Best Thread Capital Spreads

[MarvinS]

swissgold

amazing.. the web link is a promo/advert it would take me (not the sharpest pencil in the box) about 2 minutes to read .... anyone who freely states "i've been looking at this web page for a long time" would be welcome as a client of ours at any time. The advert is to get people to look at our simulation/demo platform and give SB a go in safety! Only 15% of our demo account holders actually go on to open a live account which means that we lose out on 85% of them who decide after losing 'funny money' using the Sim site that SB is not for them. Our competitors have no such compunction and (aside from limited demos from one or two) just launch clients into real money from day one.

Sorry Marvin

if it is permanent then fine I was just reporting on a conversation I had when calling your dealers as a prospective client where I was told that the offer was only available for a limited time.

If you are able to offer it as a permanent spread then all credit to you. As you cannot possibly hedge within those spreads you must therefore hope to God that your clients lose money! If the management is forced to widen the spreads at sometime in the future please remember your comment here.

From these boards I see you are already rejecting a large number of trades and any consistent winners get placed on 'refer to trader' (as was one of our staff) or words to that effect, this is blatantly unreasonable but quite a good way of ensuring that you only end up with serial losers. Or, as with another client, pleading to be allowed to make 3 or 4 trades a day on his account. How kind of you to allow a client to trade with his own money in such a fashion!

I would love to trade on the Worldspreads platform but unfortunately, on application, I was rejected as presumably I was expected to be a winner (obviously they never saw my trading account with City Index!) we have never rejected an employee of another SB company.

Anyway... enough said .. we do not have arguments with other SB companies and we wish Worldspreads all the best as the more clients and companies who enter the market the better. You will notice that I have not gone to your Worldspreads thread to comment a similar level of respect would be welcome.

As a matter of fact FXmarkets has given us just as hard a time of it on occasion when we did not come up to his expectations.

good trading

Simon

I apologise for converging on your thread but it is a pleasure to of got your attention, noting you are a director of a publicly listed company. I apologise for the miss-communication regarding the 1 pip spreads that we are currently offering and the impression that was made regarding this being purely an offer.

I hope that God is not the only factor for clients to make money in the financial markets as suggested. I would prefer to add that the majority of clients that have signed up to WS are market savvy and rely more on both technical skills and previous trading experiences to make a judgment of the markets. This is definitely one major aspect of the UK derivatives market that has changed in the past few years.

So far the 1 pip spreads has been very successful, both feedback from the majority of our clients and from the vastly experienced risk traders that we have on our desk. Our clients have been under the impression that with currency spot prices at 1 pip and the major index rolling futures at 1 pip, this provides greater transparency of prices. Our management agree that our pricing feed needs rectifying in order to facilitate the increasing demand for the interest we have had. We have had nearly 1000 new accounts in the past month on the basis of this offer and, it is a shame that you will never be able to meet the increasing demand. However if as you put it, our management have got it wrong our spread will only increase by 1 pip to 2 in most cases and at present that looks highly un-likely.

Simon, if you let me know the name of your staff that was referred and please let me know who said “winners get referred to traders” I shall look over our recorded tapes and get that referred to the FSA. If your staff have been unduly discriminated against please let me know.

The client that as you call it, pleaded to be allowed to trade 3 to 4 trades a day has subsequently been resolved in a sensible way. We do not talk down to our clients but resolve things in a sensible business manner. I had been in communication with the trader and we agreed to settle the matter amicably.

WS has the up most respect for clients and we believe that the industry has been lacking transparency and I respect your firm as the singular company to come on this bulletin board and express and answer some genuine opinions. However I believe the industry which has been rather archaic is due for a real transformation as it catches up with the real needs of the derivatives trading market. May I state, that in no way being a bad remark upon Capital Spreads, a true market leader. Well Done Simon!

Regards
MarvinS

 

[JTrader]

However I believe the industry which has been rather archaic is due for a real transformation as it catches up with the real needs of the derivatives trading market. May I state, that in no way being a bad remark upon Capital Spreads, a true market leader. Well Done Simon!

Regards
MarvinS

Lets hope that both WS & CS can continue to lead the way in terms of offering tighter spreads, speed of execution, transparency of service etc. etc. Both compnaies have shown that they WILL answer to their clients..................
I had a chat with another spreadbet comapany beginning with the letter "C" recently, when I started to ask questions about what data dource they derive their spreads from, and on whjat basis are trades filled automatically - I felt like I was under interrogation from the CIA..........
"Do you hold an account with us?"
"Whats your account number?"
"I'm unable to go into the specifics......." etc. etc.

I was made to feel like I had no business asking such questions - and yet they want me to trust them and leave my money at their mercy???
This type of approach does nothing for a service provider, and deserves nothing but mass abandonment by existing clients. Surely a client has every right to know exactly how the service providers systems work inside out?

For both CS & WS - tighter spreads than the competition, fast trade executions at all times, a reliable trading platform, non-biased spreads/prices, open/transparent approach/attitude from staff - This is how to attract and keep custom.

jtrader

http://www.graphicproducts.com/tutorials/kaizen/index.php

What is Kaizen?
A system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety and leadership.

We'll look at Kaizen from three views. What is Kaizen? What are the benefits of Kaizen? What do you need to do to get starting using Kaizen principles?
What is Kaizen?

Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means "continuous improvement". It comes from the Japanese words "Kai" meaning school and "Zen" meaning wisdom.

Kaizen is a system that involves every employee - from upper management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a year, or monthly activity. It is continuous. At Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, 60 to 70 suggestions per employee, per year are written down, shared and implemented.

In most cases these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis--always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness, and reducing waste.

Suggestions are not limited to a specific area such as production or marketing. Kaizen is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made. The Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it ain't broke, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

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Kaizen involves setting standards and then continually improving those standards. To support the higher standards Kaizen also involves providing the training, materials and supervision that is needed for employees to achieve the higher standards and maintain their ability to meet those standards on an on-going basis.

 

[fxwinner22]

wait till you start winning or playing more than £20 a pip - then you will know the real truth about cap spreads.

 

[wasp]

I'm contemplating putting a few orders in for UK stocks in my cap spreads account to test a few theories...

Does anyone know the chance of an order being filled at open or would I be better off waiting and jumping in the second its open for trading?

 

[kevinmcm]

I'm contemplating putting a few orders in for UK stocks in my cap spreads account to test a few theories...

Does anyone know the chance of an order being filled at open or would I be better off waiting and jumping in the second its open for trading?

Chris with CS you cant trade (stocks) in the opening 5 mins. Your theory may be sound, the ability to test it will have to be tried out elsewhere

 

[wasp]

Thanks Kevin, I had a feeling that may have been the case. Wanted to try a few ideas out on a small scale but now obviously not with CS!

 

[capitalspreads]

chris , kevin

the opening five minute limitation is annoying BUT it really is there for reasons that the spread in the real markets are ridiculously wide on the open (even in FTSE 100 stock) as traders for the big market makers try to gauge to market feeling in each stock. Obviously this is not the case in some of the bigger stocks but in the main this is very much the norm. Because our systems highlight orders if 'our quote' reaches the stop/new order level this means that when the spread is very wide on the LSE or the NYSE (or wherever) a huge number of orders would be activated at very disavantageous levels. Even only opening at 08.05 has this problem and we have to wade through a large number of unreasonable stops and reject them. Not only that but also many (less well informed) clients do not realise that these spreads are wider than the norm and trade on them which, when the usual spread is reasserted, results in a large running loss on the open of the bet. We would like to open at 08.00 as it does not benefit us at all to open 5 mins later but in reality it just causes too many problems with irate clients.

Simon

 

[wasp]

Cheers Simon,

No problems and can appreeciate all that, I'll just put in the trades just before close instead. Thanks.

 

[Jbat001]

Fair point Simon - if you want to trade the open - get in last thing the previous night!

 

[Sledgehammer]

Preamble

Hello, some of you may remember me; I haven’t posted for a year or so. I notice some of my old friends are still around, though generally on other threads.

I started full time trading DA about four years ago as a newbie, but quite frankly I couldn’t keep up with my outgoings (school fees, child maintenance, loss of the “former matrimonial home” and having to start all over again etc!). So, last year I went back to my day job. I am a freelance engineer in the oil & gas exploration and production sector. Every day I walk through my client’s front door I get 50 FTSE points, so I’m gradually and slowly sorting myself out.

Capital Spreads

Earlier this year, the trading bug (which never leaves you!) prompted me to have another go. I cannot install any software on my client’s computer so I need a browser based platform. After some research of DA and SB platforms and charting packages, I made the decision that CS was the one to use. I have opened an account, and funded it (though I just took the money out to fund a car purchase, but this next week I will re-instate those funds).

I plan to use a system of entering and exiting on a stop (to use futures parlance), using parabolics. Live charts with parabolics are provided by CS.

Simon comes in for a lot of flack with respect to skewing of their prices. Well, I have checked this issue almost every day and if you hold up to the light his Rolling FTSE chart with a LIFFE FTSE chart you will not see a difference. Clearly there is a delta with the LIFFE price for fair value, but that is of no consequence whatsoever if you are trading the CS price. The fact of the matter is the CS price does seem to absolutely track the real market. So, I’m not sure how other commentators seem to think that there is skewing.

The two point spread seems fair to me, considering the service that CS is offering. You are getting a decent platform and charting at no extra cost. If you develop an emotion-free “mechanical” trading system entering and exiting on a stop then one point slippage on what you may get at the exchange is OK. It should be remembered that if you are trying to work a limit order on the exchange you may not get a fill, and if you have a stop order, as soon as the market trades at that price your order becomes a market order and may not get filled at your price anyway.

I notice that there is some commentary on their systems being down sometimes. Well, I have experienced the same with LIFFE and the CME. And, with them, your broker is unable to get you out of a position till the exchange is back up, and then its pure gambling where the price will open at, if other world markets have been trending in the meantime.

The customer service has been ten out of ten on the few occasions that I have communicated with them, and there is also the opportunity for discussion on this thread.

Simon gets a lot of requests for 24 trading. That personally is not for me. The FTSE day from 0700 to 2100 quite frankly is too long for me. I’m been looking at CS’s Gilt market which is actual market hours 0800 to 1800. At least then you can then go for a few sherbets and sleep at night. You may get stopped out on the open, and maybe not at your stop price if it gaps, but at least you aren’t open to the vagaries of the market in the wee hours. Further, it may be three point spread on the Gilt, but my comments above are still valid and you don’t have all that malarkey with the spread widening outside exchange hours.

All in all, I think that they seem a decent outfit and I’ll give them a go.

 

[coolTrader]

Simon Hi,

I have a quick question for you. How will the MIFID affect you regarding your best execution rules? What are you currently doing to address the directive in your firm?

Do you think it should apply to you(ie spreadbetting companies)?

 

[Jbat001]

Ah, MiFID - the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive. I presume, cooltrader, that like me, you work in the industry, to have even heard of this particular beast?

Since Capital Spreads is FSA regulated, I presume this will indeed apply - what's the practical effects on day-to-day business for you, Simon?

 

[capitalspreads]

Cooltrader / jbat

Mifid is still in 'consultation' but at the moment we do not see too much impact. the comments in Saturdays FT were taken rather out of context. Spread Betting companies are, in general, very keen on
their FSA regulatory structure and would never start to issue ultimations.

and before anyone asks 'no I dont know who Sledgehammer is' !! But I thank him/her for the comments anyway.

simon.

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

Now that Worldspreads is officially up and running with 1pip spreads on indices, surely CS (and the rest, of course) must offer the same if it wants to keep its customers!?

 

[wasp]

Now that Worldspreads is officially up and running with 1pip spreads on indices, surely CS (and the rest, of course) must offer the same if it wants to keep its customers!?

Not when you consider Worldspreads reputation!

 

[fudgestain]

Not when you consider Worldspreads reputation!

Perhaps renamed WorldSpin .. as more apt!

 

[capitalspreads]

comments on Worldspreads

I am really sorry guys but I cannot really comment on competitors. We generally have good, though very competitive, relationships with all the SB companies and, again in general, welcome all new players as they bring more and more clients to the market.



Simon

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

But surely you can comment on whether CS, once the company with thelowest spreads, is going to offer 1 pip on indices?

 

[capitalspreads]

Sorry.. I can answer that .. the answer is no. 1 pip prices are narrower than the exchanges in most cases. We would just be rejecting half the trades we got as soon as the majority of clients realised that 'free money' was on the table and we would ruin our hard earned reputation.

No matter how fast a spread betting system is, they all work on the premise of taking an exchange price into a pricing engine adjusting it and then pushing it out onto the trading platform. This means that there is always a tiny (in some cases very tiny) delay in price movements on the exchange versus the SB platform. At 2, 3 ,4 pips (depending on the market) we can absorb this but at 1 pip we would just lose money to everyone with a direct access system who was not greedy and just took pip after pip after pip. As I understand was happening with our friends. Although I may be wrong.

People may say that the FTSE is 1/2 pip wide on the exchange but in reality it spends most of the time 1 and 1 1/2 pip wide. The Dow is more frequently 2 to 3 pips wide (in more than a couple of contracts) than not. Athough the Euro is 1 pip wide sometimes more often it is not. And sterling occilates between 1,2, and 3 pips. On top of this we have to include dealing costs etc.

We also have to be aware that we are not allowed to give the exact exchange prices to our clients for contractual reasons. At 1 pip wide we would effectively be giving this for free to clients which would open us up to problems with our price feed supliers

I know that many people will discount most of what I have said as just protective of our position but it all remains a fact.

Everything has to be done on a common benefit level, we offer (as do the other SB companies) a simple and generally cost effective route into the derivative/financial markets but at 1 pip wide where is our 'slice' of the action. Every trade would start at a loss for us (as hedging costs us money) and we would be in the position of hoping that clients lose virtually every time.

I would recommend that you look at the various threads concerning this matter which will back up most of the above but from a client experience angle.

PS.. it depends what you mean by tight spreads. If you mean a tight price that you get 99% of the time as against claiming the 'lowest spread' that you get maybe 60% of the time ...which would you rather have?? As I have stated many times on this thread it is much better to have a few accounts opened (with various providers) so that you can benefit from the best prices at any one moment.

Simon

 

[Jyde]

PS.. it depends what you mean by tight spreads. If you mean a tight price that you get 99% of the time as against claiming the 'lowest spread' that you get maybe 60% of the time ...which would you rather have?? As I have stated many times on this thread it is much better to have a few accounts opened (with various providers) so that you can benefit from the best prices at any one moment.

From both this and the WS thread, I think it clear that most people are in agreement with the 99% fills.
As it has been a while since I have seen complaints about your fills - your promise of introducing automated fills in the near future notwithstanding - I would personally be happier with a 2 pip near instantanous fill than a 1 pip cross-my-fingers-and-be-20-seconds-behind-market fill.

All the best...
CJ