IG

IG

IG INDEX

I have been using IG Index for just over a year now, i'am convinced their trading platform is one of the most user friendly systems around.

It provides a great deal of variety in quoting prices for various markets but the charting package provided is quite limited, good for checking historical price movements but does not have the facility to add various studies such as bollinger bands, moving averages etc. Although the RSI volatility is available. The charts are limited to UK & US shares and indices. The trading platform would be best used in conjunction with another charting source to met individual requirements.

In terms of quotations, what you see is what you get. But in comparison the real cash market for the Dow or FTSE their prices are a bit out of the ball park. The SPOT FX quotations are inline with interbank market. The commodities prices are not too bad either.

I deal on a controlled risk basis which requires a stop loss on every single trade i make, the occasional times i do get stopped out, is always at the pre-determined price. There is the facility to change the stop loss level when the position is still open.

The spread is always charged on opening a new position, current FTSE in market hours 6 points, Dow an extortionate 11 points, SPOT FX 9 points.

Overall i rate this broker 7.5/10
IG Index

I've used IG Index to SB for the past few months, overall i've been impressed with them, expect last night.

I saw a dow UP Binary bet quoted at 0/3 so i bought it at three, it went up within seconds to 30 somthing and then the dealing interface closed and would not let me close the bet.

Then i got an e-mail saying my bet had been deleted! I e-mailed IG and requested that they ring me before 8.30am this morning it's now 8.30am and no call!!!!!
IG Index

I have been a user of IGIndex for just over a year and have become increasingly disillusioned with their service.

The dealing interface is simple to use and exceedingly easy to navigate. But the benfits this brings are simply outweighed by the wide spreads and the far too frequent refusal of bets; a disheartening proportion of which then proceed to move in your favour.

As far as I am concerned, if a company advertises that "the price you see is the price you get", then you should NEVER have a bet refused, far less having bets refused with the frequency I have experienced.

Combine this with index spreads which are uncompetitive and the absence of a rolling cash facility, then I would not be approaching IGIndex as my first port of call if I were starting out spread-betting today.
New Low Spreads - until the market opens!

Noticed that IG Index increased their spreads on one US stock form 10 to 136 when the market opened. However, on 4th Jan they increased the spread on a large S&P500 stock from 13 to 517! Don't be conned by the low spreads statements!
Poor

I found ig easy to use and simple but thats where the positives stop.

There spreads are massive and executions rubbish especially on a quick moving price.

My advice is stay well clear IG index.
Use with caution

I have used IG for nearly a year - spreads and execution are dreadful. I entered a stop once which I could not manually overide when I saw my position was wrong....they executed at more than twice my stop limit of 30 pips...I threatened to report to FSA - in fact I filled in the forms and was ready to submit - IG gave me 12pips back - how generous.

Their spreads are not stable and can widen to 20 pips - I have watched them and seen my trading opportunities go to waste. If I'd gone to a casino at least I could have met some interesting people!
Not good

There are better firms such as findspreads, wordspreads, and capitalspreads, avoid deal4free.com igindex.com

igindex sales team actually know the difficulties of first time traders and shortfalls of their system, they refused to open me an account in order to protect me, they did reveal the real risks of spread betting and that it can make me broke. They don't allow you to open an account unless you are working full time, good advice on one hand. I suggest finspreads.com betting as little as 1p for all first timers.

Bad fills are a reallity not only with igindex but with deal4free.com too, bad fills, slipage, unexecuted orders, all become apparent on big stakes. deal4free also move the spread to your disadvantage for stakes over 20! These facts become apparent on big stakes only!

Don't be ready to give a broker a good rating based on trading with stakes under a few .
Not a fan...

I have used IG on and off for 7 years but will not continue to do so.

Their service has always been shoddy when I have had a problem and they recently did me out of a large sum on a non-guaranteed stop.

I had a stop on cable and the market moved about 50 points in approx 2 mins. My stop was hit but I was taken out 40 points below the stop level. There was no gap (cable rarely gaps that far) and there were over a dozen ticks between the points.

When I called to point out that the difference between my stop and the level they took me out at was several grand apart I got some dopey dealer offering to put me through to the FX desk. The FX desk just said 'well, that is where we got out'.

I fail to see why their slow, and presumably manual, hedging should cost me so much money.

I think that the new management must be letting things slip.

Poor show - have emptied my account and spread it across a few competitors.
Aviod!! Sharks at work

Ruthless skulduggery will fleece the uninitiated and green traders quicker than you can learn to avoid the platform with delays in getting back to you, platform freezes, distracting binery bets which are incredible fun but dont belong in an environment where making money should be a serious goal.. You are trading against a bookie.. you are not gaining access to the markets through a broker so be on guard.. Ultimately I became so fed up with the descrepancies between prices shown and prices represented from solid dependable sources that the only option I had was to stop using spreadbetting firms altogether... add to all that lockups, lockouts, freezes and graphs that are frankly weak and inacurate and youll agree that they must make a lot of money.. question is are you the mug from whom they will make it?... PS & dont even consider day Trading using IG let alone any other spreadbetting firm.. step away from the download take yourself more seriously.. its your money..
A good outfit.

I actually rate IG. I think their platform makes for easy trading, customer service are competent and the spreads - while not the best in the world - do not suffer from requotes.
not so great

have used ig intermittently, have a good platform but very poor service afterwards. they will change spreads always to your disadvantage, can often be up to 15 points diff between price shown and the one actually given to you when you have placed an order
Price difference

Much differnce between the price shown and the price given after execution
D
How to get a Account with IG Index.

They only Give accounts to people who are employed and have over total annual income of 25,000 - 49,999 and total savings 50,000 - 149,999. If that is not true then they have scammed me. as I am not far off those figures.
Maybe not the smartest choice

Before setting an account I did a lot of research about different brokers. About IG most of the reviews on different websites bring out more positive features than problems. On the other hand forums have mainly negative feedback. I didn't had issues with account registration, but as soon as I got problems (delays) regarding deal closing I started to look alternatives. Depending on the strategy it may be even a good broker to choose (for wide choice of investments), but regarding Binaries where execution time is crucial it is not a very good solution. Now I have focused my time to eToro (in my opinion the most comprehensive review about that broker is at [Link Removed]. If you google this broker you'll find a lot of information and feedback. Bad thing is that US traders are not allowed. Otherwise seems to be a fair platform and I really like the feature of copying professional traders.
worst experience with IG

hii i am trading with IG and having a nightmare of an experience worst spread betting company in my opinion.. Initally they are good but once you start making money out of them then the real problem starts... trades get monitored and rejection rate increases .. especially binary and options trades... in binary trade even small size of 2 pound goes to the dealing desk and options trading is on dealer refferel...IG has all the products but when you start making money every trade is on a dealer refferel.. and every second trade gets rejected.. in my opinion one of the worst companies to spread bet with .. regards
Same tricks

Beware the small print '...prices are indicative only'
Gave IG another chance with their DFBs as execution is good (provided you don't go in at market it almost mimics DMA, that's obviously the aim) and the platform has always been v.nice. But it's a mirage, watch for old tricks.
e.g. Nice EUR gap Sunday night open gave a quick 11 points, but they turned a blind eye to that as presumably there weren't many traders... or if I let paranoia get the better of me maybe that was just my price. But I don't mean it was a flash move up/down, I mean it was up for 30 mins or so with IG quoting 10 points off the mark and with a wildly fluctuating spread. If they were that blatant at peak times they'd be out of business.
Then tried them again, not because I suddenly trusted them but because I liked their deal-thru charts from ProRealTime, and this time suffered truly epic slippage. Which is bizarre as I don't believe these small bets are actually traded through the underlying markets. And they didn't do me the honour of adjusting my stops & limits accordingly, just money straight out of my account and into theirs.
Spoke to their customer service guy and he blathered on about how '...all trades go to the underlying market... well nearly all... well, some don't... well most go through... ok some are in-house' and that's all I needed to hear.
I don't trust any spreadbet co. from past experience so watch for the tiniest impropriety, I'll not get mugged again. So now just left with Prospreads so if they do something daft guess I'll have to get a proper job.
One point might seem harsh given everything else seems fine but you can either trust someone with your livelihood or you can't.

By the way, when you leave these clowns make sure you close your account and not just withdraw your funds. I read somewhere they'll charge an admin fee for inactive traders. So even when you've left they'll still try to bleed a little out your bank account.
Ig...be careful

As others have stated I think IG's trading platform is excellent, in fact, probably the best. However watch these guys. I built my trading account up to 21,500. The markets have shown some srength in recent days and with confidence opened a 200pp position on the germany 30 at 5596. I imagine many traders would have opened similar positions on the euros strongets economy to show some strength after hitting a prior support. So....IG decided to push the price down to take out all the stops, even when my account was significantly down, the strength in the german index was sufficient to allow the rade to continue. Anyway, IG pushed the price down so much, it wiped out the account.....now look where the german index is. Needless to say the account would now be showing 50,000 plus at the time of writing. IG knew they would be paying out alot of money on this index, so took the price down to take out all the stops. Be careful with this company.
Thieves (In My View)

IG is corrupt to the core. Never ever give your money to these people, it won't take long for them to find a way to take it from you. I've dealt with many brokers, most not good, but IG are the bigger thieves in my view.
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