Best Thread CMC Markets owner answers your questions

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi Benny and the links
yes we get another chance we need to win carling cup this year but I have a feeling West Ham's name is on the trophy.
time will tell.
No disgrace is losing to the might Stevenage ha ha

Playing Wentworth West tomorrow that will sort me out.
Pc

At least you get a second chance - we didn't against Stevenage!

Still smarting as they were much the better side!

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

hi x4x
Thanks for blogging.
to answer yours questions.

1. no you cannot hold simultaneous long and short positions on the same pair at same time.
2. happy with scalping. bring it on. all trades are electronically executed no dealer intervention.
3. no pop out tickets.

cheers peter

Hi Peter,

I have 3 questions for you regarding your trading platform, I only trade currencies:

Can I hold simultaneous Long and Short positions on the same pair?

Is your company OK with scalping - I would define this as trades that generally last less than 2 minutes.

Does your platform offer 'tear off' tickets - these are floating tickets that can be placed outside the platform window, eg. on a second screen.

Thanks in advance

Kev

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi benny
Thanks for feed back will pass them on. Some are already in production and others we will look at.
thanks for taking the time to check out the system and let me know your points.
Peter

Hi Peter,

I have spoken to one of your support guys and he confirms that I am not completely daft afterall!

On a one minute chart, say on the Euro, the chart will default to 3 hours. If one scrolls down to have a good look at the last 40 bars for example, the chart won't let you. It defaults to a 30 second chart. Really irritating.

Altering one's stoploss is fine on the chart, but if one is "trading" (by that I mean, in and out quickly) and one wants to be precise, it's almost impossible because the chart automatically alters the time frame. Your colleague is suggesting the change to your IT.

Another thing about the stoploss facility on the chart is that if you're in profit it shows "£0.00" if you are moving your "stoploss" into a profit area. I would like it to show what the positive position would be, please.

The site is attractive but at the moment it is not a day traders' site, IMHO. I have to concur with the other posters about the spreads. FX spreads are too wide for short term trading with the exception of the Euro/USD and USD/JPY possibly. If one is a "take a position and hold for a while" then the site is excellent.

I think you mentioned that windows may be able to be undocked to place elsewhere i.e. a second monitor. That is a must have feature, I feel.

All just my opinion ( you wanted feedback!) however as we all know opinions are the cheapest commodity on earth!

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

4x4 no need to put up with ticket time out and no execution any more. trade with us and see for yourself.
thanks peter

Hi Gle101,

I have traded with IG for years - I believe they offer by far the best and most flexible platform - and the fairest prices.

I have though experienced (with IG) both problems you refer to, but these occurrences are very rare and on the few occasions it has happened I have accepted it as part and parcel of trading and I could see that the market was moving extremely fast.

Perhaps you can tell us if this happens with CMC often and if it happens when you feel it shouldn't.

Thank in advance....

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi Robbiemac

Thanks for your feed back.
Firstly I have been married to long to know that I will not be able to please every body all of the time. But it is nice when I get words of encouragement from people like you because I do put in a lot of effort to answer these questions and do my best to give straight honest answers. I am not here to directly promote CMC Markets but to open a medium to communicate directly with people that use our platfor or want to use it or are thinking about it. Also lot of the team here follow my blogs and it keeps them up to speed with what I am saying about the business.

So as stated previously we will be adding more and more products. it is software issue to be able to quote all major products with automated execution, no requotes, no ticket time out, no dealer referrals. SGP is on the list and we should be launching in few weeks time more products. hang on in there small caps coming as well

peter

Hi Peter,

I had a read through this thread last night and I found the comment which states you will be offering the FTSE 350 and some small caps.

I have opened a Demo Account and once of the stocks I wanted to add to my watchlist was Supergroup (SGP). Only because someone tipped it the day before it soared and I was curious to watch its performance.

I couldn't find it and I sent an email to your office asking why. They confirmed you offer 338 stocks from the 350.

I appreciate this is the large majority but why are some missing?

I was also told Small Caps are not available which I knew anyway, but you have stated you are looking to introduce some of these to your platform. I take it you still have plans to do so?

By the way, I take my hat off to you for putting yourself forward to deal with all sorts of questions good and bad.

You wont please everybody but it sure goes a long way towards building client trust in your business.

Best regards.

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi Gle101

I can understand why your ask this very logical question. But I think you have to understand where we are coming from as a company. What we have built is a goldmans type execution platform for clients to trade real time across all market environments.
This is not rocket science, it is the same type of technology that goldmans, Deutsche, citi, etc offer their clients when they trade forex. I know because we use their platforms.
What we have done is brought this level of execution, pricing and technology to the retail spread bet markets. That is why we called it next generation. I know it will take time to get the point across but until you use the platform and see it for yourself then you will keep asking questions and I will continue to be happy to answer them.

We operate a flow model for hedging, we net off risk and we are hungry for flows. The system automates everything to speed up the process, encourage people to trade with us and generate flows for us. We quote a ticket size for each bet, we do not time out tickets, we do not requotes and the system executes the trades.
what we want are flows, flows and more flows. It matters to us whether clients make money. we want clients to make money because they keep on trading and that means more flows. we hedge between 80 and 90 percent of our business, we do 98 percent on line, we are geared up for scalpers and frequency traders and normal traders.

it is all there for you guys. forget head line spreads and check out our execution and pricing especially during volatile times.

tks pc


This is

Yes you are absolutely right, a few re-quotes or price no longer valid is quite OK now and then. No I do not trade live with CMC next-gen, but when PC promise 100% re-quote free trading and instant execution. One wonders how they handle the execution during an extreme volatile market, especially when it comes to the release of important figures. Can they live up to it, without giving a price no longer valid message? This is why I asked about network latency as well. PC proclaim CMC to have the fastest price feed in the industry, so the question about execution and network latency is quite valid case. Their spread is not the best, but yet not bad either, so there is not much room to set a wide internal price deviation.

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

like the rest of the world then

Why do not you just open an execution policy document and see it for yourself?
http://www.cmcmarkets.co.uk/Content/Documents/sb/execution-policy.pdf
Page 2


Pretty clear, is it not?

 

[Ross Spur]

Why do not you just open an execution policy document and see it for yourself?
http://www.cmcmarkets.co.uk/Content/Documents/sb/execution-policy.pdf
Page 2


Pretty clear, is it not?

Clear-ish, PC, but I still struggle with the concept that you get the first available market price, not the first available SB price. We're not trading The Market, we're trading your prices. Why is it that SBs always stress this aspect, but then fill at a worse price (for the client) than they're quoting?

If a bookie opens a bet, they can't change it when the race starts on the grounds that one of the horses is running a bit faster than expected.

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

hi Ross
We can only process a bet when we receive the bet. As soon as we receive the bet it gets executed at the price we are quoting at the time, automatically by the system and it does not discriminate against the client whether he is buyer or seller. call it market price, bet price whatever you like but it is our price and it is quoting blind to anybody that wants to hit it. it is good for the amount we quote (see chevron button on product window or price window) and there are no requotes or dealer referral.
hope that is more clear-ish

thanks peter

Clear-ish, PC, but I still struggle with the concept that you get the first available market price, not the first available SB price. We're not trading The Market, we're trading your prices. Why is it that SBs always stress this aspect, but then fill at a worse price (for the client) than they're quoting?

If a bookie opens a bet, they can't change it when the race starts on the grounds that one of the horses is running a bit faster than expected.

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi Gle101
Not beating the drum about it, you brought it up and I explained what margin stops are. I did ask you if anybody else offered this automated service and you haven't replied. see my reply to your post 364.
not saying it is be all and end all for spread betters but it is another layer of protection and demonstrates our mind set which I think is the important issue. thanks pc

Yes I agree, better than no stop all at all. But not that much to beat the drum for, there are far more important features that need to be implemented as suggested by many on this thread.

I rather not at this stage not open an live account. I will wait and see how you are progressing in the near future. Please read my post #364 and give clear short answers.

 

[x4x]

Hi Gle101
Not beating the drum about it, you brought it up and I explained what margin stops are. I did ask you if anybody else offered this automated service and you haven't replied. see my reply to your post 364.
not saying it is be all and end all for spread betters but it is another layer of protection and demonstrates our mind set which I think is the important issue. thanks pc

Gecko Spreads offer this....

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

no they do not

Gecko Spreads offer this....

 

[6am]

it is another layer of protection and demonstrates our mind set which I think is the important issue.

Lets be clear. Automatic margin stop is protection for you not for the trader. Instead of allowing balance to go negative during volatile times and then having a trouble of recovering it from the trader you just stop the trade and save yourself the trouble.

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

hi 6am,
yes lets be clear. we can liquidate a client without having them put in a margin stop loss, when they run out of money.
you are right though that we do not want to chase clients for money but that works both ways. it protects the client and it protects us.Remember we have operated for 21 years without margin stop losses. so you are completely wrong.

we put margin stop losses on the ticket to
1. offer extra protection for clients.
2. to show them instantly how much margin was required for that bet
3. so they can manage their risk by placing stop losses on the margins required.

further we allow clients to trade without stop losses, they can bet on one click any time just cancel margin stop losses in preferences window.
also the margin stop loss is not fixed. they can change the levels any time, when they open the bet or after it is executed.

so sorry your are 100 percent wrong.

thanks Peter

Lets be clear. Automatic margin stop is protection for you not for the trader. Instead of allowing balance to go negative during volatile times and then having a trouble of recovering it from the trader you just stop the trade and save yourself the trouble.

 

[x4x]

They offer automatic stops - it may not be for the full margin, but why would anyone want to risk their full margin on a single trade!?

 

[PC at CMC Markets]

Hi 4x4 thanks for agreeing with me about margin stop losses.
your other point it depends I guess what your strategy is.
on forex margins can be low as 1 percent and so that is the margin you can risk which is pretty low. in effect by offering margin stop losses each trade is protected by the margin requirement so whilst you might want to risk the whole margin on one trade you might not risk the whole balance in your account. you can use margin stop losses for silo trading.
But hey not saying every body should use margin stop losses just saying it is there for you if you want it. place your own stops and profits it is not a problem. you have it all there in front of you.

thanks Peter

They offer automatic stops - it may not be for the full margin, but why would anyone want to risk their full margin on a single trade!?

 

[gle101]

Hi Gle101
Yes sorry I forgot about this point. I promise you i am not trying to avoid the question I have just been busy and missed the point on my earlier blog.

So how can I answer this without long sermon.
Firstly there is no latency in our system this end. but the issue is what if there is latency between our system and the end user. so there are generally three types of orders.
market, stop, limit.

If there is latency your end on say iphone, you enter the bet and you get the market price at the time the bet is received by us. it is market order so gets executed at the market price when we receive the bet. it may be better or worst then the price you want but remember it is fully automatic our end and we have no control over the latency you might experience. this is the internet or iphone and is outside of our control. If you want to be sure of certain price enter limit order. if you enter stop or limit then it is worked the moment we receive it. there are no ticket time outs, not fill or kill and no ticket rejection.

In this world of head line spreads and fill and kill we offer execution every time and no ticket time out and no dealer referrals. Our system has been built by top engineers that were involved with the Goldmans ready system. they work for us now. It can cope with thousands of prices and bets per second so there is no capacity issues our end. our investment is to expand this business exponentially and we have the systems to do that. yes there might be latency your end but that is net work issue. our system can cope with very volatile periods. just ping the bets through and they get processed.



Sorry about long reply hope that helps
Peter

your end between connections b

Thanks, a good answer.

 

[6am]

hi 6am,
yes lets be clear. we can liquidate a client without having them put in a margin stop loss, when they run out of money.
you are right though that we do not want to chase clients for money but that works both ways. it protects the client and it protects us.

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your clarification. I think that ability to have margin stop losses is a good thing. I am glad that you mentioned that this feature also helps you to protect yourself from chasing clients for money.

IGIndex shows the margin required, but trader must calculate the stop himself (which is quite easy to do, divide margin by bet size).

Regards,

6am

 

[x4x]

I'm getting the feeling you are becoming quite irritated by our questions and comments - I'm really not here to do battle with you and your reply didn't warrant the sarcasm. If I was mistaken by Geko offering the same type of auto stops as you it was genuine - not written to wind you up. I've never used auto stops or margin stops and never would - IMHO stops should be placed at logical price points, not based on margin.

I tried CMC some years ago and didn't like the platform at all - I thought I would consider having another go with your company - despite CMC having the worst reputation around (perhaps along with FXCM) - if you've come here to do battle with people it won't help your cause.

 

[Benny Dorm]

if you've come here to do battle with people it won't help your cause.

Jeez.......