Best Thread Capital Spreads

Hi Simon,
Just a general online trading question.
I currently use another SB company's online service (don't worry, I'm gonna change when my current positions are closed!)
Sometimes the feeds give erroneous data. I have a short position on Company X which is currently around 2500p. After the UK market has closed - sometimes the quote goes to what looks like the US equivalent - e.g. 50. This shows up on my account as being in profit by 5 figures.
I haven't had the guts to try and close it and bank these profits. What would happen if I tried? It would probably not get through the net and there would be human intervention but let's say that it did. Would they have any right to claim the money back and put me back in my original position?

Cheers,

Edster
 
Hmmm....
having finally had a trade 'time out' on me that didn't actually get executed... I've had a number of trades report that they didn't get filled, please try again only to find (by checking my trade history) that the trade actually has been made - first off, if I then make the same trade again and discover I've lost £2 a point I'd be a bit ticked off that I'd made two identical bets as a result of being incorrectly informed that the bet hadn't been accepted when it had.

If you want to have human operators fine, but I'm seeing this approx 10% of the time - that's too often, trading intraday swings a 30 second wait and a 'sorry, try again later' really isn't cutting it.... I KNOW you aren't being underhand, I'm playing with pennies here, but it's bad for the image Simon if there's a 1 in 10 chance your bet won't be handled at all... and it really is running at that sort of level for me. Am I just being unlucky here?

Dave
 
Edster

the reason that this happens is to do with the after hours auction on the FTSE. After 16.30 although the market is closed brokers/marketmakers have an auction to cross any small open positions they may have. This means that because of the small volumes concerned the prices can be slightly different to the final trade at 16.30. The odd thing is that the official close on the FTSE takes into account the crossing price of these small out of hours deals which is why we sometimes get the FTSE fixing lurching 10 points at 16.36.
After this cross out the brokers will often leave the remainder of non crossed deals at the silliy offers/ bids on screen because the crossing has now finished and they can no longer be filled. Unfortunately the spread betting computers can only do what they are designed for, which is pick up bids and offers from the exchange. So after hours you can get some pretty odd valuations (this is especially evident in US shares overnite).
As the markets are closed online and we would not quote the markets on the telephone after hours this phenomena is accedemic.


DaveJB

I am a bit concerned that you are getting timed out deals as this is definately not normal. We have an audited acceptance of 99.3% acceptance by our dealers within 4 seconds (allthough the response back may take longer due to internet connection etc). Can you ring our Customer Services department and they will get IT to look into it. Are you on broadband or on a 56k modem (or even on satelite connection) as these may affect your connection.

Simon
 
How come my demo account freezes just as the dow makes a big move? It' doing it now 5.12pm and it did it yesterday at 6.50pm. Does this happen with a real account?

Still can't connect at 5.24pm!
 
aarie5 said:
How come my demo account freezes just as the dow makes a big move? It' doing it now 5.12pm and it did it yesterday at 6.50pm. Does this happen with a real account?

Still can't connect at 5.24pm!
Click to expand...

me neither , short on the dow as I write.
 
bansir said:
me neither , short on the dow as I write.
Click to expand...
Can't get past the trade sim login screen.
Message comes back- "unexpected error"
Anyone else got probs with this?

Best Regards,
Neil
 
BroadSword said:
Tried at about 6pm, no problems at all...
Click to expand...
21:05----it's gone again, can't log on.
First time I've had any probs in nearly 6 months of useage tho.

Expect it's just a glitch with the sim.
Just out of interest, has the real trading software been running ok folks?

Regards,
Neil
 
Dear demo/simulation users

a piece of hardware (almost unbelievably) has deteriorated on the Demo servers . Although we have backups in the live system which we would use if the same thing happened there we do not run a 'hot' standby for the demo site. My IT department are sorting this out but there may be some ongoing problems until the w/e when they can take it down.

Please be assured that the live system (crossed fingers, touch wood, dont step on the cracks in the pavement etc..) is running fine. I think we would be getting quite a few comments here if it wasnt !!

Simon
 
capitalspreads said:
Please be assured that the live system (crossed fingers, touch wood, dont step on the cracks in the pavement etc..) is running fine. I think we would be getting quite a few comments here if it wasnt !!

Simon
Click to expand...
Might be the connection I've got at the moment, but I get an error report when trying to log on to the live site. Never had that problem on any computer before...
 
When will it be possible to place Rolling Cash Bets for the FTSE online, both for the demo and real system?
 
Broadsword

we are experiencing a denial of service attack from the USA which is periodically overloading our systems (several thousand log ons at once) our IT dept is cutting them off as we speak . But it looks like this will take a little time.

You will forgive me for being brief but as you can understand we are quite busy !!

Simon
 
capitalspreads said:
Broadsword

You will forgive me for being brief but as you can understand we are quite busy !!

Simon
Click to expand...

Absolutely! (When you've time) do you mean this is a deliberate sabotage attempt? Just curious really...
 
DOS's are deliberate since they are targeted so either they got the wrong target or its some form of professional sabotage ..and on the day I opened my CS account :(
 
BS yes -
as Simon et al are doubtless busy. The idea is that a large number of computers all keep logging on to a site (I'm simplifying a bit here) so that the server(s) that can normally cope with having say 1000 users an hour checking in are suddenly trying to process 100 times as many in 1/4 of the time, all of which go through the '3 failed login attempts' routine... basically it's a bit like somebody organises thousands/millions of computers to spend most of their online time to sending bogus logins to max out a web site.

It's the sort of thing some viruses do - some ****wipe writes a virus that makes everyone log into the Microsoft site endlessly, and all those people whose computers don't have up to date antivirus software installed run the virus and add to what is a targetted, local traffic jam. Sometimes they are attacking the dread giant Microsoft, run by Bill G, Antichrist Inc. The fact that Bill G is also probably one of the most generous people on the planet - compare what he gave to charity last year to what Warren Buffet handed over and you have to figure virus writers are a bit thick and easily led...

Well, if viruses didn't exist we'd all still be happy running on a Pentium 2 - 300 in 64 MB of RAM. (My first Pentium was my 4th or 5th PC, it was a P75 with 8Mb ram and a 512 Mb hard disk.... can I do more with my current PC?) If I didn't know better I'd swear virus writers were sponsored by the Antivirus software lobby and hardware manufacturers!
 
I've actually had a DOS attack on my own site,
and as soon as I find the link between the 5 people this inconvenienced over the fortnight concerned I'll be onto it like a flash!
 
Airthrey Capital said:
Slightly nervous of the fact that they place an automatic and obligatory stop loss order as soon as you open a position. A big turn off.
Click to expand...

I consider this a big plus. I'm risk averse so welcome an automated action to limit my losses.

I'd like an option to set my own stop at the time I place the trade though - rather than having to accept the default (which may expose me to a greater risk than I'm comfortable with) and then manually amend it seconds later.
 
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