CFD's/Spread Bet Brokers recommendations sought

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kenhetherington

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I need to change my CFD broker because I am not happy with their trading platform.

I would be grateful for recommendations, issues or observations anyone has on either CFD's providers or Spread Bet firms.

The issues most important to me, in order of decreasing importance are:

  1. A system which does mindlessly execute a stop at a ridiculous price when there is a rogue trade i.e. a price that bears no relationship to those immediately before or after it
  2. narrow dealing spreads/and/or commission rates
  3. good trading platform and reliable back office back up
  4. ability to set trades, vary stops or limit orders out of market hours
  5. a wide choice of tradeable instruments, including small cap stocks, indices, us indices etc
  6. customer focussed organisation

Many thanks
Ken
 
kenhetherington said:
eTrade
Click to expand...

A friend of mine use CMC spredbet from more than 4 years and she has about 40k in her acc,and she seem to be happy with them.

As for my self i use minicfd.com for trading CFD's but i dont recomend it for day trading.
 
cecja said:
A friend of mine use CMC spredbet from more than 4 years and she has about 40k in her acc,and she seem to be happy with them.

As for my self i use minicfd.com for trading CFD's but i dont recomend it for day trading.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I was looking at them (CMC). How do they treat stops - I am especially interested in that one. I had a reply from them (sales guy) that was not helpful. He said if there was a rogue trade stops might be triggered. And I could avoid it with a guaranteed stop. Totally missing my point. If the stop is likely to be triggered by a rogue trade I want a system that ignores rogue trades. So far City Index's policy of referring all triggered stops to a dealer who decides if they are valid seems a good one. If he decides its a rogue trade its ignored.

Ken
 
What is it that you dont agree with racer. I realise that having a broker intervene is not without some risk but I think it is preferable to what I described. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating of course.

How does BNI handle rogue trades that could trigger a stop loss.?

Ken
 
LION63 said:
Racer,

Kindly elaborate.
Click to expand...

What happens with them when a rogue trade substantially below the previous trading range, and transient, (few seconds) would hit a stop loss that has been sensibly set. Do they trade it automatically on the basis that if a trade takes place at or below the stop , the stop becomes a market order and is executed no matter what the price prevailing is. Or do they ignore what are clearly rogue price points?

Ken
 
In my experience the dealer looks at the trade(s) and decides if it is a genuine trade or not, in the event that he decides it is a rogue trade or a trade of negligible size, your limit or stop order will not be filled. What happened to me recently was that I had 2500 BSkyB shares (equivalent) and the trade that went through the market was 300 shares, it was not filled on the basis that it was not of significant size relative to mine. The prevailing price is what they are particular about and the sizes of trades executed at that price.

Neither do they fill orders first thing in the morning based on carried over trades ( trades that were executed the previous day).
 
customer focussed organisation
Click to expand...

CMC do NOT fulfil that and that is something I would view as a priority when chosing anything.

I have spoken to a lot of traders over the years and can honestly say that those who has been with CMC for a while look elsewhere for their requirements
 
LION63 said:
In my experience the dealer looks at the trade(s) and decides if it is a genuine trade or not, in the event that he decides it is a rogue trade or a trade of negligible size, your limit or stop order will not be filled. What happened to me recently was that I had 2500 BSkyB shares (equivalent) and the trade that went through the market was 300 shares, it was not filled on the basis that it was not of significant size relative to mine. The prevailing price is what they are particular about and the sizes of trades executed at that price.

Neither do they fill orders first thing in the morning based on carried over trades ( trades that were executed the previous day).
Click to expand...

That is excellent - and just how it should be IMHO.

Which broker do you use btw?

Ken
 
Racer said:
CMC do NOT fulfil that and that is something I would view as a priority when chosing anything.

I have spoken to a lot of traders over the years and can honestly say that those who has been with CMC for a while look elsewhere for their requirements
Click to expand...

That is interesting.

Thanks for that.

Ken
 
CMC Plc.

Ken, please remember that there is a drawback with this method of filling orders eg. if we assume that one bought 5000 Aviva shares and placed a stop at 600p, trades come in for 250 at 600p, 300 at 598p , 400 at 596p; sadly no fill and then bang 5000 or more at 580p. That is where you get filled.
 
I understand. I realise that nothing is perfect. However If the stock was trading regularly below my stop loss I would be out. If I had to do it manually.

Ken
 
kenhetherington said:
eTrade
Click to expand...

E*trade UK pays Saxo Bank to use Saxo's platform, which is white labeled to E*trade. That may explain the problems you encountered. When we traded with Saxo, using the same platform it white labels to E*trade, Saxo intervened against and refused to fill our limit orders. I wonder if that also happened to you. I wonder also if the software for the platform is set up to beat the customer, either or both as you describe -- with price spikes to stops -- or as we encountered, with limit orders profitable to the customer dishonored.
 
Last edited:
Chris Hood said:
E*trade UK pays Saxo Bank to use Saxo's platform, which is white labeled to E*trade. That may explain the problems you encountered. When we traded with Saxo, using the same platform it white labels to E*trade, Saxo intervened against and refused to fill our limit orders. I wonder if that also happened to you. I wonder also if the software for the platform is set up to beat the customer, either or both as you describe -- with price spikes to stops -- or as we encountered, with limit orders profitable to the customer dishonored.
Click to expand...


Thanks Chris for your comments. It is hard for me to speculate the precise underlying issues, but what is totally clear to me is that the system does not work in my favour and actually works, or potentially works, against me some of the time - and by no means rarely. I would go as far as saying that the stop loss system is worse than useless. Useless means that it doesn't have a benefit. It has the potential to create artificial losses in the typical volatile conditions that now prevail.

If you put on what would be considered a sensible stop loss then you are running a reasonably high risk of being stopped out by a rogue trade of transient price spike. If you put on very wide stops then you might as well not bother. I have taken off my stops and am reduced to watching the open positions till I am ready to manually close them. Naturally I do not consider this a satisfactory long term arrangement. So I am not opening any new positions with eTrade.

One of the positions I am in AUN at eTrade suffered the precise kind of transient dip in price to just below what my stop would have been, and as it is currently profitable I would have gone instantly from profit to loss. Happily I had no stop in place so it didn't happen.

It is paradoxical that a stop loss with that system actually increases the risk to the trader! For those that can spend less time than I can in front of a computer, its a sad state of affairs.

Ken
 
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