get new clients as our name would be mud.
LCG operates as a market maker/bookie. In the real financial world why on earth do you think banks/brokers market make? if not to profit from it? (we are just more honest about it ). Yes we make money from clients losing (of course we do) but oddly enough more than 65% of individual trades are profitable as per my previous comments on this thread. We do an enourmous amount of analysis on revenue over trades etc and it works out that clients, as a group, lose almost exactly .. the total spread multiplied by the stake. The problem is that we do not know when this will happen.
On DMA if you lose you have still lost to "someone else". Whether that someone else was another trader like you or Gildmon Socks sic (far more likely) somehow, in this world, it does not seem to matter as much as if you had lost it to a Spread Betting company.
"Abusive" ... threatening/rude/aggressive .. please do not turn into those commentators who deliberately take a meaning that is obviously not meant
cheers
simon
thanks for the comment
there are a few points that should be taken here. And i must say i agree with prety much everything you say.
But
Firstly... our average stake size for absolutely everything is around £5 .. now this average takes into account the big punters (i.e one trade at £100 requires 24 at £1 to get an average of £5 for 25 trades) and also includes equity traders who generally trade in much (much) bigger sizes. From this you can see that the average client of CS just would not trade on markets like the Dax, S&P or FTSE futures or the FX markets as their risk would be just too much for their appetite.
Unfortunately I have to make generalistic comments on these threads for the overall bulk of our clients not just individuals who might have specific requirements.
You talk of slippage but i cannot see how this can be the case. On CS your trade request will be filled at your price or not at all. If you are leaving standing orders close to market levels over economic release figures then you may get slipped but that is all. But if you did that on a DMA exchange/ or ECN FX platform then with a big move your fill could be really extreme. Whereas even on quite large moves CS will just fill the vast bulk of orders at the levels requested (really!)
Our Prospreads unit was certainly not a retail product as the Gibraltan regulators only permitted professional clients (by Mifid definition) and until FP came along was the only DMA provider. But to be honest the spread on trading (if you include the commisions) makes the product massively more expensive than a normal bog standard spread betting company. Particularly for our usual clients.
You sound like a big punter who demands that when you want a fill you get it but you must admit that sometimes you try to hit a price but someone just takes the volume available before you.
I agree that in my comment i should have added the word "may" be filled at worse etc but in reality you are talking from the view point of a very big trader (in Spread betting terms). Neither did i say you would "struggle" to get filled. I said that the volumes were often not there to trade over £200 a point. In a one hit trade as you could easily get filled in say 150 and be left offering 50.
You must remember that the risk on these DMA platforms is strickly limited to individual market makers who are under no obligation to quote 100% of the time or to market make in all the markets. Conversely Capital Spreads quotes its market prices 100% of the time that the market is open and with a fixed spread (generally very tight) and in a very reasonable size. so we are taking the risk on all these markets not just the ones we happen to choose to be in on that particular day.
When times get volatile the spreads on the Dow and FTSE can widen out horrendously to massive point spreads (in august they were often at 10 to 15 wide) . but we were still there with 2 and 1 respectively.
i do not like DMA for our type of client as the costs for their style/size of trading just makes it expensive.
On how we make our money... errrr... i am pretty sure that the product says Spread Betting. which does make us a bookmaker. I would wonder at your question if you asked "how does Ladbrookes make its money" ? in a ten horse race only one horse 'won' all the 'on the nose' bets for the other nine 'lost'
The point is that (unlike regular bookmakers) we accept the winners as we really can just hedge them ... if we did not treat our winning clients well we would just not get new clients as our name would be mud.
LCG operates as a market maker/bookie. In the real financial world why on earth do you think banks/brokers market make? if not to profit from it? (we are just more honest about it ). Yes we make money from clients losing (of course we do) but oddly enough more than 65% of individual trades are profitable as per my previous comments on this thread. We do an enourmous amount of analysis on revenue over trades etc and it works out that clients, as a group, lose almost exactly .. the total spread multiplied by the stake. The problem is that we do not know when this will happen.
On DMA if you lose you have still lost to "someone else". Whether that someone else was another trader like you or Gildmon Socks sic (far more likely) somehow, in this world, it does not seem to matter as much as if you had lost it to a Spread Betting company.
"Abusive" ... threatening/rude/aggressive .. please do not turn into those commentators who deliberately take a meaning that is obviously not meant
cheers
simon
Yes I agree, no slippage at all with CS unless you trade the news. I would say do not trade the news with CS, you might get hang up in the air with no actual control over your order. But CS is honest about this, and if one still want to do so it is on your own risk.
____________
"Take control with Risk & Money Management"
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/pla...140296-visualrmm-interactive-new-concept.html
According to this website - Spread Betting Company comparison - Capital Spreads is the best spread betting company overall.
Capital Spreads and the London Capital Group in general, in our view provide the best solution to Financial Spread Betting in 2012. IG Index held this position consistently in previous years, however but for the number of markets offered, Capital Spreads is now outcompeting IG Index on our main areas of study. This combined with a geniunely fast, reliable platform, and good charting software, puts them in our number one spot for 2012.
Capital Spreads and the London Capital Group in general, in our view provide the best solution to Financial Spread Betting in 2012. IG Index held this position consistently in previous years, however but for the number of markets offered, Capital Spreads is now outcompeting IG Index on our main areas of study. This combined with a geniunely fast, reliable platform, and good charting software, puts them in our number one spot for 2012.
Hoggums
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I see there are some people replying to this in "awe" at this traders result. But it's nothing special - just the laws of statistics. I don't know how many active clients CS has but let's assume it's thousands - if you put that many monkeys in front of a computer randomly making trades then there will eventually be at least one monkey who makes similar profits.
I'm not accussing the BT engineer of being completely lucky - I'm sure there was some skill involved - but with a more than fair share of luck thrown in.
Yes, another monkey ghost wrote for Shakespeare and his pal won the lottery jackpot. Meanwhile, the restof the zoo either lost money spreadbetting or were accused of latency trading.
If you believe that either luck or random statistical factors were involved in what was probably an outstanding multiplication of a starting stake, you might as well pack in any hope of trading success and walk away.
During the 25 years I have traded I have known of a handful but known one of the massive multipliers of starting stakes. I know the methodology of a 120X stake multiplier who left markets with £60m in the bank.
I can replicate his exact methods day after day and they ain't rocket science. What I can never and will never replicate is the self belief, cast iron stomach and fortitude needed to run a position to its maximum and scale in as he used to do.
One of the hardest things to come to terms with in trading is the realisation of one's own limitations especially when the judge and jury is ourselves. To imply that luck plays a part is IMO denial and probably a reflection of the individual rather than reality.
capitalspreads
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comment on luck or skill
this is very hard to decipher as ones mans toss of the coin is another's "considered opinion" !
In general there is 'luck' when you hold positions over major releases but outside of this you can spot a reasonable trader (or at least one with a better chance than others) when his losing bets are consistently less than his winning ones (not that he has more or less of them .. just that he has rigid control over his losing positions)
this does not of course mean that he will be succesful.. you still have to make the right calls
Tdog
nice of you to point this out . i was unaware of it.. i will make sure that our marketing department makes full use of our elevation to 'Top Dog' position !!
Cheers
simon
this is very hard to decipher as ones mans toss of the coin is another's "considered opinion" !
In general there is 'luck' when you hold positions over major releases but outside of this you can spot a reasonable trader (or at least one with a better chance than others) when his losing bets are consistently less than his winning ones (not that he has more or less of them .. just that he has rigid control over his losing positions)
this does not of course mean that he will be succesful.. you still have to make the right calls
Tdog
nice of you to point this out . i was unaware of it.. i will make sure that our marketing department makes full use of our elevation to 'Top Dog' position !!
Cheers
simon
fibbinstarchi
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Hello Simon,
So you do have limits, a couple of hundred pound per point, so his assumptions as you put it was correct. You didn't mention the fx market, as we know there is no problem with liquidity with the majors, what's the realistic level per pip one could trade at with minimum fuss? Thanks for your honesty so far.
Apart from the first sentence of the final para, I don't follow your argument. If you've been trading 25 years and feel you can replicate this bloke's exact methods, day after day, doesn't that mean you already have the self belief? If you know you're right, why do you need fortitude, cast iron gonads, or anything else... apart from luck?
Simon has said that this winner took big risks but just somehow got it right every time. How about if he made all the same trades but instead of missing stops by a pip or two, he hit them by a pip or two,a nd vice versa with limits? In other words, he was still making the right decisions, but would probably blow his account in a few weeks? Isn't that luck?
I can replicate his methods but what I cannot do is add loads of contracts onto winning positions into trend pull-backs which is counter intuitive but the right way to run to maximum profits. I also have the same problem as a broker I used to use whereby it takes years or sometimes beyond forever to break through large position risk. He built himself up to a comfort zone of a million and I still have a long way to go to find a much higher comfort zone.
In your final paragraph your reference to a pip or two is nickels and dimes stuff. The guy who made £60m held for weeks and added hundreds of k's at a pop. Nobody gets rich or breaks out of the ordinary Joe mould without playing big time, when appropriate.
We are viewing from completely different perspectives but I have long since come to terms with the fact that I am never going to be a superstar but a good living does me just fine.
Simon has a perspective on what he thinks traders may or could be capable of but from the traders I have known who have made the grade he is wrong. Decent traders who value the hit rate side of their performance are often in the low to mid 80% accuracy rates which with good money management win consistently. The only problem with wishing for high hit rates is that conditions have to be right and high probability set-ups frequent. The markets I normally trade have been lacking in desirable action for weeks\months now but I had done enough for this tax year before the doldrums set in so I don't push what the markets will not give.
Most traders with some time under the belt have an arsenal of set-ups with pretty much a known probability outcome. There are loads of 70% set-ups which include head & shoulders. I have some which approach 95% to add to my personal mix.
IMO the only luck in trading is bad luck which should come in 30% amounts and be protected with point of failure stops. That bad luck is the cost of doing business and acceptable.
Sorry, still don't follow, but I think you misunderstood what I said about stops and limits. If a trade is stopped out by a pip your paper loss becomes real, and you have less margin to make another trade. If the same trade misses a stop by a pip (which may represent any stake) then goes in your favour and makes a profit, you're making money. If a series of high risk trades all get stopped you may soon blow the account, but if they miss the stop you can compound up and potentially make lots of money very quickly. That fits into my definition of luck.
I'm not trying to say that success or failure depends only on luck, or that a good trader won't be more likely to win.
