GFT UK Spreadbetting......

[Incerto]

Thanks Timaru69 and Sdev4321 for your answers. Could you please specify which kind of orders and which amount were they?

As far as I understand, GFTUK have 2 kinds of orders: the first kind is a sort of "fill or kill", or if you prefer an "instant limit" order. You click on an order at a given, fixed price. This kind of orders can be requoted, but if executed will be executed at no worse than the price visualized when you clicked. I understand this is the common kind of order among spread betting firms.

GFTUK also have normal "market" orders. On these orders they don't guarantee price (there can be slippage, as in normal trade action through a broker or through a DMA shop). I don't know how common is this kind of order with other spread betting firms. I am interested only in this second kind of orders. They are very fast on the GFTUK demo platform, and I wonder if they are also fast in real operation.

As far as I understand so far, the slow fills experienced by Timaru69 should be on orders of the first kind (because there often is a requote).

sdev4321, you were quite unsatisfied with the speed of GFTUK. Were you using "kill or fill" orders, or "market" orders? How big was your stake (if I can ask)? Do you think your orders were validated by a dealer? I would use very low, minimum stakes. If you tell me I would have slow execution with "market" orders and small stakes, I will definitely abandon the idea of opening an account with GFTUK.

And also: did anyone have orders "stuck" with GFTUK? This is the most frightening thing I guess. If the server goes down, and one has not yet inserted a stop-loss, one can have a backup account and hedge his position (or "hedge to close" so to say). But when an order is "stuck" one cannot even know if the order was taken, executed etc. so it is not possible to hedge. This happened to me twice with MBTrading in 2006 and was not pleasant at all (MBTrading seems to have made improvements nowadays).

Thanks for your inputs
Fabrizio

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

Gone very quiet on here. Does that mean everyone is happy, or that everyone's stopped using GFT?

 

[timaru69]

In response

Thanks Timaru69 and Sdev4321 for your answers. Could you please specify which kind of orders and which amount were they?

As far as I understand, GFTUK have 2 kinds of orders: the first kind is a sort of "fill or kill", or if you prefer an "instant limit" order. You click on an order at a given, fixed price. This kind of orders can be requoted, but if executed will be executed at no worse than the price visualized when you clicked. I understand this is the common kind of order among spread betting firms.

GFTUK also have normal "market" orders. On these orders they don't guarantee price (there can be slippage, as in normal trade action through a broker or through a DMA shop). I don't know how common is this kind of order with other spread betting firms. I am interested only in this second kind of orders. They are very fast on the GFTUK demo platform, and I wonder if they are also fast in real operation.

Nope , you get reqoutes on the market orders as well . Well at least I do. The demo platform is not the same as the live in terms of fill speed etc. The Demo is mainly for getting used to the operational aspects of the platform and shouldn't be considered as a measure of "real" market performance

As far as I understand so far, the slow fills experienced by Timaru69 should be on orders of the first kind (because there often is a requote).

sdev4321, you were quite unsatisfied with the speed of GFTUK. Were you using "kill or fill" orders, or "market" orders? How big was your stake (if I can ask)? Do you think your orders were validated by a dealer? I would use very low, minimum stakes. If you tell me I would have slow execution with "market" orders and small stakes, I will definitely abandon the idea of opening an account with GFTUK.

And also: did anyone have orders "stuck" with GFTUK? This is the most frightening thing I guess. If the server goes down, and one has not yet inserted a stop-loss, one can have a backup account and hedge his position (or "hedge to close" so to say). But when an order is "stuck" one cannot even know if the order was taken, executed etc. so it is not possible to hedge. This happened to me twice with MBTrading in 2006 and was not pleasant at all (MBTrading seems to have made improvements nowadays).

Thanks for your inputs
Fabrizio

See above

 

[Incerto]

Closing at market price

Strange that there isn't a 'close at market'' option on the right click on the chart.

Yes there is not on the chart but anyway - I don't know if you already noticed it - you can close at market price an open position by right-clicking, in the orders window, on an open order. The first item on the contestual menu says something like "transform this into a market order".
The same contestual menu provides options such as "protect this position" so that one can place a stop-loss and a take-profit after having opened the position. I prefer doing so as this is the way I am accustomed to already with MBTrading.

I am going to open a MINI account soon with GFTUK and will report here my level of satisfaction in January.
I would not condone a high amount of requotes unless when the market gets really frenzy (on crucial news or on very particular days). I will open a small account and place small bets (let's say £1 for FTSE100 and £4 for S&P500) so I suppose my operations will never pass through a dealing desk.

Fabrizio

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

I am going to open a MINI account soon with GFTUK and will report here my level of satisfaction in January.
I would not condone a high amount of requotes unless when the market gets really frenzy (on crucial news or on very particular days). I will open a small account and place small bets (let's say £1 for FTSE100 and £4 for S&P500) so I suppose my operations will never pass through a dealing desk.

Fabrizio

How's it going?

 

[Incerto]

First impression on GFTUK - SB

How's it going?

I am using GFTUK (Spread Betting only) since more or less one month and overall I think it is a decent service.

The application (I only use the Windows program) is fairly versatile. Execution is normally very fast. I did not notice any "not normal" movement in quotes.

The only areas of dissatisfaction are described below.

On January 5th and on January 15th I experienced a total disservice (could not log in) which is NOT reflected in the "uptime statistics" in their home page.

On January 5th I had no positions opened, so I just gave up logging in after a few minutes of attempts. Some our later I logged in normally. I have no idea how long the disservice has lasted.

On January 15th I had a position opened. It was a day of very intense activity. The first symptom was that executions were slow, about 10 - 15 seconds late (but the executed price was the right one). The second was the news server which did not serve the body of the news (only the titles). Then the graph begun freezing. Finally also the quotes (in the quotes window) froze. At this point I tried to re-log in, and could not. I tried with the web site, and a message said logging in was difficult because of intense activity.

I wanted to know if my position was still opened. I called the trade desk and they answered promptly, with only a few seconds of waiting. They told me that my position was still opened, and I could have modified my orders on line. The operator was kind and precise, professional I can certainly say. Service resumed normally after twenty minutes or so.

So overall: two days of disservice in a month is no small disservice, but normally the service is fast and reliable. Phone backup was prompt and effective. I would suggest having a backup service anyway (another account at another firm). I also would suggest not using GFTUK if you are not fluent in English because phoning the trade desk is something that might well be necessary.

I never experienced "requotes" because I only use market orders or limited orders (always with "take profit" and "stop-loss" applied simultaneously and One Cancels the Other).

Execution "at market price" is honest in the sense that sometime I get a price better than what I was seeing when I clicked (sometime worse, usually I get that very same price because execution is fast).

If there is a sudden and ample movement in the quote (which triggers many orders, I suppose) the application can take 5 - 10 seconds or even more to acknowledge the triggering of an order, but does so reliably in my experience.

If you follow more than a position at once, one problem with this firm is that you don't have fast "close at market" buttons. You have a panel with "fast buttons" (the "Dashboard") but they only work with the "quote-requote" system (fixed price). You cannot close an order "at market" with the dashboard. You can set the slippage that you allow, it is not the same (with an order "at market" you can have a better or worse price, with an order at fixed price you can undergo slippage against you but you will never be filled better than the fixed price you clicked at, so I don't like it).

What you can do is to go at the position in your "open positions" window, right clic and choose "close @ market" from the contestual menu.

You also have a "Close all" position which is not a panic button anyway (it asks you which positions, you say "all"). I never tried to keep the window opened to see if it can work as an "alternative dashboard for closing positions fast".

Another "problem" is that the chart, by design, when using "Heikin-Ashi" ("average candles") shows to the right the "recalculated" closing value of the candle rather than the actual istantaneous, real value. This can be misleading in a costly way.

The chart application has some bugs in setting colours. Overall the chart application is OK but certainly not up to a program like QuoteTracker in terms of flexibility, to give you a term of comparison.

Overall I plan to stay with them unless the disservice becomes a habit, and consider so far GFTUK decent value for money (1 pip on FTSE100 and 0,5 pip on S&P500 is among the best and the service overall, though definitely not exempt from flaws, is professional and not an improvised mum & pup shop). A backup account is necessary with this broker though (I would say a backup account is always a wise thing to have).

I do repeat my experience only applies to the spread betting account. I did not open a Forex account (I occasionally do some FX trading with the spread betting platform).

Fabrizio

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

I am using GFTUK (Spread Betting only) since more or less one month and overall I think it is a decent service.

The application (I only use the Windows program) is fairly versatile. Execution is normally very fast. I did not notice any "not normal" movement in quotes.

The only areas of dissatisfaction are described below.

On January 5th and on January 15th I experienced a total disservice (could not log in) which is NOT reflected in the "uptime statistics" in their home page.

On January 5th I had no positions opened, so I just gave up logging in after a few minutes of attempts. Some our later I logged in normally. I have no idea how long the disservice has lasted.

On January 15th I had a position opened. It was a day of very intense activity. The first symptom was that executions were slow, about 10 - 15 seconds late (but the executed price was the right one). The second was the news server which did not serve the body of the news (only the titles). Then the graph begun freezing. Finally also the quotes (in the quotes window) froze. At this point I tried to re-log in, and could not. I tried with the web site, and a message said logging in was difficult because of intense activity.

I wanted to know if my position was still opened. I called the trade desk and they answered promptly, with only a few seconds of waiting. They told me that my position was still opened, and I could have modified my orders on line. The operator was kind and precise, professional I can certainly say. Service resumed normally after twenty minutes or so.

So overall: two days of disservice in a month is no small disservice, but normally the service is fast and reliable. Phone backup was prompt and effective. I would suggest having a backup service anyway (another account at another firm). I also would suggest not using GFTUK if you are not fluent in English because phoning the trade desk is something that might well be necessary.

I never experienced "requotes" because I only use market orders or limited orders (always with "take profit" and "stop-loss" applied simultaneously and One Cancels the Other).

Execution "at market price" is honest in the sense that sometime I get a price better than what I was seeing when I clicked (sometime worse, usually I get that very same price because execution is fast).

If there is a sudden and ample movement in the quote (which triggers many orders, I suppose) the application can take 5 - 10 seconds or even more to acknowledge the triggering of an order, but does so reliably in my experience.

If you follow more than a position at once, one problem with this firm is that you don't have fast "close at market" buttons. You have a panel with "fast buttons" (the "Dashboard") but they only work with the "quote-requote" system (fixed price). You cannot close an order "at market" with the dashboard. You can set the slippage that you allow, it is not the same (with an order "at market" you can have a better or worse price, with an order at fixed price you can undergo slippage against you but you will never be filled better than the fixed price you clicked at, so I don't like it).

What you can do is to go at the position in your "open positions" window, right clic and choose "close @ market" from the contestual menu.

You also have a "Close all" position which is not a panic button anyway (it asks you which positions, you say "all"). I never tried to keep the window opened to see if it can work as an "alternative dashboard for closing positions fast".

Another "problem" is that the chart, by design, when using "Heikin-Ashi" ("average candles") shows to the right the "recalculated" closing value of the candle rather than the actual istantaneous, real value. This can be misleading in a costly way.

The chart application has some bugs in setting colours. Overall the chart application is OK but certainly not up to a program like QuoteTracker in terms of flexibility, to give you a term of comparison.

Overall I plan to stay with them unless the disservice becomes a habit, and consider so far GFTUK decent value for money (1 pip on FTSE100 and 0,5 pip on S&P500 is among the best and the service overall, though definitely not exempt from flaws, is professional and not an improvised mum & pup shop). A backup account is necessary with this broker though (I would say a backup account is always a wise thing to have).

I do repeat my experience only applies to the spread betting account. I did not open a Forex account (I occasionally do some FX trading with the spread betting platform).

Fabrizio

Interesting. Do you also have the problem with dragging orders on the chart, when the line keeps springing back to its original position?

 

[Incerto]

Interesting. Do you also have the problem with dragging orders on the chart, when the line keeps springing back to its original position?

Yes, the problem happens only when dragging the line fast and of a considerable amount. If I drag it only slightly the problem never arises. Also, a possible cure is to drag the bar quite slowly. I tend not to use this function generally, I change the order with the "Edit order" function (typing the new value).

I also tried to click on the black rectangle which I see at the right extremity of the bar rather than the bar itself, but with no better results.

Talking about the chart, it happened once or twice that a new candle was started at an odd time. For instance I see the 15 minutes candles, the last candle begun at 10:45 and suddendly a new candle appears at 10:48. In those cases I just used the command named something like "Refresh graph" and it solved the problem.

Incerto

 

[Jack Hughes]

Incerto, how's it going with GFT? Software updated now, I think.

 

[Jack Hughes]

Judging from the lack of input for this thread, you tend to wonder if anyone uses GFT.

 

[windsurfing_stew]

I use GFT. Good platform and great service. Happy with them to date.

 

[Jack Hughes]

I use GFT. Good platform and great service. Happy with them to date.

How long for, and do you have any problems with slow execution and/or trading from charts?

 

[windsurfing_stew]

Been with them about six months. The platform (which is really well featured) sometimes is slow to load but once running is fine.

 

[Jack Hughes]

Been with them about six months. The platform (which is really well featured) sometimes is slow to load but once running is fine.

Have you tried trading direct from charts, and do stop orders keep jumping around when they're dragged to a new position?

 

[Jason101]

GFT Deposit Size

I have been talking to GFT for a while now, threatening to open an account but not committing.
I told them I liked the look of what they do but were unhappy with the large opening deposit required.

I got a call from them the other day to say I could open an account with them for $250 (or equivalent in your local currency). So I will be giving them a go.

I do not know if this is their general policy now or just for trouble makers like me. But if not and the deposit size is putting you off, you should be able to negotiate it.

Jason

 

[gle101]

I have been talking to GFT for a while now, threatening to open an account but not committing.
I told them I liked the look of what they do but were unhappy with the large opening deposit required.

I got a call from them the other day to say I could open an account with them for $250 (or equivalent in your local currency). So I will be giving them a go.

I do not know if this is their general policy now or just for trouble makers like me. But if not and the deposit size is putting you off, you should be able to negotiate it.

Jason

Good for you. Is this the standard account, not just FX?

 

[Jack Hughes]

I have been talking to GFT for a while now, threatening to open an account but not committing.
I told them I liked the look of what they do but were unhappy with the large opening deposit required.

I got a call from them the other day to say I could open an account with them for $250 (or equivalent in your local currency). So I will be giving them a go.

I do not know if this is their general policy now or just for trouble makers like me. But if not and the deposit size is putting you off, you should be able to negotiate it.

Jason

Strange that they should break their own rules. Maybe they're getting desperate?

 

[gle101]

Strange that they should break their own rules. Maybe they're getting desperate?

Yes, they would probably have had me as a client long time ago, if they only had a reasonable minimum deposit. I like to test out a SB with some live trading, before committing myself with a higher deposit.

 

[Jack Hughes]

Perhaps GFT are going to get a rush of new customers if they've got rid of the main thing that stopped punters signing up?

 

[Jason101]

:cheers:

Good for you. Is this the standard account, not just FX?

Hi,

This is the full spread bet account.
I am a bit like that though, I will often go into restaurants and ask for meals, not on the menu -if I spot the ingredients in the menu. My wife finds it really embarrassing.

The ingredients I like the sound of are, no minimum stop requirements at all, from the initial stop to any trailing stop, you could place a stop of 1pip, if you wished. (I do not know of any other company that offer this, (Pro spreads may do though, does anyone know?)) . And that GFT are such big players in the financial world, with lots of backing.

Jason