Smart Live Markets - Spread Bet on MT4

Second complaint with Smartlive. Just woke up to a rolling transaction of 40 X my stake (yes you read that right) on a short SMI position. It's actually a dividend transaction but my God, this is unprecedented.

Hi Dante

I'm guessing you never opened the trade? What have SLM done about it?

JD
 
Just had a Live Chat Session with SLM:

JDTRADER says:
Variable Spreads ! I shied away from traders with variable spreads as this can be used as STOP HUNTING. On Oanda over news announcements spreads moved 20-50 pips ! Will the spreads say for example only move from 1.3 to 3 or could this be moved by major pips say 10 plus
SLM says:
Okay. We believe that the spreads will remain pretty competitive and we should not increase to the levels of Oanda
SLM says:
I would be shocked if we see E$ above 3 ticks
JDTRADER says:
Fixed was a really completive draw to SLM why move to variable ?
SLM says:
A certain proportion of customers were taken advantage of the 1 tick on E$ especially over numbers and we are not here to be picked off. If that is someone's game then they should look elsewhere. The spreads on variable should remain around the target for the E$ of 1.3 ticks, this should be the case for 99% of the time.
JDTRADER says:
So is scalping discouraged on SLM ?
SLM says:
If you are going to scalp over numbers then yes.
JDTRADER says:
Over Numbers ? not sure what that is please explain
SLM says:
Economic releases such as Non Farm Payrolls
JDTRADER says:
Oh ok so on day to day normal trading scalping is fine but on Big News Announcements traders were using the fixed spread to get an edge
SLM says:
correct
JDTRADER says:
Ok thx for your time great customer service as always


I changed the names but the chat transcript is complete. Just to show you got a problem or want a question answered then the Live Chat is the place to get fast replies.
 
You have to wonder why they couldn't at least keep EU spread to typically 1pip, even if it widened at times.
 
The EURUSD spread is pretty good value at 1.5 pips, the problem is the spread is open ended meaning there is no limit whatsoever on what level they set. Somebody a few posts away witnessed Smartlive quoting a spread of 10 pips of GBPUSD now that is unacceptable. Having spreads going that far will take out stops for traders using low risk high reward entries which is basically what trading comes down to when most strategies I've back tested end up 50:50 over long periods of many years worth of data. It makes it easier for Smartlive to take stops out when they have too many clients on one side of a trade by basically spiking the spread. The responses we're hearing is of the form it is unlikely spreads will go to these types of levels but if they do you are better off using a fixed spread broker with a higher premium. At least your strategy will know its limits, but with a variable spread that goes to extremes it won't.
 
lol I actually asked about their links with the Smartlivecasino they gave a pretty detailed response as it's obviously a concern by a few others. So if anybody sees a ridiculous spread on the majors I'm sure we'll hear about it here.
 
lol I actually asked about their links with the Smartlivecasino they gave a pretty detailed response as it's obviously a concern by a few others. So if anybody sees a ridiculous spread on the majors I'm sure we'll hear about it here.

Can you remember what the response was?
 
jd

you mean you didnt click on their link to Financials

lol

No I was just about then I took a look at SLM site to see what their address was. I remember there was a reference to the two of them being the same ages ago in this thread but never really looked into it.
 
lol I actually asked about their links with the Smartlivecasino they gave a pretty detailed response as it's obviously a concern by a few others. So if anybody sees a ridiculous spread on the majors I'm sure we'll hear about it here.

There is nothing wrong with SLM being linked to other forms of gambling. SB is under the genre of gambling always has been always will be. Many SB bookies do sports betting too, like IG, and other forms of weird and wonderful betting like binaries. If a company is in the industry of gambling then it can have sportsbooks, casinos, poker sites, lotteries, bingo and financial offerings, no problem to link all these and certainly no reason to suddenly mis-trust them.

Of course they are trying to make profit like ALL companies, we are judging them on their spreads, execution, customer service, margins etc all the things that we should judge a broker on. The casino issue, or anything else under the SmartLive umbrella, is a big fat nothing.
 
Second complaint with Smartlive. Just woke up to a rolling transaction of 40 X my stake (yes you read that right) on a short SMI position. It's actually a dividend transaction but my God, this is unprecedented.

Hi

Sorry am I being thick to ask, but what was the instrument you were trading?

40x stake is a shock to wake up to but to be fair a dividend transaction as you no doubt know is a reality in the world of trading when short.

Have you had experience with other SBs in these arena which were less than 40x stake then? Is that the point you were making?

Thanks in advance :)
 
pineapple

you are rushing to defend them but nobody has accused them of anything

lol

Maybe but that's coz I know how fickle people can be over the "g" word (gambling). I did think the same as you MC when I wrote that reply LOL but then I thought what the hell coz as soon as some people hear the word "casino" linked with their broker it may turn them off before giving them a chance.

Personally I have never had any real gripes with SLM except their historic data double bars. Apart from that they seem very good to me, but I do like to try to get to the bottom of all the gripes just coz I'm probably neurotic :LOL:

Also, I live/work in an old-school area where people consider anything except buying-and-holding shares to be wreckless gambling which hurts markets and ruins hard-working people's investment chances and retirement funds.... so I'm quick to defend anything "shorter term trading/speculation" in general I guess, it's just part of me now LOL

Sorry if I came across brash :p
 
They are the same company. Their address are the same. I take it this is what you were getting at?

Hello
For the record.....

We are NOT the same company as the casino group you mention.
We are an independant UK registered company fully registered with the FSA.

The gaming group is our sister company, and we are in the same bulding as them, which obviously makes financial sense.

Regards

SLM
 
The trade was open. They have told me it was a normal dividend charge as the index went ex-dividend.

Hello
I am sorry you were not aware how Indices trade.

It was explained to you by my colleague that you were correctly debited for the dividend, as you were short, and that the opening price the next day was the same number of points lower than it would otherwise have been to allow for this.

Thus there was no cost to you.

This is trading Indices works.

If you had been long, you would have received the dividend, but the price would have opened down, so you would have been no better off.

Regards
SLM
 
Hello
For the record.....

We are NOT the same company as the casino group you mention.
We are an independant UK registered company fully registered with the FSA.

The gaming group is our sister company, and we are in the same bulding as them, which obviously makes financial sense.

Regards

SLM

come off it SLM
dont get religious on us


lets hope then that we never have to live the corporate veil

would you care to show us your balance sheet ?
and the major shareholders in your holding company ?
 
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