Best Thread Capital Spreads

[capitalspreads]

rjay

when you take a position with CS the computers will place a stop at a level commensurate with the funds on your account. You can then move this stop around, closer to the market or further away ( if you have available resources). BUT if you click on the 'I' button for each market you will find that each market has what we call the IMR (initial margin requirement) this is generally quite small in comparison to our competitors. No matter where you place your stop (or how profitable your postion is) our systems will always charge this minimum IMR

roberto is correct .... if you have a position open that is in a good profit you cannot use (for various reasons) unrealised profits as margin against other positions. Therefore we do allow clients to close and open positions at the same price so that they can realise profits and use the funds generated to establish other bets. Although I have to say that this is, of course, slightly self serving as we make more money from people trading frequently than from clients holding long term positions!!

hope you all had a good easter break

Simon

 

[alf25]

autoquote

Simon
why you change your platform and autoquote window show quote only some minutes before it was how long it was open??

 

[capitalspreads]

alf25

we changed this because , like all online platforms, the more people who are logged into it the more load it places on the platform. So we have placed a timer on the deal ticket box of 4 minutes as we were finding that clients opened ticket windows and then just forgot about them and left them open for hours (days?).

You will still be logged in etc.. it is just the deal ticket that shuts off. (if you are waiting for a particular level why not just leave an order and let the computer take the strain?)

Simon

 

[james6848]

Hi Simon - I've just spent hours reading through most of this thread, phew! You have generated an awful lot of goodwill over the months it seems. Attending to this site must now be a daily event for you!

I have a demo account with CS, and noticed that there is no FTSE Cash, only FTSE rolling. Have you dropped the former now, or is it on the live site? I'm still a bit confused about the differences between the two (I know you have explained it!), but am I right in saying that they are both still derived from the futures' prices (i.e. are generally the same value until end of day craziness)?


Thanks,
J

 

[ed]

Simon, Good Morning.
Perhaps you can explain to me about IMR. CS Product Information says the IMR should be 3%.
Therefore take, for example,
one £2 down bet on AV. @ 698.5. IMR is 3% * stake. equals £41.73
one £2 down bet on MAN @ 1443. IMR is 3%*stake. equals £86.65
one £2 down bet on EMI @ 240.3. IMR is 3%*stake. equals £14.42
Grand total equals £142.80
Do you agree?
rgds..................Ed

 

[capitalspreads]

ed

the IMR is the minimum margin required and this is charged if your stops are moved to within 80% of the IMR from the price that you traded.

So for Aviva the IMR is 20. If you make a £2 down bet at 698.5 and then move the stop to 714.5 (20x80%) or closer then the computers will charge you £40 margin.

Man Group IMR is 43 so minimum margin on a £2 bet would be £86 and
EMI's IMR is 7 so again for a £2 bet the minimum margin would be £14

for, as you say, a grand total of £140

but remember this margin will only be here if you move your stops to within 2.4% of your open position

james 6848

on the live site there is a daily cash FTSE bet (the spread is 3) the quote on this will be the same as the rolling bet but at 4.30 it will expire and await the daily auction. The rolling bet will just continue forever until you close it or your stop is hit.

Simon

 

[james6848]

ed

the IMR is the minimum margin required and this is charged if your stops are moved to within 80% of the IMR from the price that you traded.

So for Aviva the IMR is 20. If you make a £2 down bet at 698.5 and then move the stop to 714.5 (20x80%) or closer then the computers will charge you £40 margin.

Man Group IMR is 43 so minimum margin on a £2 bet would be £86 and
EMI's IMR is 7 so again for a £2 bet the minimum margin would be £14

for, as you say, a grand total of £140

but remember this margin will only be here if you move your stops to within 2.4% of your open position

james 6848

on the live site there is a daily cash FTSE bet (the spread is 3) the quote on this will be the same as the rolling bet but at 4.30 it will expire and await the daily auction. The rolling bet will just continue forever until you close it or your stop is hit.

Simon

Thanks, keep up the good work!
J.

 

[ed]

Simon,

Thanks for the information, it was my understanding that the IMR should be around £140.
It makes me wonder why the diddlythump it is set at £360 then? and an e-mail to CS for an explanation produced NO REPLY!

rgds..................ED

 

[ed]

OK Guys where is the risk,

NASDAQ rolling on CS is 1484.9/1487.1
NASDAQ rolling on FIN is 1494.8/1497.8
up bet on CS with equivalent down bet on FIN....an arbitrage opportunity? when they both come into sync
with a similar view of where the NDX is going?
Comments?
rgds..............Ed

 

[james6848]

I can't seem to trade anymore (demo) - just get 'Trade declined due to unexpected error'. Been like this for a day or so. Hmmm...

 

[capitalspreads]

Ummm ed

sorry ... not sure what your account is so I cannot look into the problem. Please can you send your query to [email protected] so that we can look into it. If we have missed an e-mailed query I can only apologise ..as you can see from this thread our customer services team are usually very very good at responding to questions.

Re the rolling bet ... our price is definately correct ..it would appear to me that Fin spreads must be quoting their rolling price around the future not the cash... this may be their policy ? I dont know.

addendum ...I have just looked at Fin Spreads.. they are quoting the Daily Future Nasdaq... this bet expires every day and is not rolling...so it is not the same bet.

Simon

 

[Perrington]

Simon,

What developments and projects are CS currently undergoing ? I ask the question in terms of increased functionality or just any general changes you have planned for the near future.

Perrington.

 

[james6848]

Simon,
I still can't seem to trade with my demo account anymore (see post 1338). Maybe I have been blacklisted due to my Buffett-like success... (haha).

 

[jaykay3]

Simon,

When are you going to start trading beyond 21:00 on FOREX ?

This is a 24 hour market and it is very frustrating not being able to trade beyond 21:00.

Your competitors do it so why don't you ?

jaykay

 

[capitalspreads]

Perrington

we have various areas that we are developing at the moment

better order functions (if done,contingent)
fx 24hr capability
cfd platform
charts !! (the bane of my life)

there are always general works going on to speed up the platform etc.

various internal developments (security, reporting, data mining etc)

These are all either being developed or are on the list.


jaykay

...some of our competitors do (some dont) and two of the ones who dont are two of the big three (if it was economically viable I am pretty sure that they would do so), at the moment about 35% of all our business is FX but...(and it is a big but from a cost basis) very little is done in the last 2 hours up to 21.00 ...yesterday which was a pretty normal trading day, in the last 2 hours of our trading day (14.3% of our open hours) only 1.5% of FX trades were made...and most of those were closes at 21.00. This is, as I say, a pretty normal break down of trading patterns. I would have to extrapolate from this and say that although people say they would trade in the middle of the night, in actual fact, they dont. This is bourne out by the other SB companies night desks deal numbers (very very low).

As commented before we are commissioning an out of hours platform because (frankly) to actually employ dealers (we would have to employ two more dealers) to cover a tiny fraction of our business does not make economic sense. but I do realise, it does make PR sense.

Simon

 

[BroadSword]

As commented before we are commissioning an out of hours platform because (frankly) to actually employ dealers (we would have to employ two more dealers) to cover a tiny fraction of our business does not make economic sense. but I do realise, it does make PR sense.

Simon

Simon,

I don't think many people actually want to actively trade in the middle of the night. What (I think) they want is the platform open so that if the market makes a massive move over night, they are not closed out with a massive gap move beyond their stop when you open at 7.00am, as I believe would be the case with CS at the moment.

If you had some form of auto trade during the night, then at least during a big move people would get out on their stop being hit, and not lose more by the price effectively gapping past their stop at 7.00am.

I know you can say that presently, overnight, stops can be "hit"and then the market moves back again, the client gets away with it because you were closed, but what I guess many people want is a bit more certainty that overnight positions will not result in potential massive losses on opening gaps (opening being your business opening of course).

 

[james6848]

Simon, I still can't trade my demo account.

 

[Roberto]

about 35% of all our business is FX but...(and it is a big but from a cost basis) very little is done in the last 2 hours up to 21.00 ...yesterday which was a pretty normal trading day, in the last 2 hours of our trading day (14.3% of our open hours) only 1.5% of FX trades were made...and most of those were closes at 21.00.

Simon, you must have been aware even as you were typing this of which way round the causality might work?

The reason you're not getting any Fx business to speak of in the last 2 hours of your trading day could be that your customers (like myself) know you're going to close at 9.00 and their stop won't be active overnight. I stupidly left a position running overnight a couple of weeks ago and lost a lot because when you re-opened at 7.00 the next morning the price was already miles past my stop-loss.

It's not the ability to _trade_ in the night that matters to most people: it's the ability to avoid these "accidents".

I prefer CS to any other SB firm and you'll get my overnight business back as soon as my stop-losses are operative. You'll get many other people too, however sceptical you are about that!

Hope it will still happen in May?

 

[BroadSword]

It's not the ability to _trade_ in the night that matters to most people: it's the ability to avoid these "accidents".

Exactly.

 

[Mr five]

24hrs dealing

i think the reason people dont deal in the last 2 hours is exactly for the reason that you close the dealing desk at 21.00 hrs , i have not opened an account for that reason , it is not realistic to enter a trade and expect it to only run for a couple of hours, i would not enter a trade even 4 hours before closing , hope you do have a 24hour dealing facility soon .

we have various areas that we are developing at the moment

better order functions (if done,contingent)
fx 24hr capability
cfd platform
charts !! (the bane of my life)

there are always general works going on to speed up the platform etc.

various internal developments (security, reporting, data mining etc)

These are all either being developed or are on the list.


jaykay

...some of our competitors do (some dont) and two of the ones who dont are two of the big three (if it was economically viable I am pretty sure that they would do so), at the moment about 35% of all our business is FX but...(and it is a big but from a cost basis) very little is done in the last 2 hours up to 21.00 ...yesterday which was a pretty normal trading day, in the last 2 hours of our trading day (14.3% of our open hours) only 1.5% of FX trades were made...and most of those were closes at 21.00. This is, as I say, a pretty normal break down of trading patterns. I would have to extrapolate from this and say that although people say they would trade in the middle of the night, in actual fact, they dont. This is bourne out by the other SB companies night desks deal numbers (very very low).

As commented before we are commissioning an out of hours platform because (frankly) to actually employ dealers (we would have to employ two more dealers) to cover a tiny fraction of our business does not make economic sense. but I do realise, it does make PR sense.

Simon