Smart Live Markets - Spread Bet on MT4

[PipStar]

Hello
The simple answer is we do both, because we have to.

We offer two platforms to clients. One for FX/CFDs and the other for spread betting.
On both we allow people to trade from a small size upwards. On spread betting in the FTSE for example this is from 10 pence per point. I physically cannot hedge that size. The minimum I can hedge with the exchange is £10 per point. So we have to run a book and then hedge as and when we reach a position size that we can.

So we run a small book which we hedhe out when we reach limits that we are able to hedge. Also in an ideal world, clients will come on and buy and sell at the same time in similar markets thus negating the need for us to hedge and thus help us to keep our costs down. We may end up long the FTSE and short the DAX which certainly on an intraday basis menas we are flat as far as we are concerned.

The other point is that we offer fixed, tight spreads. To do this we cannot auto hedge, because the real world does not offer fixed spreads and we would lose money all the time. We offer this to help our clients and to stabalise what can be very volatile pricing. We then hedge out where we need to by covering combined exposures to a currency or market.

We always give our clients the best pricing we can and have their genuine interests at heart. If clients do want an STP (Straight Through Processing) FX platoform then we do offer this on our FX/CFD platform if they would rather have that, commission free.

I hope that helps.

Regards
SLM

Thanks for the reply. I think it's good to have the option of choosing an STP if one so wishes.

 

[redart]

Has anyone else been experiencing a slower execution speed? Even for less than a pound per pip trades? Before, I don't remember seeing an Order In Process stage. It was so quick before but now the order in process can take well over a three seconds. Has something indeed changed?

I cant say i've really noticed this, although I have definitely noticed a huge increase in the number of 'invalid prices' boxes that crop up when I try to trade.

The other problem is the same problem as I mentioned ages ago.
If you are in a trade and you want to close it, I doulble click on the order in the 'trade' tab which brings up a ticket to close the order. However, the 'close' button is sometimes 'greyed out' which means that I have to close the window and then try again.
Every time this results in a worse execution price.

 

[gle101]

Hello
Nothing has changed on the system, so you should not be experiencing problems, unless of course you are trying to deal on latent prices. Please contact us directly if you would like us to investigate any problems that you may be having.
Regards
SLM

Do not tell me you are starting out referring to lagging prices as well?

 

[gle101]

I cant say i've really noticed this, although I have definitely noticed a huge increase in the number of 'invalid prices' boxes that crop up when I try to trade.

The other problem is the same problem as I mentioned ages ago.
If you are in a trade and you want to close it, I doulble click on the order in the 'trade' tab which brings up a ticket to close the order. However, the 'close' button is sometimes 'greyed out' which means that I have to close the window and then try again.
Every time this results in a worse execution price.

Same here, not too many problems. I do once in a while get the wrong stop loss and target on my scripts (about a tenth of what I have in the script). I suspect this has to do with fractional points. I have non of the grey out when trying to close a position, but maybe just a fraction of increased re-quotes.

 

[Ross Spur]

Same here, not too many problems. I do once in a while get the wrong stop loss and target on my scripts (about a tenth of what I have in the script). I suspect this has to do with fractional points. I have non of the grey out when trying to close a position, but maybe just a fraction of increased re-quotes.

Aargh, the dreaded fractional points! Is it possible to get rid of them, both on FX charts and in the boxes for setting stops and limits?

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Aargh, the dreaded fractional points! Is it possible to get rid of them, both on FX charts and in the boxes for setting stops and limits?

Hi
The choice is yours really. You can have no fractional pips but wider spreads if you prefer.

We have only introduced them on the 5 majors, but when qutoing tight fixed spreads in a volatile market certain people, who clearly have nothing better to do, try and take advantage of the situation. The solution is either to close their accounts or try and solve the problem, which the extra decimal place has done.

I know people do not like it, but sadly thats the reality of it.

Regards
SLM

 

[Ross Spur]

Hi
The choice is yours really. You can have no fractional pips but wider spreads if you prefer.

We have only introduced them on the 5 majors, but when qutoing tight fixed spreads in a volatile market certain people, who clearly have nothing better to do, try and take advantage of the situation. The solution is either to close their accounts or try and solve the problem, which the extra decimal place has done.

I know people do not like it, but sadly thats the reality of it.

Regards
SLM

That's not what I meant, and it's certainly nothing to do with these possibly mythical people who allegedly spend all day trying to make 0.3pt by sitting looking at 'fast bank feeds', or whatever, with their fingers poised over the trade button.
I don't care whether you give fractional points, but I'd like to be able to switch off the superfluous digits that appear in chart scales and order boxes. That would enable you to, a) assimilate chart info easily when switching between TFs and zoom levels, and b) alter orders quickly. Does anyone really want or need to set a stop at 5500.3 or 5500.7 instead of 5500?

 

[Jason101]

I love the transparency of these guys. So many SB’s are so hush hush on what they hedge and how they operate. Very refreshing.

Also I like the fact you are not paying a new spread each day.

I was looking at a long IG position, now I am not so sure. Also 10p a pip and their margining is not encouraging death by a thousand stops.

 

[Smart Live Markets]

That's not what I meant, and it's certainly nothing to do with these possibly mythical people who allegedly spend all day trying to make 0.3pt by sitting looking at 'fast bank feeds', or whatever, with their fingers poised over the trade button.
I don't care whether you give fractional points, but I'd like to be able to switch off the superfluous digits that appear in chart scales and order boxes. That would enable you to, a) assimilate chart info easily when switching between TFs and zoom levels, and b) alter orders quickly. Does anyone really want or need to set a stop at 5500.3 or 5500.7 instead of 5500?

Hi Ross,

I can assure you those people you mention are not mythical and are very real. Unfortuantely this means that we do need to offer 5 dps on the tighter spreads and the ability to view this in the quote box or on a chart cannot be disabled within MetaTrader.

SLM

 

[twinj]

Although it was a few pence per point trade, I was pleasantly surprised that the order in process(progress) message did not appear and the order went through as quickly as I first started using the SML platform.

 

[Bakez]

If I was to place a longer term bet on a FTSE 350 company, what charges would I encounter? I see SLM has stated that they don't charge 'extra spread' but there is a financing charge calculated similar to what IG would do on their daily rolling bets.

I'm going to put a long bet on that I think will last for a few months, SLM has better spreads but IG has quarterly bets which appear to incur absolutely no charges, so I'm not sure who to place it with

 

[rjay]

Is it just me or are the tick sizes in MT4, for EURCAD and AUDUSD wrong ?? I was getting wildly inaccurate lot sizes with my money-management EA for those two instruments and when I investigated found that the tick sizes were 0.0001 - shouldn't they be 0.00001 for a 5-digit instrument ?

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Hi, sorry but you have lost me. I assume you are talking about the spread betting. EurCad and AudUsd are not 5 digits with us. We only go to the extra decimal (which I know people do not like) on the 5 majors in order to keep the spread as tight as possible.
Regards SLM

 

[rjay]

Yes I'm talking about spread betting.

The tick value in MT4 is incorrect for a couple of instruments, such as EURCAD & AUDUSD, which will lead to problems with certain EA's.

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Hi .. with the greatest of respect, they are not wrong ! All the four decimal place currencies are set the same. The 5 majors, with the extra decimal place are slightly different, so you may need to 'tweak' your EAs for those. If you still think I am wrong please give me a call.
Regards
SLM

 

[rjay]

Well I am passing on what my programmer has told me. Additionally I don't have a problem with this EA with any other broker (on those currencies or any other). I'm happy to send it you by PM if you wish ? Then maybe you will see what I/he/we (!) are referring to.

FWIW, his explanation was:

"OK so it seems that for some intruments they have it correct and for some others not....
The most obvious error is the tickvalue. By definition it is the "Tick value in the deposit currency."
So 1 tick of AUDUSD = 0,00001 lot = 1 $ so something like 0.65 pounds
tick value should be 0.65 not 0,0001"

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Hi
We are the first and only company in the world offering spread betting on MT4.
This was quite an achievement and was done in a very clever way, which programmers used to programming for MT4 do not understand. If you want to run those EAs if your programmer cannot change them, then you can do so on our FX/CFD platform. If you want to spread bet then they do not work the same. Clearly your programmer is confused because the AudUsd tick value is £1 per 0.0001 move for every 1 lot traded. If you don't believe me then do a trade !

I am afraid I am not about to explain to the wole world, or our opposition, how we achieved the impossible. If you would like to speak to a programmer who has easily overcome these issues then may I suggest you talk to Jim at trading-gurus.com.

We have hundreds of people using EAs and scipts on our spread betting platform on MT4 with no issues at all.

Regards
SLM

 

[gle101]

Hi
We are the first and only company in the world offering spread betting on MT4.
This was quite an achievement and was done in a very clever way, which programmers used to programming for MT4 do not understand. If you want to run those EAs if your programmer cannot change them, then you can do so on our FX/CFD platform. If you want to spread bet then they do not work the same. Clearly your programmer is confused because the AudUsd tick value is £1 per 0.0001 move for every 1 lot traded. If you don't believe me then do a trade !

I am afraid I am not about to explain to the wole world, or our opposition, how we achieved the impossible. If you would like to speak to a programmer who has easily overcome these issues then may I suggest you talk to Jim at trading-gurus.com.

We have hundreds of people using EAs and scipts on our spread betting platform on MT4 with no issues at all.

Regards
SLM

Well as I have mention before I have problems getting my scripts to work properly. At times I get completely wrong stop loss order (instead of 10 stop loss I get around two point stop loss). This happens randomly with no hint whatsoever to when the server execution get it wrong. The whole point of trading with MT4 is to get the EA's to work properly. The order scripts are quite basic and I just cannot imagine other do not have the same problem, especially trading instruments with fractional points. If I come up with a solution to the problem I will let you know.

 

[Smart Live Markets]

Hi gle101
In that example you gave, do you get that problem, where you get different stops on the same market, or is that on different markets.

ie.... Is it working on some and not others ?
or...is it just not working on the currencies with the extra decimal ?
Thanks

SLM

 

[gle101]

Hi gle101
In that example you gave, do you get that problem, where you get different stops on the same market, or is that on different markets.

ie.... Is it working on some and not others ?
or...is it just not working on the currencies with the extra decimal ?
Thanks

SLM

Yes Hi SLM, this happen on the UK100SB and even on the W30SB. Also on the DAX I have had the same problem. I probably do have to replace all my scripts to see if I get it to work better. If you say nobody else have the same problem, something is definitely wrong with my order scripts. Great that you have such low entry stake, one can really experiment without much risk, getting it all to work properly.