Smart Live Markets - Spread Bet on MT4

[magicdogsbrain]

Just had a look in my journal and there are plainly two such examples (ticket numbers and magic numbers changed)...

history:

ticket 1234
Sell
Open Price 1.62325
Close Price 1.62325
Open Time 24/03/2011 07:30
Close Time 24/03/2011 09:15
Profit 0
T/P 0
S/L 1.62325
PIPS 0
Result=B/E
Trade Duration=1.75
Magic Number=1234


history:

ticket 2345
Buy
Open PRice 1.60209
Close Price 1.60209
Open Time 29/03/2011 07:30
Close Time 29/03/2011 08:55
Profit 0
T/P 0
S/L 1.60209
PIPS 0
Result=B/E
Trade Duration 1.43
Magic Number=1234

EDIT - no scrap the journal entries - I physically deleted the account - so have lost the evidence - but I have still got the history (as above)



So my point is - if you have clear evidence that you have an EA setting BE at +20, then what is there problem with that - it is a reasonable claim no?

 

[lkm020]

Originally Posted by Black Swan View Post
Do any of you SLM fanboys question why an SB firm would use MT4/5? And do you know how firms make money (extra profit/commissions) from Metatrader? How Metatrader actually *works* (for the industry users)?

Please enlighten us

I second the motion.
I'm not an SLM fan yet. Leaning more toward FinFX at the mo (straight forex ECN).

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Here's the thing -

I dont think SLM should have honoued all open trades. I get their point that they can not anticipate what an EA might do (althouh they seem to be ok with manual traders saying they would have done something).

This is where SLM got it wrong....

If the trader can show ticket numbers of trades with the same magic number - that the trade was opened at the same time of day, and at the same price above EP the SL was moved to BE - how can they deny this. Yes there is a chance that you could have changed the settings between the last BE trade and the event - but I think that is a very small chance indeed. SLM should have taken the time to say - show me your past behaviour of BE and 20 at the same time of day and I will honour it.

I asked 2 other brokers about this and they both said (without prompting) that if you have the same repeated pattern (a few times in the history) and you could provide ticket numbers and journal entries of those trades, they would be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that the same simple behavior would have occurred at the price freeze.

The above makes perfect common sense to me - I just dont underrstand why SLM have an issue with it. They mentioned the phrase "any Tom Dick or Harry could say anything", well not if you demonstrate past behaviour!


ticket #5678

Trade taken out at 6:30, magic number 1234
EP+20 magic number 1234 moves SL to BE


ticket #5699

Trade taken out at 6:30, magic number 1234
EP+20 magic number 1234 moves SL to BE


ticket #5579

Trade taken out at 6:30, magic number 1234
EP+20 magic number 1234 moves SL to BE


etc etc

Hello

What other firms may or may not have said with regards to this issue is not really relevant.
They would all try and score a few quick PR points by saying something positive without necessarily understanding all the facts or connotations.

I am sure you could demonstrate past performance, but with the greatest of respect, so what. Tell me would that work both ways, so if you make 50 points profit on a trade, where as usually you only make 25, could I ring you up and say well based on what you make normally I am going to adjust your winning profits by half? Hmmm... er No !

The other thing of course is that if we set a precedent by saying to people OK show us your logs and we will honour what you claim your EA would have allegedly done, then firstly we would only hear from people with wining trades. How many would call up and say I would have lost £50 so can you take that off my account.

The other reason, sadly is fraud, as on any computer these days anyone could come up with a log file that claims anything.

We are here to try and help clients. We have done all we can to give clients what they wanted. Spread betting on MT4. Small bet sizes. Mobile phone trading on the iPhone and Android. The biggest selection of markets available (to my knowledge) on MT4.

But what we cannot be held responsible for is your EA. If you want to rely on a robot to do your trading for you then good luck, and I genuinely hope you make money. But if for whatever reason, it does not work properly and that may be because the feed is down, then it is up to you to pick up the phone and adjust the orders manually or trade. We are not nor ever will be held responsible for what some piece of software you have bolted onto your computer does.

Relying on robots to do anything can be very dangerous, particularly when they rely on outside forces to influence them.

As I said at the time, all orders in MT4 were honoured where this was to the benefit of the client. We did not fill stop losses where we were able to keep clients in their position.

Once again I apologise for the outage the other morning, but these things do happen with everyone, probably more than you might think.

Regards

Paul
SLM

 

[jd1888]

Hello

What other firms may or may not have said with regards to this issue is not really relevant.
They would all try and score a few quick PR points by saying something positive without necessarily understanding all the facts or connotations.

I am sure you could demonstrate past performance, but with the greatest of respect, so what. Tell me would that work both ways, so if you make 50 points profit on a trade, where as usually you only make 25, could I ring you up and say well based on what you make normally I am going to adjust your winning profits by half? Hmmm... er No !

That's a fair point.

The other thing of course is that if we set a precedent by saying to people OK show us your logs and we will honour what you claim your EA would have allegedly done, then firstly we would only hear from people with wining trades. How many would call up and say I would have lost £50 so can you take that off my account.

I think people would like to know exactly where the cut off point would be, like who would and wouldn't be compensated in this type of situation.

The other reason, sadly is fraud, as on any computer these days anyone could come up with a log file that claims anything.

Another fair point

We are here to try and help clients. We have done all we can to give clients what they wanted. Spread betting on MT4. Small bet sizes. Mobile phone trading on the iPhone and Android. The biggest selection of markets available (to my knowledge) on MT4.

But what we cannot be held responsible for is your EA. If you want to rely on a robot to do your trading for you then good luck, and I genuinely hope you make money. But if for whatever reason, it does not work properly and that may be because the feed is down, then it is up to you to pick up the phone and adjust the orders manually or trade. We are not nor ever will be held responsible for what some piece of software you have bolted onto your computer does.

How likely is this to happen again? As I'm sure your aware, most people need a chart to trade so obviously if the feed does go down people will effectively be blinded to what is going on in the market, this would be an impossible situation to be in.

Not always possible when using an EA and it kind of defeats the purpose of using one in the first place.

MT4 it's self is a piece of software "bolted on to our computers" which is provided by SLM so are we also responsible for this?

Relying on robots to do anything can be very dangerous, particularly when they rely on outside forces to influence them.

We all rely on robots everyday, your server that is sending the feed out to us is a robot which has failed some on the day in question. I think the reason why people are so bothered by this is the fact that it was your robot not theirs that was the problem.

As I said at the time, all orders in MT4 were honoured where this was to the benefit of the client. We did not fill stop losses where we were able to keep clients in their position.

Once again I apologise for the outage the other morning, but these things do happen with everyone, probably more than you might think.

Regards

Paul
SLM[/QUOTE

Sorry for the rainbow effect.

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Hello

What other firms may or may not have said with regards to this issue is not really relevant.
They would all try and score a few quick PR points by saying something positive without necessarily understanding all the facts or connotations.

I am sure you could demonstrate past performance, but with the greatest of respect, so what. Tell me would that work both ways, so if you make 50 points profit on a trade, where as usually you only make 25, could I ring you up and say well based on what you make normally I am going to adjust your winning profits by half? Hmmm... er No !

That's a fair point.

The other thing of course is that if we set a precedent by saying to people OK show us your logs and we will honour what you claim your EA would have allegedly done, then firstly we would only hear from people with wining trades. How many would call up and say I would have lost £50 so can you take that off my account.

I think people would like to know exactly where the cut off point would be, like who would and wouldn't be compensated in this type of situation.

The other reason, sadly is fraud, as on any computer these days anyone could come up with a log file that claims anything.

Another fair point

We are here to try and help clients. We have done all we can to give clients what they wanted. Spread betting on MT4. Small bet sizes. Mobile phone trading on the iPhone and Android. The biggest selection of markets available (to my knowledge) on MT4.

But what we cannot be held responsible for is your EA. If you want to rely on a robot to do your trading for you then good luck, and I genuinely hope you make money. But if for whatever reason, it does not work properly and that may be because the feed is down, then it is up to you to pick up the phone and adjust the orders manually or trade. We are not nor ever will be held responsible for what some piece of software you have bolted onto your computer does.

How likely is this to happen again? As I'm sure your aware, most people need a chart to trade so obviously if the feed does go down people will effectively be blinded to what is going on in the market, this would be an impossible situation to be in.

Not always possible when using an EA and it kind of defeats the purpose of using one in the first place.

MT4 it's self is a piece of software "bolted on to our computers" which is provided by SLM so are we also responsible for this?

Relying on robots to do anything can be very dangerous, particularly when they rely on outside forces to influence them.

We all rely on robots everyday, your server that is sending the feed out to us is a robot which has failed some on the day in question. I think the reason why people are so bothered by this is the fact that it was your robot not theirs that was the problem.

As I said at the time, all orders in MT4 were honoured where this was to the benefit of the client. We did not fill stop losses where we were able to keep clients in their position.

Once again I apologise for the outage the other morning, but these things do happen with everyone, probably more than you might think.

Regards

Paul
SLM[/QUOTE

Sorry for the rainbow effect.

Hello

Yes MT4 is a piece of software provided by us for you to use. You do so at your own risk, as with every other platform at any other company in the world.
If you genuinely do not accept that and understand the risks with trading online then you should not be trading online let alone with EAs.

I run EAs that I have written myself. Frequently I miss limit orders that I believe should have been done but the broker I use (and I am not going to bad mouth them here) claim that as “THEIR” price did not get there then I am not filled, and they have a point, as it is “THEIR” price that I am dealing on. If I do not like it then I can always move my account, but to be fair sometimes my stops have not been hit as “THEIR” price has not reached the level either.

I cannot promise, and nor can anyone else for that matter in case you are in any doubt, that this situation could not happen again.
What I can promise is that we have done everything that we can to ensure that this does not happen again.

All platforms go down from time to time. It is the nature of the business and the electronic world we live in, which is why everyone has a phone back up service as well.

I am sure we could still be discussing this in months to come. But those really are the facts I am afraid.

Regards


Paul
SLM

 

[magicdogsbrain]

What other firms may or may not have said with regards to this issue is not really relevant.
They would all try and score a few quick PR points by saying something positive without necessarily understanding all the facts or connotations.

-> All I will say about this point is that they are brokers I use (both ECN though) and I told them the entire episode except the name of the broker.

I am sure you could demonstrate past performance, but with the greatest of respect, so what. Tell me would that work both ways, so if you make 50 points profit on a trade, where as usually you only make 25, could I ring you up and say well based on what you make normally I am going to adjust your winning profits by half? Hmmm... er No !

-> I dont think this is a very good analogy at all. The other way would be more like me doing something deliberately to change the exchange rate - so that I can make a bigger profit than usual (say I was Mervin King). then I think you would have a good claim.

The other thing of course is that if we set a precedent by saying to people OK show us your logs and we will honour what you claim your EA would have allegedly done, then firstly we would only hear from people with wining trades. How many would call up and say I would have lost £50 so can you take that off my account.

-> Yes I agree only winners would call - messing up is expensive, I would have to pay in my job if I screwed up.

The other reason, sadly is fraud, as on any computer these days anyone could come up with a log file that claims anything.

-> You have everyones journal entries and can look at the ticket numbers so that is completely untrue.

We are here to try and help clients.

-> I think the majority of people on here (including myself) are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt this time.

We have done all we can to give clients what they wanted. Spread betting on MT4. Small bet sizes. Mobile phone trading on the iPhone and Android. The biggest selection of markets available (to my knowledge) on MT4.

-> Agree, why do you think I am still on this thread!

But what we cannot be held responsible for is your EA. If you want to rely on a robot to do your trading for you then good luck, and I genuinely hope you make money. But if for whatever reason, it does not work properly and that may be because the feed is down, then it is up to you to pick up the phone and adjust the orders manually or trade. We are not nor ever will be held responsible for what some piece of software you have bolted onto your computer does.

-> Listen, this EA argument is not working - an EA reacts to price as does a human. If an EA is malfunctioning then I agree 100% that it is the clients issue - I have no argument at all about that. What we had here was nothing to do with EA's, or the fault of manual traders. If was, purely and simply, your bloody price feed.



I run EAs that I have written myself. Frequently I miss limit orders that I believe should have been done but the broker I use (and I am not going to bad mouth them here) claim that as "THEIR" price did not get there then I am not filled, and they have a point, as it is “THEIR” price that I am dealing on. If I do not like it then I can always move my account, but to be fair sometimes my stops have not been hit as "THEIR" price has not reached the level either.

-> I think this is an important point (apart from the artistic license) - your price is indeed "YOUR" price. As a market maker, you supply your own prices to your clients. You are matching buyers and sellers and only hedging in the real market when you need extra liquidity. As you said previously, your feed to your GU liquidity provider platform failed and you could not hedge so you froze the client platform. Anyone who wants to trade directly in a real market does not get what you offer (spread betting, range of instruments etc).

I am sure we could still be discussing this in months to come. But those really are the facts I am afraid.

-> I think the red mist has settled and the weather is definately helping. All I will say is (and I think this is reasonable and echoes the sentiment of the thread) dont do it again please.


MDB

 

[jimmc]

I run EAs that I have written myself. Frequently I miss limit orders that I believe should have been done but the broker I use (and I am not going to bad mouth them here) claim that as “THEIR” price did not get there then I am not filled, and they have a point, as it is “THEIR” price that I am dealing on. If I do not like it then I can always move my account, but to be fair sometimes my stops have not been hit as “THEIR” price has not reached the level either.
Paul

SLM

Hi Paul,

You mean you don't trade on your own platform ????

Or do you use others as well because you can't trust your own?

Jim

PS. I notice you haven't replied to my previous two posts !

 

[jimmc]

Do any of you SLM fanboys question why an SB firm would use MT4/5? And do you know how firms make money (extra profit/commissions) from Metatrader? How Metatrader actually *works* (for the industry users)?

Hey Black Swan, I'd be interested in an answer to this too! Or are you just shooting balls in the air?? ( I think this is the 3rd time you've been called - sunny days, maybe you're relaxing?)

 

[jimmc]

Hello

But what we cannot be held responsible for is your EA. If you want to rely on a robot to do your trading for you then good luck, and I genuinely hope you make money. But if for whatever reason, it does not work properly and that may be because the feed is down, then it is up to you to pick up the phone and adjust the orders manually or trade. We are not nor ever will be held responsible for what some piece of software you have bolted onto your computer does.

Relying on robots to do anything can be very dangerous, particularly when they rely on outside forces to influence them.

As I said at the time, all orders in MT4 were honoured where this was to the benefit of the client. We did not fill stop losses where we were able to keep clients in their position.

Once again I apologise for the outage the other morning, but these things do happen with everyone, probably more than you might think.

Regards

Paul
SLM

In your previous post Paul you said that you used EAs, and possibly not on your own platform. (I can understand the reasons for that!)

So you (SLM) provide MT4 as a trading platform.

One of the main selling points is MT4, with which you can run EA robots to manage your trading.

So what you're saying is, your online trading platform, supporting MT4, EA, robots, etc, is so flaky that we have to watch it 24/7 so that we can phone in and correct our trades when the the data feed dies?

Forgive me - I'm trying to keep this simple because you haven't answered my previous posts - but you're saying that your main selling point (the MT4 platform) is so unreliable with your present data feed that we have to stay awake 24/7 to watch it, so that when it breaks we can phone in (presumably using an alternative brokers data to tell us what's really happening), to change our positions.

Hello
Relying on robots to do anything can be very dangerous, particularly when they rely on outside forces to influence them.
Paul
SLM

The OUTSIDE FORCES Paul, is your bl**dy data feed !!! So is it your data feed that is dangerous ????

 

[magicdogsbrain]

The way ALL MT4 EA's work (without exception), is that they receive a tick which is the price for that moment. When they receive it, they jump into action and can run that price through their strategy and decide what to do.

Without that price tick they do nothing - all of them - without exception. They only know about ticks. EA's just think the weekend is a gap between the ticks - they only "know" it is the weekend if they look at the difference in time between ticks.

If the market ticks stop, EA's are effectively disabled - they cannot function.

I have no idea what the mysterious "outside forces" are - I think SLM need an exorcist.

(Perhaps he means a news filter?)

 

[Ross Spur]

Hi Paul,

You mean you don't trade on your own platform ????

Or do you use others as well because you can't trust your own?

Jim

PS. I notice you haven't replied to my previous two posts !

I think it's just normal practice that SB employees can't use their own platforms. Having said that, if they did they might be more aware of the problems and glitches, instead of letting clients act as software development engineers. And I'm not talking about SLM here!

 

[pineappleman]

Sigh.

Moon .... stick.

It is what it is.

Things are never 100% perfect in life.

Only last week Orange screwed me on my internet package unfairly but nothing can be done. I have to bite the bullet.

MT4 is best spreadbet platform for all the reasons already spoken about.

SLM alone offer MT4 spreadbets and are therefore potentially the best broker for SB.

They are quite new and have had a few teething problems.

They work hard at resolving them, let's be honest, more than any other SB company I have seen.

They cannot be held responsible for every technical glitch (or MT4 problem). That's standard in most industries in the world.

EAs and robots or "hands-free trading" is SUICIDE for many people. What makes you think you have the "right" to trade while away from live prices anyhow?? Pro traders trade round the clock in front of live prices all day to really earn their money. You can't just say "setup this EA here, trail a stop there, and bang! I make money!!". You have to work for it. Oh, you can't work for it because you already have a full time job, children, wife etc... tough, welcome to planet Earth. If you can't physically do it then it isn't for you I'm afraid.

I can't play football for a professional team because I haven't trained all these years I have been working on another office-based career. Therefore I have no "right" to go suddenly play for Man United just because "I want to". Trading is not a "right", it's a gift for a lucky few who have access to retail markets in this golden age of the internet (and that's before we get down to the issue of years of study). Many people around the world have no net, no electricity, no markets, no MT4, no clean water, no way of making money on markets. Outside of UK, there is mostly no spreadbetting even for people to take advantage of. You do not have the "right" to trade, you are lucky to be able to afford to give it a go in a first world country. Be humble and realistic. Markets were not created for us small clients, it was for much greater things and greater investment but since late 1990's we small clients have burst onto the scene of this interbank hedging facility (aka the "FX market") with our little $500 accounts thinking an RSI over 70 will make us rich. Oh well, that's life, things change with time, but take it with some humility.

The moon really isn't available on a stick and you are lucky and should be grateful to even be able to have an entry into something so potentially lucrative that our parents never even could get a look into. Go work 15 hour days manual labour for 50 years then see if you complain about MT4 or EAs.

Welcome to planet Earth.

 

[Black Swan]

Hey Black Swan, I'd be interested in an answer to this too! Or are you just shooting balls in the air?? ( I think this is the 3rd time you've been called - sunny days, maybe you're relaxing?)

dyor

 

[jimmc]

Sigh.

Moon .... stick.

It is what it is.

Things are never 100% perfect in life.

Only last week Orange screwed me on my internet package unfairly but nothing can be done. I have to bite the bullet.

MT4 is best spreadbet platform for all the reasons already spoken about.

SLM alone offer MT4 spreadbets and are therefore potentially the best broker for SB.

They are quite new and have had a few teething problems.

They work hard at resolving them, let's be honest, more than any other SB company I have seen.

They cannot be held responsible for every technical glitch (or MT4 problem). That's standard in most industries in the world.

EAs and robots or "hands-free trading" is SUICIDE for many people. What makes you think you have the "right" to trade while away from live prices anyhow?? Pro traders trade round the clock in front of live prices all day to really earn their money. You can't just say "setup this EA here, trail a stop there, and bang! I make money!!". You have to work for it. Oh, you can't work for it because you already have a full time job, children, wife etc... tough, welcome to planet Earth. If you can't physically do it then it isn't for you I'm afraid.

I can't play football for a professional team because I haven't trained all these years I have been working on another office-based career. Therefore I have no "right" to go suddenly play for Man United just because "I want to". Trading is not a "right", it's a gift for a lucky few who have access to retail markets in this golden age of the internet (and that's before we get down to the issue of years of study). Many people around the world have no net, no electricity, no markets, no MT4, no clean water, no way of making money on markets. Outside of UK, there is mostly no spreadbetting even for people to take advantage of. You do not have the "right" to trade, you are lucky to be able to afford to give it a go in a first world country. Be humble and realistic. Markets were not created for us small clients, it was for much greater things and greater investment but since late 1990's we small clients have burst onto the scene of this interbank hedging facility (aka the "FX market") with our little $500 accounts thinking an RSI over 70 will make us rich. Oh well, that's life, things change with time, but take it with some humility.

The moon really isn't available on a stick and you are lucky and should be grateful to even be able to have an entry into something so potentially lucrative that our parents never even could get a look into. Go work 15 hour days manual labour for 50 years then see if you complain about MT4 or EAs.

Welcome to planet Earth.

Actually I agree with you pineappleman.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful, very grateful for these opportunities.

And I do like the SLM platform.

Just a bit grumpy on a Friday evening

 

[jimmc]

dyor

 

[pineappleman]

Actually I agree with you pineappleman.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful, very grateful for these opportunities.

And I do like the SLM platform.

Just a bit grumpy on a Friday evening

I know, it's enough to grind anyone down when hard work and research get held up by the real world logistics of it all. No-one tells us at the start that finding a way to enter and exit based on analysis is just the very start of the battle.....

But on we fight

 

[Baby Clanger]

Hey Black Swan, I'd be interested in an answer to this too! Or are you just shooting balls in the air?? ( I think this is the 3rd time you've been called - sunny days, maybe you're relaxing?)

I imagine that he’s implying that the SB’s insert a piece of code within MT4/5 that manipulates the prices and/or trades in the SB’s favour. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant as your trades have to pass through the SB’s dealing desk regardless. The only alternative is to use the software platform written for or by the SB which is hardly going to be any more neutral than a modified MT.

If you have a problem with any of this then you should seek out a recommended ECN/STP broker that does not use a dealing desk, which is what I imagine he’s alluding too.

 

[price777999]

dyor

aww come on , just tell us for Christ sake

 

[Capstan]

aww come on , just tell us for Christ sake

Do Your Own Research?

 

[advfntrader]

I think Black Swan is talking about this...but how is this different to ANY other platform ??

http://forexelite.net/metatrader-makes-it-easy-for-brokers-to-scam-you/

- use Mental Stops and Mental take profits....then they can't see your open orders ;-)