Newbie needing broker advice

[phoenix25140]

Relative newbie here, im at the stage of taking the plunge into the markets with larger amounts.. god help me.

Ive been using Betfairs financial trader, Tradefair, as a test platform with small amounts £1/2 per point but the market depth is extremely poor.

Could anyone suggest a SB company with a large market stock depth including DAX, CAC40, SPDR ETF's.

I will be placing maximum £5/6 per point on 7/8 trades per week.

Prospreads? Ive been scared off so many by nightmare stories on this site.

Thanks guys,
N

 

[mike.]

How about f.p markets, i was recommended them by a t2w member, DMA spreadbetting, The platform was a a bit to hard for me to understand without been being taught, But maybe just what you are looking for.

FP Markets DMA Spread Betting | DMA Spread Betting Explained | Spread Betting | FP Markets

 

[capitalspreads]

phoenix

if you are using tradefair there is easily enough liquidity for that size .. also tradefair does not do £1/2 a point. The minimum bet size is £1.. are u sure you are not using their LMAX product?

trades up to £50 a point or so would not even register on the dealer screens...

i am not sure what the nightmare stories are on prospreads as we do not seem to get actual client complaints.. nearly all the comments are from people who have never actually opened an account... let alone traded on it..


Simon

 

[gle101]

phoenix

if you are using tradefair there is easily enough liquidity for that size .. also tradefair does not do £1/2 a point. The minimum bet size is £1.. are u sure you are not using their LMAX product?

trades up to £50 a point or so would not even register on the dealer screens...

i am not sure what the nightmare stories are on prospreads as we do not seem to get actual client complaints.. nearly all the comments are from people who have never actually opened an account... let alone traded on it..


Simon

I am one of the traders that have been waiting for Prospreads to introduce an automatic stop loss feature. One don't need to be trading live with Prospreads to grasp the important need for it. Honestly Simon, you are not suggesting that a "relative newbie" should be trading without an automatic stop loss feature are you?

Otherwise, I think Prospreads are quite good and I cannot find any horror stories about them.

 

[capitalspreads]

automatic stop losses are a bit difficult when the trades go direct to the exchange as most exchanges do not recognise orders as being attached to positions... this is because positions are fungible across brokers... i.e I could buy FTSE futures via Goldman Sachs and sell then via Fortis but they will both clear (at the end of the day) into my account.. so i could hardly put a stop order with Goldman as they would have no idea about my Fortis trade.

i am also reasonably sure that, with most futures exchanges, orders get cancelled at the end of each day and it is up to the brokers to reinstate client orders.

with normal non-DMA SB companies there is no fungibility at all . you cannot open a position with Capital Spreads and close it with IG index... all your trades must go thorough a your single provider. which makes it easy to attach orders to existing positions.

if it was simple we would do it... and we are working on a solution .. but .. we have a large number of other projects as well.

gle101

to be honest i would recommend that a newbie start small with a non-DMA platform (i.e capital spreads) with the smaller sizes and heavy control features they allow. ... even after ten years of this i still consider (personally) a £10 FTSE position (1 futures contract) to be a reasonably large position. A client can make or lose hundreds of pounds a day with just £5 FTSE bets .... which seems rich enough to me.

Simon

 

[Lightning McQueen]

How are CapitalSpreads from handling £100-£200-£300 per point on the DAX and Wall St, would there be any issues with manual dealing or delays?

you'll not get past a couple of pound a point you clown

 

[Lightning McQueen]

Are you REALLLLY that lonely and bored with nothing else to do in your life than to stalk me round a forum on each thread at 01:05 in the morning?

you're starting from a £100 pound pot, don't you think you're getting slightly ahead of yourself asking about £100-£200-£300 per point on the DAX and Wall St

 

[Lightning McQueen]

The question was aimed at those stake sizes as with 35% compounding, the £100pp stake size will start between trade 10-13, based on the spreadsheet should things to to plan. Hence why I asked the question.

spreadsheet? what this one?

well you tried that already, blew up spectacularly quick by all accounts, then disappeared along with the subs money that you mugged off your victims.

 

[Lightning McQueen]

then post the statement to your thread, easy as pie, just do it

 

[capitalspreads]

Griffin

we have no particular problem with these sizes but you must bear in mind the actual underlying liquidity.

£100 a point in the Wall Street is the equivalent of 30 dow contracts ... it is rare that the market has this type of volume on a 1 pip wide spread. for instance as i write the dow future has volumes of 4 contracts by 3 contracts (i.e about £12/£9 !! ) and the FTSE of 4 contracts by 2 contracts (i.e £40/£20).. so clients should appreciate that by accepting trades of 100s of pounds a point the SBcompanies are, in general, offering far greater liquidity than there normally is available on the 'real' market.

This said we do have a lot of clients who trade in these sizes (£100 point and greater) .. and they seem to stick with us..

Simon

 

[gle101]

automatic stop losses are a bit difficult when the trades go direct to the exchange as most exchanges do not recognise orders as being attached to positions... this is because positions are fungible across brokers... i.e I could buy FTSE futures via Goldman Sachs and sell then via Fortis but they will both clear (at the end of the day) into my account.. so i could hardly put a stop order with Goldman as they would have no idea about my Fortis trade.

i am also reasonably sure that, with most futures exchanges, orders get cancelled at the end of each day and it is up to the brokers to reinstate client orders.

with normal non-DMA SB companies there is no fungibility at all . you cannot open a position with Capital Spreads and close it with IG index... all your trades must go thorough a your single provider. which makes it easy to attach orders to existing positions.

if it was simple we would do it... and we are working on a solution .. but .. we have a large number of other projects as well.

gle101

to be honest i would recommend that a newbie start small with a non-DMA platform (i.e capital spreads) with the smaller sizes and heavy control features they allow. ... even after ten years of this i still consider (personally) a £10 FTSE position (1 futures contract) to be a reasonably large position. A client can make or lose hundreds of pounds a day with just £5 FTSE bets .... which seems rich enough to me.

Simon

Thanks Simon for your answer. Yes I agree entirely on your answer to my post. I do not know exactly how it works with stop loss orders, but I guess you have a limit order internal and as soon as it is hit it will convert to a market order? I take for granted that most orders are after all internal with Prospreads?

 

[level_headed]

Thanks for the reply Simon, I will be opening an account with you sometime this week.

Under what name??

 

[capitalspreads]

level -headed

i used to worry about comments on this thread by clients or potential clients... and sometimes (when it was somebody who was obviously a loser trying to blame us) I used to try to find out who they were by the info they placed on the thread..

but now it seems pointless. ... either a client wins or loses .. nothing i can do or say will make any difference to this fact of life..

three days ago clients (as a whole) lost a packet on the dow/s&p big fall.. but the next day they made all of it, and more, back again.... maybe not the same clients but as a group.... worrying about individuals is fruitless.

Simon

 

[BeginnerJoe]

If you don't want to then thats totally fine and understandable.

I will give you my personal guarantee he will agree or I will let you take me for libel.

 

[capitalspreads]

griffin

no probs.. good or bad i will put up your trade blotter (if one of my guys can show me how!)

simon

 

[capitalspreads]

samir

never seen it... but i am sure that somebody has probably done it with one of the SB companies... if a client is very good we just end up hedging every trade.

simon

 

[peakoil]

samir

"... if a client is very good we just end up hedging every trade.

simon

Pardon me but as an aside your last comment above has made me curious - insofar as, from a SB company's perspective, is a client judged as being 'very good' based on (A) frequency of success over x period of time, or, is (B) a very sizeable amount earned over the very same given period of time, the more relevant determinant as to any given client's being judged as 'very good'?

In other words, Client 1 is unusually successful over x period of time (or whatever may be the minimum relevant period by which success is judged) because he wins in at least 70% of his bets, but wins significantly less of an overall profit compared to Client 2, who is successful in only 55% of his trades over whatever may be the same, yet relevant, period of time, but nonetheless makes considerably more overall profit than client 1, because of his position sizes. Which of these clients, from a SB company's perspective, is judged as being 'very good'? Or, is it that both are thought of as being 'very good' and accordingly both are worthy of being hedged?

Cheers.

 

[capitalspreads]

peakoil

there are no hard and fast rules and (you may be surprised to learn) some 65% of all trades taken by Capital Spreads are profitable for the clients.

In general for us to take notice of a clients activity they have to be consistently successful (over three months to start with) ... they have to be in size that impacts our book.... and (generally) they must be lower frequency traders (i.e not trading 20/30 times a day)...In general constantly trading in the open market would cost us a great deal of money so we do as little as is necessary to keep our overall market risk in line with permitted regulatory exposure limits.

this cuts the number of what we call 'marked risk' clients down to quite a small number in relation to the overall winning number of clients..

Also most of our biggest winners are long term holders in equity (single stocks) markets and we hedge nearly all our exposure in these markets anyway.

simon

 

[peakoil]

peakoil

there are no hard and fast rules and (you may be surprised to learn) some 65% of all trades taken by Capital Spreads are profitable for the clients.

In general for us to take notice of a clients activity they have to be consistently successful (over three months to start with) ... they have to be in size that impacts our book.... and (generally) they must be lower frequency traders (i.e not trading 20/30 times a day)...In general constantly trading in the open market would cost us a great deal of money so we do as little as is necessary to keep our overall market risk in line with permitted regulatory exposure limits.

this cuts the number of what we call 'marked risk' clients down to quite a small number in relation to the overall winning number of clients..

Also most of our biggest winners are long term holders in equity (single stocks) markets and we hedge nearly all our exposure in these markets anyway.

simon

Many thanks for assuaging my curiosity Really appreciated reading your very interesting response, as that's been something which I've pondered from time to time, particularly when so called 'successful/winning clients' are referred to.