CMC Left Out in the Cold

[Jack Hughes]

Thought I'd look in at CMC again. Clicked on 'Compare Our Spreads' to find all the major indices and FX markets twice as wide as most, or four times in the Dow's case. They must be losing a lot of business.

 

[gle101]

Thought I'd look in at CMC again. Clicked on 'Compare Our Spreads' to find all the major indices and FX markets twice as wide as most, or four times in the Dow's case. They must be losing a lot of business.

Yes, why trade with CMC when they are a lot more expensive compared to other players in the industry, at least on the indices. I guess they soon have to take some kind of action, look at IG, it took ages before they acted on a spread cut. IG is definitely a leader in the industry, one thing is for sure, the others have to follow in order not to lose market share.

 

[Jack Hughes]

Yes, why trade with CMC when they are a lot more expensive compared to other players in the industry, at least on the indices. I guess they soon have to take some kind of action, look at IG, it took ages before they acted on a spread cut. IG is definitely a leader in the industry, one thing is for sure, the others have to follow in order not to lose market share.

CMC also need to improve their platform, which may have been good ten years ago, but seems slow and cranky now.

 

[gle101]

The client is getting more sophisticated and demands a good service. I also believe they are much more mobile compared to 5 years back. They will not stick around if they can spot a much better deal and platform service elsewhere. I also think the MiFID financial directives will play a more active part in the near future. Pressure will be put on institutions to act in line of the regulations at hand, and for the protection of clients. What is happening in the US right know will spill over to the SB industry, resulting the SB industry will adapt to regulations and financial directives.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

The client is getting more sophisticated and demands a good service. I also believe they are much more mobile compared to 5 years back. They will not stick around if they can spot a much better deal and platform service elsewhere. I also think the MiFID financial directives will play a more active part in the near future. Pressure will be put on institutions to act in line of the regulations at hand, and for the protection of clients. What is happening in the US right know will spill over to the SB industry, resulting the SB industry will adapt to regulations and financial directives.

I wonder if that will lead to enforced lower leverage. Could be interesting.

 

[Jack Hughes]

I wonder if that will lead to enforced lower leverage. Could be interesting.

And enforced bankruptcy in a few cases, I expect.

 

[tim3]

As a long term customer of CMC I think they are really being left behind now for the following reasons.
1,Their spreads are not competative anymore look at ig at 2 points for the dow and a better platform imo or city who although they do not havea as good a chart package 1 point dow spread is a massive saving on cmc's 4 points.

2,Their chart platform is if anything worse than it was a few years ago the updates seem to of made it worse!
3,They have not added more features like iphone dealing and trailing stops like others have.

I have emailed them twice now to ask about spreads and recieved no reply so have taken most of my money out and mainly use city index now and will probably use ig in the future too.

They really need to get their act together and quickly!!

All in my opinion.

 

[Visaria]

Do CMC base stop orders on the underlying market or on their quotes?

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Do CMC base stop orders on the underlying market or on their quotes?

I am fairly sure that any and every SB firm would say that it is based on their quote.

 

[Visaria]

When did they change - they used to base stops on the underlying market.

 

[alex2006]

I have been a customer with CMC Markets for long long time since they were called deal4free. They used to have fixed tight spreads in the industry in teams of forex betting. Now they have variable and wider spreads in comparison with other players. I stopped trading with them because for years, I could not set stop/limit until my orders became live.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

When did they change - they used to base stops on the underlying market.

If they definitely said that, then fair enough; I stand corrected.

I googled around looking for some definitive statements (from any SB firm) and could not find it in terms of stops. Most references to underlying market were to spreads,
for example this from Capital Spreads:

"We make a spread around the live, underlying market price and you can bet on whether this market will rise or fall. "

"We make our profit from the spread we add to the underlying market prices, which result in our quotes."

http://www.capitalspreads.com/public/whatis.shtml



http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/Stop-orders.html


Q. Are there any companies that allow me to use the market prices to trigger the stop and limit orders, which would then transact at the firms prices?

I'm quite happy using spread betting as my main trading instrument for the time being, and have slowly but surely made money in my first year of trading, but if I could use market prices to trigger the stop and limit orders, which would then transact at the firms prices, it would make my job of automating my trading whilst I'm at work a whole lot easier.

A: Yes, some do offer market price but I'm not sure which although I think Man do even though I believe only on daily cash prices.

"Market Price Order Orders can be left on a market basis. This means that if the underlying market triggers your order, you will be filled on our current quote."


But who knows?

Maybe your best bet is to email their helpdesk and ask them.

 

[Jack Hughes]

Finspreads used to offer 'at market'. I never understood this because you can only trade at the price quoted by the SB, so the real market price must be incidental?

 

[Umbrella]

Thought I'd look in at CMC again. Clicked on 'Compare Our Spreads' to find all the major indices and FX markets twice as wide as most, or four times in the Dow's case. They must be losing a lot of business.

Interesting find, Jack. I'm seeing a lot more advertising in papers/online from City Index and IG this year. CMC splashed out a hugh amount of money on the whole james nesbitt IQ thing.

I've read a recent report somewhere that IG has close to 50% market share now. I wonder if one day a cash rich bank would put in a bid for it? It's only worth a couple of 'b'. GS anyone?

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Interesting find, Jack. I'm seeing a lot more advertising in papers/online from City Index and IG this year. CMC splashed out a hugh amount of money on the whole james nesbitt IQ thing.

I've read a recent report somewhere that IG has close to 50% market share now. I wonder if one day a cash rich bank would put in a bid for it? It's only worth a couple of 'b'. GS anyone?

I was going to say "heaven forbid", but it's too late:

Nowadays CMC is one of the global leaders in online derivatives, have an annual transactional turnover of about £1 trillion and Goldman Sachs have acquired a 10% stake in the business in 2007 which netted Mr Cruddas with £140m.

from:

http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/CMCmarkets.html