Re recent discussions, I gave up ages ago trying to trade on CS for any fast in-and-out trades, e.g. after major announcements.
Fast in and out after figures is difficult enough to do at the exchange - you are asking for trouble if you try it in the bucket shops. If you don't get filled you could get stuck in a position which is rapidly moving against you, and if you do make profit you may be suspected of picking them off on a latent quote.
This was due to the combination of very slow speed to process a trade - while I might be watching the price turn and move against me - and the "price no longer valid" message. A combination of the two together when trying to exit a trade is the most lethal! I am not aware of having been put on "refer to dealer", though I have not enquired.
I experienced both problems in the course of normal trading. I get the odd requote with CMC, and have seen a price no longer valid on IG once, but it isn't anything too bad with them . I only trade on hourly bars and higher, but the CS execution speed and the price no longer valid message caused me to go elsewhere.
My stakes are small - usually only £1 per point at the moment until I can find a way of making a regular profit. The max. about a year ago was £5 per point. In other words they are probably not targetting those who bet for big stakes, or any of you personally, this is just how their system works and they do it to everyone!
About a year ago their system seemed to execute trades fater and more often - but their price feed lagged behind others. So it was very easy to make profits if one checked another faster price feed. But then they got the price feed faster, but made no improvement to the speed of execution, in fact it looked to me as if it got worse.
It looks like we have just found one of the "nightmare clients" that Simon mentions from time to time. I'm pretty astonished, but it appears that somebody is actually advocating picking SB firms off on slow quotes. With respect, it is people like you that make the SB firms think we are all out to rip them off, and we get bad service as a result! (On the other hand, SB firms should ensure that the prices don't lag - clients are paying for tax free access to the markets, not unreliable third party quotes)
For a few weeks earlier this year I made some profits trading on Worldspreads, who are faster to fill, but was then put on refer to dealer which put an end to the profits. Now I get quick fills with them some of the time, in slow trading periods, but they always monitor trades after major announcements. At least though they will offer you another price - albeit sometimes way different from the one you clicked on - rather than CS's "price no longer valid" which means you have to start all over again and have no idea if the next trade will go through either.
When you made some profits, were you trading normally or were you picking WS off with a faster feed too? As far as I know, there are few SB companies silly enough to ignore trades done after figures! I agree with your second point - at least with CMC you get another price which is one click away from getting you out of that position you don't want to be in, rather than having to wait and pull up another ticket. With CS, not only are you betting on the direction of the market, it is a gamble whether you get filled or not!
I find CS OK for scalping e.g. the FTSE in normal conditions - the price is not moving so fast, so I can usually get a trade filled in time without the price having moved so far that I get the "no longer valid" message. And I will use CS for a trade which I expect to last longer than a few minutes. The spreads are pretty good, after all.
By scalping, do you mean short term trading, or are you using what we might call Simon's definition of scalping (ie picking them off on a slow quote)? Are you actually sitting there with the Z order book and picking off the only bucket shop to offer a decent FTSE spread?
An interesting post mate!
