CMC Markets

CMC Markets

I like it

Been with CMC for 7 months now - German version. Support is very good and charts as well as the software is one of most stable ones I've ever used. I like the fact that your templets get saved on their servers, so wherever I log in I got the same layout. Execution is fast. The data on the charts is not always clean (notrade spaces for example) thats a minus.
Could do better

I've been dealing with CMC for just over 18 months now. Initially there reputation, or lack of it, on the customer service side was a worry. However whenever I have had to speak to a dealer or ask for assistance they have been great. No problems.

The only gripe I have is with their trading platform Marketmaker. It's a great package and has fantastic charts, it just doesn't always seem to work that well. It freezes at time and candles can be missing or change shape/colour when you next log on. Not helpful if you are trying to ascertain a HLCO scenario. If they could sort out the problems with it then they would do better.
Steal 4 Free

This company has a reputation for running stops and moving prices that do not reflect the underlying index.Constant reqoutes and extremely poor service complete the picture.

If you want to get severly worked over this is the company to chose.

Do not ever trade the aussie 200 index with these guys they will kill you.
D4F

I have been using CMC/D4F for over 3 years now and I have seen that how their software has grown in functionality and stability and how much effort they put on their system.

I trade forex/index/gold/oil with them and have in past compared their prices with other providers (oanda for example) and their spreads are equal or better.

I do get sometimes "requote" but that is understanable given the trade size or market volatility.

The only time I was not happy with them because I was trading too much and too fast and trying to find someone else to blame for my losses. If I am trying to get 10 points scalp and market moves against me and I also get a requote on top, of course I will be unhappy. But this can happen any where.

Once I have started trading in a discipline, I am making money with them as well as I think they are makign money in the "market making" and "flow".

I do not think their business model is the bookie business model -> suck all blood out of your client.
Deal4Free Spreadbet

This review is from a spread betting perspective.

In comparison to other firms deal4free have the tightest spreads i have seen, i challenge anyone to enlighten me as to a cheaper option here (spread betting only).

They have a broad range of instruments however if you are looking to trade smaller cap US stocks they will not cover these.

Occasionally in fast markets you may get re-quoted price, however this will depend on your trade size and trading £1-5 per point I hardly ever get re-quotes.

Whether you get re-quoted will also depend on your trading style, if trying to scalp (not advised with spread betting) you will undoubtedly get re-quotes.

The trading platform is rather resource intensive, with the new IT Finance Charting system it is the best trading platform of any spread betting firm imo (again I welcome anyone to challenge this) , offering customisable indicators and option to write your own indicators and systems and then back-test them on spreadbet data. The charting is surprisingly good however again is resource intensive, with recent updates to platform I have found it less reliable that it used to be due to increased computer requirements, sometimes charts can take a while to load and sometimes simply wont at all around busy market hours, though once loaded they update fine. However if ur using your own charts package then the execution side of the trading platform is robust.

They also have real-time account monitoring, which keep tracks of positions and account balance. However they keep track of positions at market price rather than bid/offer which doesn’t give you exact profit/loss on eacj trade only out by a few pounds here and there but still annoying. Once the trade has been exited they obviously give exact P/L with executed entry and exit price.

They have a good range of strategy orders with market, GTC and Day Stops, One Cancels Other, Controlled Risk Bet etc.

On support there is a live chat option through which you can speak to different depts of D4F regarding general enquires perhaps on software or to dealers regarding execution. I have always found the chat to be quick and efficient in solving problems.

Whilst Deal4free spreadbet is not the ideal platform for an active day trader to work for, as a spread betting from in general I think it is by far the best out there.
Don't ever Deal4Free!!

Nothing good to say about this company - wouldn't recommend them to anybody.

System is poor, service is even poorer, as for the spreads - don't even get me started!

Please look at every other company possible before you open an account with them.

If I could rate them less than 1 I would.
CMC

They may say Deal for 'Free' but the spread is often wider than quoted if you want to deal in any reasonable size. They will keep you hanging on and waiting to deal even if there are sufficient orders on the book to fill your deal.
Customer service? If you have a problem... don't bother.

Much prefer other brokers to this company, even if it might 'seem' initially you have to pay more.
D4F

As a regular user of D4F they are the outstandingly best UK platform for online trading .. my interest is the Dow. What other platform is there? No offense intended but Finspread does not compare; when you want to trade you have to wait while they bring up a price .. really sweet.

There have been a few recent problems with the D4F platform which are irritating when they occur. The live graph currently appears not to working properly with intermittent dotting instead of the actual price movements but anyhow I use LiveCharts at Quote.com (and recently they went intermittently bad for a couple of days).

But D4F gives you a live, continuous and sensitive 'prices meter' with an instant trading facility. Cool. And then there is lovely tax free feature of all spreadbetting .. bliss!
CMC Service

I have been using CMC for 18 months and until recently was very happy with them. However, they have had horrendous system problems recently which have made the service unuseable for extended periods, resulting in a loss of many thousands of pounds to me. They have not compensated me for my losses and are having difficulty tracking phantom trades. I'm afraid that I'm going to have to take my business elsewhere, because as an active trader, I simply cannot afford this kind of thing.
Deal for Free

I've been using deal for free for 3 years now, they have a good platform, however i would only use them for indices for overnight trades or longer term trades. Last year I was on auto fill on the Dow and this was excellent, however I'm now on manual fill (even for a pound bet) and this can take 60 seconds to fill, in fast moving markets this can be a bit of a nightmare.

Also (and this has happened so many times that I personally do not feel it is a random event)it appears that manual fill depends upon the market turns & the way that orders have been filled with speed as it goes against you and slowly when in your favour (& then a requote).

Although spreads quoted are 5 points I found City Index with an 8 point spread to be more effective as fills are instant with them.

However now I have direct access with 1 point Dow spreads i don't use CMC much for indices.

In a positve vein I have heard from fellow traders that CMC are as good as it gets for trading stocks among the spreadbetting firms.

Good luck

Loxy
CMC / Deal4Free

Not a regular poster on these kind of boards, but felt I just had to stand up for CMC, who I have used for just over a year now on a daily basis.

I think they run an excellent business - and although I use other spreadbet companies for options etc, I wouldn't dream of putting any FTSE100 or currency bets anywhere else.

The spreads are superb. Anyone whingeing about requotes should run a level 2 screen alongside the CMC screen to see why they won't offer you say RBS at 1610 in £50 when they are only offered in say 10 shares in the market ... they are not a charity! Take a look at their spreads in cash gold, where they are half a dollar compared to up to one and a half dollars elsewhere !

The new software is a big step forward - ok the charting package is not going to win any awards - but for pure speed and flexibility (especially over multiple monitors), you're not going to find better. One word of warning: do check the financing adjustments made on your rolling cash bets - they do make the odd mistake - but everytime I have pointed it out they have been very quick to put it right.

I sound like I work at the place - but I can assure you I don't ... just wanted to balance some of the negative comments out there, which I think are just ignorant.
Deal4Free Spreadbet

I have used Deal4Free for couple of years and cannot understand all the problems reported about spreads and requotes. Apart from a period where I became a bad boy for trading too frequently and ended up with all my trades via a dealer, they are extremely fair. For UK FTSE 100 stocks their cash prices are generally identical to those shown on Level 2. Smaller amounts (£5 on RBS, GSK, AZN or £10 on HBOS, BARC etc) go straight through instantly on the automatic system at exactly the price shown. So, you can Buy (and Sell) at exactly the Level 2 price, with no costs or Stamp Duty - forgive my stupidity but what can be wrong with that ? Their software is 95% reliable, phones are answered quickly and pleasantly, they usually stand by the price you try to get on the very odd occasion you are held for a requote. I strongly suspect that anybody who feels they are less than excellent has never tried some of the alternatives, who manipulate prices, requote almost every time, have system problems constantly etc. With D4F I at least feel that they want my business and treat me accordingly, whereas my other experiences left me feeling that emptying my account as fast as possible was their sole mission.
CFD ftse100 spreads

I don't understand this critisism. I have compared D4F's prices with those supplied by Esignal and MyTrack, and the bid and offer prices were identical.

The above statement is based on watching CFD Single Price Windows in MarketMaker v5 of FTSE100 stocks. I haven't actually traded with D4F yet. The prices supplied by D4F were about a second behind Esignals/Mytrack but were always the same. D4F say the SB prices are the same as CFD ones, I haven't verified this.

What you say might be true for other stocks, as I have only checked some FTSE100 ones. I was talking to someone at the CMC seminar on Thursday and he said to ONLY trade FTSE 100 stocks as D4F is uncompetitive elsewhere. How can you justify what you say for FTSE100 stocks, given what I've seen? I'm planning to only trade FTSE100 stocks, so the fact that the outer-mongolian stocks' spreads are loose, doesn't bother me. Are orders actually filled at completely different prices than are shown in the Single Price Windows?
Take a gamble

"we have the tightest spreads around"....what they fail to mention is how far their entire spread is out the market! Spreadbetting is a gamblers game and deal4free will manage to consistently price you out of the market. Forget TA if you want to spread bet, because by the time your system has generated a long signal, you probably need to go short to work the spread.

If you have a query D4F will be there ready to answer with their online chat service .... unless it looks like answering it will make you loose less money - bast**ds.

This is a quick way of loosing money. Their CFD service is no better - they use practically the same spreads. STAY AWAY.
really?

deal4free maybe their name, but dealing for free you're definitely not.

their trading platform is simple and the tools they supply for analysis are useless along with their mediocre support, but hey! it's not about their support, it's about making a s*** load of money and driving your ferrari 360 spider in a year's time and living in the swankiest part of town where every one has a porter and a cook!

just as quickly as i've excited and made you stain yourself i'll have to knock you off your high horse to the real world. it's betting. they are a bookie. they rig the prices so you don't win. if you have balls of steel and go around saying: 'i'll be back.' you can take on a position over a long period of time to really capitalise because thats the kind of person that deal4free are aiming at; your balls have been replaced because you have been kicked in them so much yet you still keep coming back for more.

what does toilet paper in public toilets and arnold schwarzenegger have in common?

they're rough, they're tough, and they take no s***!

don't be a fool as you could end up cleaning public toilets when you're broke.
Deal4Free

I used this firm for a short time, their quoted prices can leave a lot to be desired, then they may re-quote which takes even more time. If you are trading inter-day by the time all of this nonsense is completed you may well have missed your trade and indeed find yourself very quickly testing your stop.

I found the trading platform to be very poor indeed with frequent loss of data.

The spreads are not as tight as you may think 4pts on each end plus 4pts for a CRB
re-cuoting

you have to be cerefull when they re-quote you .

you might see the spreads up-to 100 points for a stock of £8
Market Maker 5

10th Feb - Deal4Free release a new version of their software called MarketMaker 5.

Key differences and upgrades

1. The whole thing has Windows XP look and feel.

2. The product is much more flexible in the way it lets you organise data. e.g. you can now have individual prices, groups of prices, charts, and your realtime position all up and scattered around the screen in various different windows.

3. They have got their layouts working. So I can save an array of charts and prices in the exact place on the screen and get everything back exactly as I want it every time. e.g. I have a morning layout for European markets, an afternoon layout layout for the US, and a laptop layout for my laptops little screen. I can switch between the three layouts at the click of a button.

4. They've included stochastics in their charting. I've asked them to include CCI so hopefully that will come later. They've told me that they have a full time developer working on charts now so hopefully more improvements to come in the future.
Deal4Free

As a relative newcomer to D4F I initially found it quite cumbersome. However their back-up is good, although it does take some time to trade, then further time to enter a stop.

One big drawback I find is that if you close a trade you have to remember to cancel the stop, otherwise you finish up with a trade you didn't want.

Would not want to trade the Dow dailies on it, blink and you've missed several moves, I am too much of a novice as of yet.

Overall, service not bad. Their statements were confusing to someone not used to rolling bets, but once sorted out are very clear.
Not Keen

Ok for the smaller trader, but on large trades it is better to go with a broker rather than a bookie, feel uneasy knowing that when I win they lose...it is not in their interest for client sto do well.

Prefer being GNI Touch as I can use the order book for the auctions.
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