IGMarkets Margin requirements

[trendie]

Am looking to use IGMarkets as another SB option, due to the mainly positive experiences described by most.

I need to understand what "2% margin" means.

IG Markets - Forex

Does it mean that for every £100 I have in my account, I can trade £2 a pip?
(I am used to CMC where its a straight £150 required for every £1 bet I take.)

sorry if this seems incredibly basic.

 

[Lightning McQueen]

Hi trendie
Found this example that explains things ok.

IG Markets - Forex Example

"Opening the position
You decide to go long of the euro against the dollar. Our quote is 1.3452/1.3454, and you buy 5 contracts (the equivalent of E500,000) at 1.3454.

The value of your position is E500,000 x 1.3454 = $672,700. To open the position you supply a deposit of just 2% of the position. Your deposit is therefore 2% x $672,700 = $13,454."

Curious to know why IG markets and not IG index for your needs, if that's not being too nosey

 

[£10kLoser]

Am looking to use IGMarkets as another SB option, due to the mainly positive experiences described by most.

I need to understand what "2% margin" means.

IG Markets - Forex

Does it mean that for every £100 I have in my account, I can trade £2 a pip?
(I am used to CMC where its a straight £150 required for every £1 bet I take.)

sorry if this seems incredibly basic.

IG are like CMC and tell you a straight margin for each instrument - it's just higher than CMC. For example, for the EUR/USD, CMC state £150 while IG state £200. It gets crazy for the GBP/USD at £300. However, if you put in a stop loss (and who doesn't) IG reduces the margin requirement to your stop loss plus 5% of the stated margin. In paractice, this will be a very small margin requirement.

For example, you trade the GBP/USD at £1 a pip witha 50 pip stop loss. In this case, you'd only need £65 in your account to cover the margin requirement.

The other neat thing about IG is that, although they honour stops and limits (even if not guranteed) they are slow to execute them. This means you can manually close the trade several points in your favour after the stop (or limit) has been hit. I can see no reason to pay the extra 3 pips spread for their guranteed stops as 99.9% of the time, the tighter, ordinary stops are honoured - even if they close them two minutes later when the price has moved ten points!

Also, unlike CMC, the price you click is the instant price you get. With CMC, you have to wait for a dealer to actually execute it and that will be at the current price, not the rpice you asked for...

 

[tar]

IG are like CMC and tell you a straight margin for each instrument - it's just higher than CMC. For example, for the EUR/USD, CMC state £150 while IG state £200. It gets crazy for the GBP/USD at £300. However, if you put in a stop loss (and who doesn't) IG reduces the margin requirement to your stop loss plus 5% of the stated margin. In paractice, this will be a very small margin requirement.

For example, you trade the GBP/USD at £1 a pip witha 50 pip stop loss. In this case, you'd only need £65 in your account to cover the margin requirement.

The other neat thing about IG is that, although they honour stops and limits (even if not guranteed) they are slow to execute them. This means you can manually close the trade several points in your favour after the stop (or limit) has been hit. I can see no reason to pay the extra 3 pips spread for their guranteed stops as 99.9% of the time, the tighter, ordinary stops are honoured - even if they close them two minutes later when the price has moved ten points!

Also, unlike CMC, the price you click is the instant price you get. With CMC, you have to wait for a dealer to actually execute it and that will be at the current price, not the rpice you asked for...

I just dicovered the low margin req at IG few days ago when i opened my new account , many traders think Capitalspreads has the lowest req but this is not true , if you put the same stop loss at Igindex u will have lower margin req than capitalspreads ( ex. daily dow 10 compared to 50 , daily ftse 6 compared to 30 , euro 14 compared to 40 , oil 40 compared to 130 ) !!! .( notice : they say they take 5% from normal margin in indices plus your stop loss distance but i didnt see this information in their ticket info , even if they take it will be 22for ftse instead of 30 at CS and 26 for dow instead of 50 at CS )

what u mean they r slow when they excute orders ? does this include orders to open new trade ? maybe market moving fast in your favour and u want to take profit quickly and they didnt excute your order ( order to open ) yet ...

 

[£10kLoser]

what u mean they r slow when they excute orders ? does this include orders to open new trade ? maybe market moving fast in your favour and u want to take profit quickly and they didnt excute your order ( order to open ) yet ...

I didn't say they are slow to execute orders generally, I said they are slow to execute stops and limits - ie. close orders.

 

[tar]

I didn't say they are slow to execute orders generally, I said they are slow to execute stops and limits - ie. close orders.

ok , did u experience any slippage at ( orders to open ) ? did u try their buffer limit ?

 

[£10kLoser]

Never had any slippage yet but then I rarely open trades when the market is moving fast. I've no idea what their buffer limit is!

 

[tar]

Never had any slippage yet but then I rarely open trades when the market is moving fast. I've no idea what their buffer limit is!

refer to their dealingbook

 

[£10kLoser]

OK, I've read about it. Since I only trade gold and major Forex pairs the question of illiquidity doesn't arise for me.

 

[tar]

OK, I've read about it. Since I only trade gold and major Forex pairs the question of illiquidity doesn't arise for me.

As a new client i didnt try it yet but i think u can use it ( to put limit to any possible slippage ) at fast moving markets .

 

[tar]

I tried now to put buffer limit but i couldnt attach a stop with it so i should to pay full margin .