Best Thread Capital Spreads

[Trusted]

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For information's sake I would like to point out that at no time do we ever claim that spread betting is easy money.

For those who came along to our seminars I was renowned for pointing out time and again that for Private Clients trading in the financial markets it is very very difficult and that some 80% lose money. This is not unique to SB but is also the percentage who lose using the DA that so many commentators like to crow about. I have also made this statement many times on this thread. If trading was easy we would all be millionaires. If you look across the financial landscape why do you think that it is generally the brokers who own the yachts. The men in the middle always get their turn no matter which way the markets go. SB's make markets, we do not recommend any trades we merely give people the opportunity to make trades. What they do with this is up to them.

CS's trading platform has it's limitations (as do all trading platforms) and occassionally a client will get a trade rejected. BUT for those of you who use DA will know that this is no different to trying to trade there. This afternoon one of our bigger clients had a stop trigger in the dow. we honoured his stop but failed (twice) to get the hedge away as the market collapsed in the chaos of the BS announcement and by the time we could get it away we had binned some £12K. ce la vie. You win some you lose some.

By the same factor I was personally short the dax just as the earlier rally was getting going I failed to buy to close my position (for a small loss) then got distracted (by the events going on) and by the time I went back I was in a major profit! Life is like that.

Over the past three weeks two SB companies and several hedge funds have gone under, Bear Stearns look holed below the water line and the credit crunch is in full swing, so contrary to some comments it is not all sweetness and light all the time in this neck of the woods.

Fortunately for our clients our policy of never giving credit to anyone means that CS is financially in very good shape and you can all sleep well knowing that your money is not going to be affected by somebody elses woes.

Simon

No but believe you me Capital Spreads will soon draw back all that 12k from their clients

This is a SEEDY gutter company who will stoop to any level to get clients money

I wouldn`t be surprised if it goes under

I`d bail out quickly

 

[ben nevis]

Seems 'Trusted' had a pretty nasty experience.

Has anyone found any general improvement at Capitalspreads ?

In some ways they are far better than IGindex (e.g. rolling dailies with interest for shorts) and if they can get their systems working properly, then I might go back there.

 

[gle101]

Based on all the comments being discussed about CS, why is anyone using them at all when there are much better and fairer companies around ?


Paul

Your question is quite relevant. The answer probably is, that most of the traders are, despite CS' shortcomings, all things considered, satisfied with them. The basis of marketing is, if a company does not deliver a satisfactory product, clients will leave in droves and find something else that suits their needs better. The same simple marketing rules apply to the SB industry as well. If a company like Capitalspreads delivers a bad product altogether, a product which no one is satisfied with, they will watch their client base shrink, and the new clients arriving will not cover up for this loss. They will eventually be forced to close down the operation. Will the main share holders of Capitalspreads allow this to happen? Of course not. Capitalspreads have grown tremendously over the past two years and I am quite sure they are determined to keep their market share up to todays standard, and even grow more according to an organized marketing plan.

There are many SB companies and new ones coming up on the horizon, who want to come in and claim a big slice of a growing market segment. I am sure Capitalspreads feel the pressure building up, and are gearing up for increased competition. Capitalspreads have some issues to clear up, this is certain, we have read about them on this thread recently. I am quite confident, they will do just that. Growing competition will be the main reason for this to happen. This, put together with a more regulated industry, will force the SB companies to perform well. I see also, in the near future, a merger of some of the SB companies, for the small ones will not be able to survive, unless they have a tremendously well functioning product to offer.

 

[Trusted]

The main shareholders are the directors

Take a look .I intend to buy some stock so i can attend the AGM and have a word with some of these directors .

How can you trade on prices made by a company when a company then goes into a clients accounts and removes the money by bogus means ie . declaring a trade improper .


It`s tantamount to THEFT they are effectively STEALING the clients money

This is what happened to me .

 

[Trusted]

theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use


This is what Capital spreads done to my account

Now if someone stole from you . What would you do .

 

[gle101]

theft n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use


This is what Capital spreads done to my account

Now if someone stole from you . What would you do .

Sorry to hear about your encounter. I did not mean to answer a specific case like yours in my post. One must know all the facts involved in order to take a definitive stand. This kind of thing has not happened to me for as long as I have been trading with CS. I have heard about CS claiming money back, but only when there was an obvious technical issue with a faulting feed. This issue has not been discussed heavily on this thread, as a problem one generally encounters trading with CS. Of course, this does not mean that you are not right in your case.

 

[oiltanker]

trading the dax? interesting.

given they are all correlated [the indicies] why choose that one? I have noticed the dax gives clearer signals?

 

[davecrom01]

Like you I now have no other major programmes running on the same PC as CS (only FF calender and sometimes FXNews) and since I did this I have had very few delay problems with them. I trade varying amounts above and below your £5 limit and haven't experienced any real issues with fills, indeed sometimes after news I get very generous fills, but perhaps I should say no more about that.

Hi.

Whereas I am glad that your delays have been improved, I can also confirm from my experience that this isnt the only issue. I have 1 laptop dedicated to trading, it has nothing other than a clean install of XP, Metatrader, and Internet Explorer. I still experience delays and they are definately CS dealer interventions.

One only has to look at one's trade history tab, to see that the delays are 100% correlated to whether you are processed by a human dealer, or an auto-dealer.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[capitalspreads]

As 'Trusted' has decided to comment on this platfrom I must, of course, defend CS.

He made twenty buy/sell trades over a six minute period one stock. RBS

the price was occilating between 325 and 333 approximately ..tick up to 333 tick down to 325 up to 333 down to 325 over and over again. This was at a time when virtually all the SB companies went off-line due to the overwhelming of the various exchanges across the globe caused by the Bear Stearns announcement (including Pro-Quote, the LSE's trading platform).

This client decided to trade on these prices (as he is quite within his rights to do). But, as per our terms concerning 'Price Errors' we retain the right to reject trades done on prices not reflective of the, then current, underlying market activity. This right is also available to our clients if we make a mistake and put a trade through on the wrong price that is disadvantageous to them.

If the client had only done it once we would probably not have done anything but by doing it twenty times we were forced to act. The client was also trading on an account he was not authorised to deal on and when we rang the person whose account it was (His wife, as we subsequently discovered) she had no idea what we were talking about. Without power of attorney you cannot trade on even a close relatives' accounts.

It does amuse me when clients trade on knowingly incorrect prices but when we reject the trades as not representative of the underlying market they accuse us of theft. If you get away with it... fine .. but do not bleat if we refuse to roll over and play dead.

If the client really has the evidence that the price went from 325 to 333 twenty times in RBS in six minutes then please bring this evidence to the Financial Ombudsman... I will personally pay him 10 times the amount concerned out of my own pocket!

The price error rule is not only there to protect us but also all of our clients. If an incorrect price trade were enforcable then all client funds (no-matter how well protected) would be at risk in every broker/bank/fund/SB company in the world. And the temptation for collusion between financial services staff and customers to create such a price error would be very strong! If a broker could create an incorrect price trade with a mate leading to millions of pounds of profit with no comeback then nobody's money would be safe anywhere.

Simon

ps.. I do not blame clients for trying to take advantage of mis-prices (i would do the same myself if I saw the opportunity) but do not complain if we subsequently find the error and correct it.

pps Every single day I receive e-mails from the CME, CBOT, Eurex etc changing or deleting trade prices on deals done on their exchanges so please do not imagine that this is a situation confined to CS.

 

[0007]

I hold no brief for CS. But in view of Simon's account #3906 I think it is important that when a client decides to post adverse comment, it should give us the full picture.

I hope Simon will respond to other adverse comments also - I'm holding off opening an account with CS while such doubts exist.

 

[Trusted]

Well if you want the full picture perhaps Simon should correct his 20 times statement :

It was in fact 9 times

Secondly it was my wife trading on my instructions

Thirdly what she was doing was hedging another position on my other account

Your dealer actually took EXCESS money from the account than was a made via the above trades

If Nick hadn`t have been so bloodfy condescending and sniggering and laughing whilst communicating with me perhaps i wouldn`t have been so darn bloody annoyed and aggressive on the phone which then resulted in your intervention and you closing my accounts

Finally .I was asked to provide evidence about the transaction data via e mail which i subsequently done and you still refused to accept the trades .In the morning i would like confirmation which you recieved from the LSE that these were latent prices .




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If the client really has the evidence that the price went from 325 to 333 twenty times in RBS in six minutes then please bring this evidence to the Financial Ombudsman... I will personally pay him 10 times the amount concerned out of my own pocket!


This was done Friday evening via email
I got took out on a Dax spike in December pre open new all time high which i was told was valid .

I`ve lost about 15K to your company Mr Denham and on Friday i was treat with contempt by your company and specifically Nick . I would like evidence from Capital Spreads of these latent prices .If someone started laughing at you on the phone would you not be insulted

 

[FXSCALPER2]

I hold no brief for CS. But in view of Simon's account #3906 I think it is important that when a client decides to post adverse comment, it should give us the full picture.

I hope Simon will respond to other adverse comments also - I'm holding off opening an account with CS while such doubts exist.

There is a reason why Simon is the head of Capital Spreads: he is a spinner. His platform is extremely dengerous and he needs to sort that out. You are going to open an account with a firm which:

1- rejects your trade but then the trade appears in the 'open positions' minutes later

2- Tells you to 'check your open positions' after you put on a trade and when you go there you may find it is not, then may appear again after you are away from your machine

3- takes several minutes to fill your order while the price moves and fills you only when it goes against you and never gives you a chance to cancel the ordr before it is filled?

More impotantly, are you going to open an account with a company run by someone who comes here and explains why he provides a bad service rather than fix the problems? Are you really going to open an account with a company which has as its head someone like Simon who thinks his clients should live with incredible weaknesses like the ones sited 1-3 above?

It is unbelievable anyone thinks they should trade with an outfit like this while there are soo many firms out there who are brilliant at doing their job compared to this pathetic bookie? We are now in a situation where Simon will just take back your winnings? Can this be happening?


Trading is a dangerous business anyway. It is the height of stupidity to put yourself in so much risk by losing control to a bookie which refuses to fix simple problems. In order for outfits like Simon to attract people who know what the are doing, they have to be in top shape. Otherwise, why the heck would you bother? It is not as if there is a shortage of brokers, is it? Who do you will eventually stay with a service like that? Ask yourself if you want to be in that group of people.

 

[0007]

More impotantly, are you going to open an account with a company run by someone who comes here and explains why he provides a bad service rather than fix the problems? Are you really going to open an account with a company which has as its head someone like Simon who thinks his clients should live with incredible weaknesses like the ones sited 1-3 above?

Precisely. That's why I want to see proper explanations.

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

What I've never understood is how SB cos stress that we have to trade on the prices quoted, not the 'real market', yet then tell us they've quoted incorrect prices and that clients should somehow be aware of this error before entering a trade.
If a bookie takes a bet, can he later decide he made a mistake? If so, why can't he just do this every time the punter wins?

 

[capitalspreads]

trades

xxx2484 xxx2502 xxx2681 xxx2707 xxx2720 xxx2727 xxx2732 xxx2772 xxx2786 xxx2801 xxx2806 xxx2827 xxx2832 xxx2844 xxx2857 xxx2866 xxx2877 xxx2881 xxx2890 xxx2901 xxx2910
actually there are 21 not 20 (i miscounted, as one trade was made up of 2 amounts) each trade required that the price move .. 20 times...... RBS between 14.10 and 14.16 .. for those who can be bothered look at the tick data for this market over this time period on our platform... bounce bounce bounce..then look at the official trade chart from the exchange ... no such activity.

This was a classic example of a price error caused by price feed problems. Nothing dramatic or sinister. As mentioned, if we do not find a price error trade then the client can pocket the money and smile to himself that he has got one over on us. If not then please don't expect us to just roll over and accept it.

On FX scalpers comments

we had a survey done where we sent out a questionaire last year to all our clients. A great number replied. You would have thought that, mainly, only those with a grudge (or complaint) would have bothered. The overwhelming response was positive on every level of our service. And when I say overwhelming, I mean it.

The boring fact is that in the main only those with an axe to grind come back again and again to make allegations on this thread etc... occasionally we do get comments written here by clients who have traded on the platform for a great length of time and funnily enough seem very happy and dont appear to have the problems mentioned. But of course they cant be bothered to say so over and over again. On the other end of the scale this is not the case. Somebody with a complaint will make the same one time and time over...ad nauseam even if it no longer exists.

Yes I would love to have a never failing product to deliver but.... as mentioned before, for example, on Friday even many of our biggest competitors were down for some periods of time... the LSE's own trading system failed to keep up with trade flows despite the £10's of millions thrown at their platform... aside from putting our shares to 'telephone only' (even we cannot price when we have no feed from the exchanges) CS was up and running in it's other markets for virtually the entire afternoon.

We spend an enormous sum of money to improve speeds, robustness, accuracy etc etc..unfortunately you cannot please everyone all the time.... the platform is continually improving but of course we all want more as fast as possible.

I can only repeat facts here. The average response time of our computers to a trade request is under 2 seconds (this is a provable fact) and includes the longer 'dealer acceptance' trade times. It might then take some time to calculate margins/stop levels/prepare e-mail response (the mailer is a bottleneck and a new release is due v.soon) etc and for the reply to be received by our client. But unless there is extreme volatility (over an economic release for example) or you are on dealer acceptance (over 99% of our clients are on auto trade) or you trade in bigger sizes you will almost always get your trade at the price you requested.

Facts are boring I know and make it all seem rather more mundane.

In an era where it is increasingly difficult for anyone new to come in to any area of financial services, to stipulate that you can only play if your product is the best would mean that you would end up with one company pretty much doing whatever it wished.

As far as FX claims are in 1-3 ... 1 has never happened...2 .a position never appears and disappears but we did indeed have a short period when there was an unacceptable delay between deal acceptance and it appearing on your position list, but this is no longer the case, and anyway if you had the deal acceptance then the fact that it was not yet in your position list is not exactly a disaster.....and 3 ... yes it does occasionally take time to check order fills over data releases (we have to be sure that we are not filling stupid levels on some strange price spike) but all fillable orders get done. There are always audit trails on every client action..so any dispute can be swiftly dealt with. And as I have mentioned many times we do not get everything right. Errors do occur as they do with many systems..but I can assure you very very few these days on CS.

To abuse and denigrate a company simply because they actually do put their head above the parapet and attempt to explain systems or policy when queries arise is very strange.. would you rather I said nothing? By that reasoning you would lose the one and only forum where real answers get given to SB trading issues.

And, by the way, abuse is not an argument

Simon

 

[capitalspreads]

to answer Phil's question

we hardly ever do go back and reject trades...only the really obvious ones... it happens about once every week... and we take some 100,000 trades a week. Also, as mentioned before, I get e-mails every single day from the various exchanges changing or deleting trades done on their plaforms.. please dont imagine that it is only the SB's which have 'price errors'.

simon

 

[FXSCALPER2]

Simon,

You are the one who says the same thing ad nauseum. You clients are going to make their complaints again and again until you fix things. What are you saying: that they should change their complaintes so it becomes interesting? You said that my points 1-3 do not happen. Yes they do: all the time.

You reckon it is not a 'disaster' if people don't have access to their open positions? Are you having a laugh? This is exactly my point, you know. Just fix it instead of coming back and telling us it is ok to provide such rubbish service.

Do I prefer if you never came here? I don't give two hoots, if you want to know. Fix your outfit and move on.

 

[adorozlondyn]

Adorozlondyn, this thread is to discuss Capital Spreads so with all due respect if you want to post about them, you can do it here but if you want to post your trades or your trading system, you should start another thread in the appropriate section on this board. I dont think anyone would want this thread to stray from its original purpose. Thanks.

thx, will do:cheesy:

 

[Trusted]

This was a classic example of a price error caused by price feed problems. Nothing dramatic or sinister. As mentioned, if we do not find a price error trade then the client can pocket the money and smile to himself that he has got one over on us. If not then please don't expect us to just roll over and accept it.


20 trades perhaps but buy to close resulted in 10 lots of profit

Why did you then close my accounts .If a member of your staff was condescending and laughing perhaps you to might get angry and let rip .I wasn`t best pleased No but your action was abrubt and without warning .I provided my evidence which at the time i believed was correct and hence my strong stance .In your corner you provided no evidence and i had to take your word for it .When i didn`t you closed my accounts

Is that even handed

So if anyone disagrees with any of Capitals decisions BEWARE this is your fate .

Care to answer

 

[gle101]

Simon,

You are the one who says the same thing ad nauseum. You clients are going to make their complaints again and again until you fix things. What are you saying: that they should change their complaintes so it becomes interesting? You said that my points 1-3 do not happen. Yes they do: all the time.

You reckon it is not a 'disaster' if people don't have access to their open positions? Are you having a laugh? This is exactly my point, you know. Just fix it instead of coming back and telling us it is ok to provide such rubbish service.

Do I prefer if you never came here? I don't give two hoots, if you want to know. Fix your outfit and move on.

FXSCALPER2, I think Simon gave some good answers on some issues. It is up to us traders individually, to evaluate the truth of what he is saying. I must ask, do you trade with CS? Why I am asking you this is, because, you have a very set opinion on how things are while trading with CS. Some people might agree with you on this thread, I do not. Why you might ask; the answer is simply because, what you say does not reflect my personal experience while trading with them for over 2 years now. There are issues they need to correct, sure, but by far it does not reflect the dark picture you are painting.

I believe we, as traders should also take some personal responsibilities in our trading. There are SB companies that do a good job in certain areas, while others might be better suited to carry out a particular task. Also one has to restrain oneself from trading with SB companies when things are not safe, e.g, delay in execution, during news releases or when volatility goes through the roof. These could be occasions when one should be especially restrictive before taking too high a risk.

I look upon Simon's contribution on this thread as valuable. Even if one doesn't get all the answers to every question raised, there are still some interesting posts from his side.