Best Thread Capital Spreads

[capitalspreads]

dow jones

have just gone to the dealing desk and asked.. in all the messing about this morning they had not adjusted the FV. Unfortunately you have just cost our clients about £1000 !! as they were net long over £500 a point. So even the perceived bias was actually working against us. The FV had been set at minus 32 but should have been minus 34. I might also point out that it has been 34 all day rather than being adjusted every so often to our advantage.

in all this talk about biasing prices the main point appears to have been lost. Although we do not bias prices the reason that companies (not just SB's but market makers in general) do this is to tempt trades in the opposite direction to the risk on the book. If our clients are heavily long of something it is in our interest to raise our price above the market to a) tempt sellers thus reducing our market risk and b) disuade further buying which would increase the book risk. As stated we do not do this, but 'in general' bias should benefit the majority of position holders at that particular moment in time. (of course for those with a short position in the above example it would add insult to injury!).

Of course the perception amongst clients will always remain that biasing is only put in place to activate stops (which is why we make it company policy not to bias).

Simon

 

[capitalspreads]

dowjones

huh..maybe you ought to be addressing your query at someone else not us. the cash print is not a true reflection of the prices as it only updates once every 15 seconds... the futures can have traded 30 times between updates.

Simon

 

[capitalspreads]

dow jones

unfortunately the answer , currently, is no. In actual fact (unless we are putting an upgrade through) the platform is very robust overnight with v.little down time. The only problem this month was the one this monday . As you can see from the continuous 10 min chart going back.

We will be moving to a 24 hour manned desk but this is some way in the future.

If the system is down any stop loss levels will still be honored on reopening.

Simon

 

[zuke]

dow jones

unfortunately the answer , currently, is no. In actual fact (unless we are putting an upgrade through) the platform is very robust overnight with v.little down time. The only problem this month was the one this monday . As you can see from the continuous 10 min chart going back.

We will be moving to a 24 hour manned desk but this is some way in the future.

If the system is down any stop loss levels will still be honored on reopening.

Simon

Simon, to save me having to trawl back through this thread..will trailing stops become a feature on your platform any time soon?

 

[capitalspreads]

zuke

no we have no plans just yet to add trailing stops... sorry

the demnd is very small and the cost (and opportunity for error) are huge.

Simon

 

[zuke]

zuke

no we have no plans just yet to add trailing stops... sorry

the demnd is very small and the cost (and opportunity for error) are huge.

Simon

Thanks for the quick reply Simon!

 

[coolTrader]

zuke

no we have no plans just yet to add trailing stops... sorry

the demnd is very small and the cost (and opportunity for error) are huge.

Simon

May I suggest an option that I will appreciate. if you cannot put in automatic trailing stop, can we have a manual trailing stop button beside the stop and limit order. Clicking on this will automatically adjust to our desired level

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

No SB co is going to add a feature that will almost certainly result in punters making more (or losing less) money!

 

[Jbat001]

May I suggest an option that I will appreciate. if you cannot put in automatic trailing stop, can we have a manual trailing stop button beside the stop and limit order. Clicking on this will automatically adjust to our desired level

Now that's a good idea, and would be as easy to implement as amending the stop manually on the order book page. Set the trail to the required length, and when you hit the button, the stop syncs to the current bid plus or minus your stated trail. How about it Simon, it probably wouldn't even need much work to implement?

 

[The Pear]

Jbat

There is demand and while technically it may not be difficult to implement it may lead to increased disputes. It will happen at some point though. You have to ask the question - what value would a SB firm get out of it?

 

[bracke]

Capital Spreads

At 17.25 on yesterdays (28th) FTSE Rolling Daily Chart there was a 40 point spike to the downside.
Was this genuine and therefore took out stops or was it an error?

Regards

bracke

 

[Jbat001]

Jbat

There is demand and while technically it may not be difficult to implement it may lead to increased disputes. It will happen at some point though. You have to ask the question - what value would a SB firm get out of it?

Increased client confidence and higher business volumes? If they're hedging and offsetting bets properly, it should only mean increased profits for them.

 

[capitalspreads]

cooltrader

you effectively already have this function in that you can manually change the level of any order at any time. If you wish to move the stop to within 20 points of the current level you just change the stop price. Although this may very well be an easily implementable idea I am worried that many clients will actually use it and be confused into thinking that such a button will create a real trailing stop rather than a one off adjustment.

It is a good idea though and I will be raising it with development to see whether it can be implemented in a modified fashion.

Brake

no stops were activated on this out tick otherwise I am sure that we would have seen comments on this thread!!!

Simon

cheers

 

[Jbat001]

cooltrader

you effectively already have this function in that you can manually change the level of any order at any time. If you wish to move the stop to within 20 points of the current level you just change the stop price. Although this may very well be an easily implementable idea I am worried that many clients will actually use it and be confused into thinking that such a button will create a real trailing stop rather than a one off adjustment.

It is a good idea though and I will be raising it with development to see whether it can be implemented in a modified fashion.

Brake

no stops were activated on this out tick otherwise I am sure that we would have seen comments on this thread!!!

Simon

cheers

Is it possible to customize the platform so that individual users see different options? If so, the pseudo trailing stop could be an opt-in feature. I'd fully understand if it was too much to be arsed with though!

 

[The Pear]

Increased client confidence and higher business volumes? If they're hedging and offsetting bets properly, it should only mean increased profits for them.

Jbat - you are talking about an OTC product where the firm can sqew prices as it is acting as a marketmaker. Time and sales on a price feed may indicate you should hev been stopped out at a certain level, but not necessarily with a SB firm. No SB firm will hedge every position given to them - its too expensive for a start

 

[capitalspreads]

Pear

you are quite correct in that we are unlikely to hedge every position. Dealing costs mean that in many cases we will wait for another client to either trade in the other direction or for a series of clients to build up a position that becomes an economic amount for us to hedge.

Concerning time and sales though you are slightly out. In equity markets if a client can look at the current price displayed and show that given this price and given the market bid/offer history he/she should have been filled on an order then we would look at it. Clients must be aware that for orders (stops, limits and new) to be activated 'our quote' must reach that level not that the market 'traded' at that level.

As an example if you have an order to sell vodafone at 122p (with the current price at 121.00) and in the market the price rises and gets to 121.75-122.00 and 122 trades a few times BUT never actually goes bid then you will not be filled. You would nonly be filled if the market went 122.0-122.25.

So, for equitiesat least, time and sales (whilst important) are not the overall decider on filling orders. The overiding factor is the bid/offer history.

But if we are quoting 121.75-122.00 and you have a sell order at 122.00 and you can see that the bid did get to 122.0 then we would be in the wrong and you could prove it, we would have to fill your order on this basis.

Simon

 

[Jbat001]

Unfortunately, another example of a rogue pip on the USD/SEK chart skewing the rest of the chart into a completely unreadable mess. Can anyone advance a suggestion as to why the 'big green pip' on the 5th should be there?



EDIT: The pip has been removed! Many thanks to the tech team for sorting it out, but is it possible to avoid these in future?

 

[FXSCALPER2]

Hi Simon,

Can you add AUDJPY to fx? CMC have 4 on that. Maybe you can go one better, eh?

 

[capitalspreads]

jbat

at the moment we use a cross calculation method for our FX platfrom ...unfortunately this means that if one FX feed gives a 'blip' this gets propegated around the platform.

We are looking to change feeds creations for skandi markets

fxscalper

your 'nom de guerre' is not one to add joy to my heart ! we will be adding AUD/JPY soon. not sure what spread my dealers want to put on it though.

Simon

 

[Jbat001]

jbat

at the moment we use a cross calculation method for our FX platfrom ...unfortunately this means that if one FX feed gives a 'blip' this gets propegated around the platform.

We are looking to change feeds creations for skandi markets

fxscalper

your 'nom de guerre' is not one to add joy to my heart ! we will be adding AUD/JPY soon. not sure what spread my dealers want to put on it though.

Simon

Thanks Simon - glad it's sorted, but when that appeared, it was like suddenly flying blind - bloody terrifying with a position open!