Best Thread Capital Spreads

[Black Swan]

Err, then isn't it slightly weird that you post so much on the SB threads, telling people who do spreadbet how great it is and that we shouldn't complain? Remind me what a troll is.

What a troll is? You know the next time you have a shave and you clean the mist from the mirror..

Now then, I used to SB, will be moving part of my personal trading back to SB this year (reasons) and I'm intellectually curious re. many aspects of my industry, it beats sitting in the stadium shouting abuse at the players, the manager, the game whilst they pi55 themselves laughing at you as they pick up their considerable wages month after month...

As Simon says, get the thread back on track, you guys simply hunt around for mischief when certain threads go quiet, I know why you do it, not sure you've realised why though..

 

[twinj]

Does anyone use Capital Spread's IT Finance charts on Apple macs? I tried the other day with the latest firefox and with just one chart open, cpu usage becomes higher than when I have 5 charts open on windows' firefox. Is there a way to lower the cpu usage to the level with windows? Thanks in advance.

 

[capitalspreads]

ah ha

a real question. I dont know the answer but have sent the query to my IT bods. In the meantime you might like to look at the Demo charts as these come from exactly the same prices but have a much richer functionality (back testing, sms messaging, tick update several times a second etc etc). They might work better.

They will be our main live charts in a few weeks time (they have been on test on the demo for several months to get client input)

Simon

 

[Ross Spur]

sorry everyone but this thread is becoming a bit "yah! boo! sucks!"

can we get back to the original purpose which is to explain, instruct ... advise in my own small way. For the sake of my sanity i will agree that DMA is a perfectly good trading route (it would be silly to claim otherwise) but.... for many SB and CFD trading is just as good a route.

simon

OK, I have a question. Now that at least three of the competition offer 1pt or less spreads on US30, are we likely to see Capital Spreads matching that?

 

[lancenicolase]

OK, I have a question. Now that at least three of the competition offer 1pt or less spreads on US30, are we likely to see Capital Spreads matching that?

On some level they already match it as the 2pt spreads on US30 is 24/7 whereas 1pt spread is only during the market hours.

 

[capitalspreads]

ross

i would answer that CS generally quotes 'the best' spreads overall. Depending, of course, on the definition of 'the best'. For instance we quote 1 pip on EUR/USD for 24hrs a day. whereas most of our competitors (even the biggest) use the rather mealy mouthed... "spreads from 1 pip". Even the famous 'premium provider' never has the average spread in any single hour less than 1.5 pips (overall their average is nearer to 1.8 pips). And GBP/USD, we are permanently 2 pips ... using the same providers data where they claim spreads 'from' 1 pip the actual average is over 2.5 (!) meaning that they spend four times more time quoting 3 than 1 (and this assumes they never quote 2 !)

as kindly poined out by lancenicolase our spread on the US30 is permanently 2 (even at 2 in the morning) whereas our competitors are generally 4 points from 21.00 to 14.30 and then they cut to two or one. Those that quote only one point do so from 14.30 to 21.00 (neatly missing out the major 13.30 economic release time) i.e. about 1/4 of the day. Clients will recognise that often the interesting period of the day is european time not US and on competitor platforms they are trading at a seriously expensive 4 point spread.

we may well go to 1 point on the US30 at some point but we feel that we are already pretty much best value for the retail client. Especially when you consider the overall package.

that said we are always willing to make changes if they are warrented.

But just forever cutting spreads will end up with a poorer service, as some on these threads have mentioned on the experiences with companies who supply economically unrealistic prices. Quoting inside the actual real market spread creates pressures on deal acceptance that are not supportable, in my opinion, from a good service basis.

Simon

 

[Ross Spur]

ross

i would answer that CS generally quotes 'the best' spreads overall. Depending, of course, on the definition of 'the best'. For instance we quote 1 pip on EUR/USD for 24hrs a day. whereas most of our competitors (even the biggest) use the rather mealy mouthed... "spreads from 1 pip". Even the famous 'premium provider' never has the average spread in any single hour less than 1.5 pips (overall their average is nearer to 1.8 pips). And GBP/USD, we are permanently 2 pips ... using the same providers data where they claim spreads 'from' 1 pip the actual average is over 2.5 (!) meaning that they spend four times more time quoting 3 than 1 (and this assumes they never quote 2 !)

as kindly poined out by lancenicolase our spread on the US30 is permanently 2 (even at 2 in the morning) whereas our competitors are generally 4 points from 21.00 to 14.30 and then they cut to two or one. Those that quote only one point do so from 14.30 to 21.00 (neatly missing out the major 13.30 economic release time).

we may well go to 1 point on the US30 at some point but we feel that we are already pretty much best value for the retail client. Especially when you consider the overall package.

that said we are always willing to make changes if they are warrented.

But just forever cutting spreads will end up with a poorer service, as some on these threads have mentioned on the experiences with companies who supply economically unrealistic prices. Quoting inside the actual real market spread creates pressures on deal acceptance that are not supportable, in my opinion, from a good service basis.

Simon

OK, thanks Simon. I certainly agree with you about other SB's 'Spreads from...' sneakiness on FX, where the actual spread is always wider and also virtually impossible to check.
re, US30, though, as AN Other's fixed 1pt seems very reliable, it wouldn't make sense for those of us daytrading to use CS at 2pt, unless perhaps the new charts have a direct trading facility?

 

[capitalspreads]

ross

charts trading functionality... not yet but working on it.

reliability is very important and if you are getting satisfaction on this then i would stick with it. only change provider if the alternative is better overall

simon

 

[tar]

ross

charts trading functionality... not yet but working on it.

reliability is very important and if you are getting satisfaction on this then i would stick with it. only change provider if the alternative is better overall

simon

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/spread-betting/129858-tradefair-spreads.html

 

[capitalspreads]

let me see... a confessed scalper cannot get his trades on in the very fast market conditions which prevailed yesterday...oh dear.... i will go away and weep for him.

actually his response was a computer response not a manual dealer 'rejection'. The computer will give this when the trade request price is MORE THAN one (1) price change away from the current price.

Sometimes this happens in fast markets. Try trading on a (real) FX platform when the markets are going bananas. Unless you give 'market' orders you will more often than not only get a fill when the market is going against you. And if you do put a 'market' order in you are at risk of a very unsatisfactory fill as, frankly, your manual mouse click trade reflex time will be hundreds of micro seconds slower than the Algos

Simon

 

[charliechan]

....or of course you could trade futures like a real man via dma.
then you can put a stop limit in, or simply lift the offer or hit a bid 'when the markets are going bananas' - which you may well want to do of course because the best asymmetric risk/reward opportunities by their very nature typically do not last very long, meaning you've got to be quick to get on board.

so, dma man gets a fill with good probability of profit
sb girl cant get a fill and must wait until the market has settled down to get in at a less favourable price. dear oh dear!


btw - algo's are another benefit of dma as they generally add liquidity meaning less slippage. lets have some objectivity here please!

score:
dma 11, sb 0

 

[Rugby Trader]

Simon,

Do you ever foresee a point where you will be able to bet in increments rather than full pounds per point on your platform? i.e. £1.30

At the moment the fact you can't do that but you can everywhere else is a big negative for me.

Thanks

 

[tim3]

let me see... a confessed scalper cannot get his trades on in the very fast market conditions which prevailed yesterday...oh dear.... i will go away and weep for him.

actually his response was a computer response not a manual dealer 'rejection'. The computer will give this when the trade request price is MORE THAN one (1) price change away from the current price.

Sometimes this happens in fast markets. Try trading on a (real) FX platform when the markets are going bananas. Unless you give 'market' orders you will more often than not only get a fill when the market is going against you. And if you do put a 'market' order in you are at risk of a very unsatisfactory fill as, frankly, your manual mouse click trade reflex time will be hundreds of micro seconds slower than the Algos

Simon

I think a lot of punters would get a shock playing real futures markets!!

 

[capitalspreads]

tim3

i think they would as well!

charlie

as LCG operates a real FX platform with over 3 billion dollars a day of biz i think i can talk about algos with rather more knowledge than most aas we deal with them every single day. Algos DO NOT add liquidity they are TAKERS of other peoples liquidity. Liquidity is generally added by market makers ... i.e people/companies who 'quote' all the time a bid/offer price. Algo's, in general, do not do this and only enter the market when they see a pricing advantage and then deal on other people's prices. In this event they are certainly not the friend of the average client as they will always be faster and bigger than you.

'trade like a man' in DMA... oh god!.. .......who has the bigger balls! eh?. What a well reasoned argument

rugbytrader

we offer a minimum of £1 a point . yes a few SBs offer smaller stakes (but most of the bigger SB companies actually have bigger minimum stake sizes than this). In some markets with very big prices (Google for instance) we do offer fractional stake sizes (10p) but we will probably not offer it in other markets. Frankly it would become a pain for most of our clients as the stake size arrows would have to take into account very small moves so using the arrows to increase the stake from £1 to £5 would necessitate 50 price point increments.

Simon

 

[twinj]

could someone help me with the following? I have been able to log in fine using firefox but today for some reason I can't. The price feed on the frontpage of website is also not visible. I have tried internet explorer and the problem does not exist (price feed there and log in fine). Thanks in advance.

 

[top trader]

hello Simon,

Any luck with multiple portfolioS?
Most other s/bs offer it.

Many thanks.

 

[capitalspreads]

twinj

delete your cookies etc and it should work

multi portfolios

the cost of build of this product is very high .. it does not come high on our clients 'wish lists' (although obviously important to you) and has therefore been put on the back burner

sorry

Simon

 

[tomorton]

I have deleted cookies but cannot get more than a blank grey screen on the Caps site today.

 

[twinj]

Hi tomorton, I had same problem. Asked CS and told me to:

We apologise for any difficulties you may have experienced logging into our site. We made an update to our site yesterday evening that has caused some clients some difficulties logging in. The solution to the problem is to delete your temporary Internet files and cache.



This can be done by following the following instructions for your Internet Browser:



Internet Explorer
simply select 'Tools' found in the left right hand corner of, 'Internet Options' and then 'Delete'.



Mozilla Firefox
Simply click select 'Tools' and 'Clear Recent History'.



Google Chrome
Select 'Tools' (the spanner found in the top right hand corner), 'Under the Bonnet' and then 'Clear browsing data'.



Safari
If you use Safari, go to "Safari" on the menu at the top of the screen. From that list, select "Empty Cache."



Once this has been done, please go back to our home page and enter your login details.

 

[Rugby Trader]

rugbytrader

we offer a minimum of £1 a point . yes a few SBs offer smaller stakes (but most of the bigger SB companies actually have bigger minimum stake sizes than this). In some markets with very big prices (Google for instance) we do offer fractional stake sizes (10p) but we will probably not offer it in other markets. Frankly it would become a pain for most of our clients as the stake size arrows would have to take into account very small moves so using the arrows to increase the stake from £1 to £5 would necessitate 50 price point increments.

Simon

Hi Simon,

Can't say I agree with your statement especially since you've added the extra digit onto the forex instruments which has meant instead of clicking 5 times you have to click 50, or you do the sensible thing and type in the number.
Fractional stake sizes would make your platform a lot more attractive as traders would be able to position their risk more accurately.

RT