ODL Markets

[wilko]

The ODL trading window is very similar to the Tradefair one, but ODL's is a bit better designed which is why I would like to use it. However I have used Tradefair spreadbetting for approx six months with not one single problem. Whereas ODL has numerous freezes of the prices each time I test it out. ODL know there is a problem, it is at there end.
Try Tradefair, it has a 1 point FTSE spread and all the UK stocks that I follow have a tighter spread than ODL.

 

[gle101]

The big worry for me is that for the moment you cannot put a stop on the trade apart from the generic stop that's set automatically when you open the position. If the platform logs you out you are left with an extremely large stop order. You are hanging in the wind and literally anything could happen and it's totally out of your hands. Hence for the moment I am reluctant to try the platform at any size.

Hopefully this issue gets resolved sooner rather than later. The comfort I did have from using Capital Spreads and IG Index was that stop orders could be set and I didn't have A SINGLE occasion when either of them stiffed me on one. There were times when you I thought there is no way that stop has been taken because the market gaps but yes it was filled.

Thanks ceydababy for the report. Yes you are absolutely right about this, this problem needs to get fixed, and fast. As of now, I have not signed up with ODL. Luckily I am getting my 100Mbits in and out fiber connection next week, so there shouldn't be a any problem being logged out, when I sign up with them.

 

[marlintrdg]

I have not signed up with ODL. Luckily I am getting my 100Mbits in and out fiber connection next week, so there shouldn't be a any problem being logged out, when I sign up with them.

gle101: I have 100Mbit fiber here and all the SB java/flash platforms hang-up. (1Mb @ the house & 100Mbits @ the office.)

Its the number of hops you need to watch out for outside the UK, anything over 12 and I think it may be a problem, I'm getting over 30 hops on all of them, so I EOD trade instead..

 

[gle101]

gle101: I have 100Mbit fiber here and all the SB java/flash platforms hang-up. (1Mb @ the house & 100Mbits @ the office.)

Its the number of hops you need to watch out for outside the UK, anything over 12 and I think it may be a problem, I'm getting over 30 hops on all of them, so I EOD trade instead..

Thanks for the information. I will ping the IP when I get home, to see how many hops I get. Right now I am abroad for a long holiday. I should enjoy my holiday instead of posting on this forum, ha ha!

 

[marlintrdg]

Thanks for the information. I will ping the IP when I get home, to see how many hops I get. Right now I am abroad for a long holiday. I should enjoy my holiday instead of posting on this forum, ha ha!

a ping is good for a quick test for speed and if the IP is live.

a "tracert" to the same IP will give you the hops and speed along with which routers are holding you up and depending on how cooperative your ISP is, (@100Mbits they had better be cooperative), you may get them to route you around that traffic or provide you with some other solution, but keep bugging them... ISP's are a notoriously lazy bunch!!

Have a good balance of your holidays..

 

[gle101]

a ping is good for a quick test for speed and if the IP is live.

a "tracert" to the same IP will give you the hops and speed along with which routers are holding you up and depending on how cooperative your ISP is, (@100Mbits they had better be cooperative), you may get them to route you around that traffic or provide you with some other solution, but keep bugging them... ISP's are a notoriously lazy bunch!!

Have a good balance of your holidays..

Thanks Marlintrdg, Yes, I usually use a trace route utility when checking out the speed, and numbers of hops it takes to reach the server. I agree this is important, there is a spread betting company iflexspreads.com, their servers are located in Sweden, awful fast is it if you are located in Sweden. In fact, it matters when it comes to execution time and re-quote, especially in a volatile market. Living in the UK is definitely an advantage, as most of the SB companies have their servers located in the UK.

 

[ceydababy]

Thanks Marlintrdg, Yes, I usually use a trace route utility when checking out the speed, and numbers of hops it takes to reach the server. I agree this is important, there is a spread betting company iflexspreads.com, their servers are located in Sweden, awful fast is it if you are located in Sweden. In fact, it matters when it comes to execution time and re-quote, especially in a volatile market. Living in the UK is definitely an advantage, as most of the SB companies have their servers located in the UK.

Pings ??? Without wanting to derail the thread anyone give me a brief heads up on what exactly a ping rate is and what it means !! Thanks in advance

 

[marlintrdg]

Pings ??? Without wanting to derail the thread anyone give me a brief heads up on what exactly a ping rate is and what it means !! Thanks in advance

Ping is the transfer of a packet of data to a destination. It gets passed from router to router until it gets to the destination.

For the ping to work each router needs to be configured to pass on the packet of data and the destination needs to be configured to respond to the ping.

Many people disable the passing of ping and responding to ping requests for security reasons.
Tracert is simply multiple pings.
The packet of data used in a ping includes a number called the TTL.
The router only passes the packet on to the next ip address if the TTL is greater than 1, if it isn't it returns a TTL expired status and the ip address of the router on which it expire.
When the packet is passed on by a router it decreases the TTL by 1.

This means that if you do a ping with increasing TTL values starting at 1 you should find each router that is used to get to the destination ip address.

So this is what tracert does. It actually does each step 3 times so you can get an average

Try it your self "ping www.site.com -i1" will return the ip address corresponding to the first line in the "tracert www.site.com". (include -a to get the name of the router) In this case my firewall (which isn't named)

Ping and Tracert image

The final point to note is that

* a router may not decrease the TTL and so you may not get all the routers.
* a router may be configured to pass on the ping request but not respond,
this will result in a timeout in the tracert but subsequent rows returning
an ip address
* the route each ping takes may be different which can result in the same
router appearing twice. (the internet is just a spider web of networks)

 

[normbeef]

Not to try and de-rail this further. (but I will) .. I might even post a thread about this if anyone is interested..(let me know) . but all you guys trading via the internet should begin to try and understand the dis-advantages that your slow medium and Loop prone connections are giving you...

I happen to be "very" close to current major exchange Technology and I can tell you this much... a PING is no longer granular enough a measure to determine the speed at which the price action is being delivered to the big boys... this is more a subject for the Scalpers among you where every millisecond counts..

and one more thing... a Ping is a return trip message.. it gives an "average" indication of Latency (round trip time)

 

[marlintrdg]

Good follow up and clarification, I'm stuck EOD SB-trading because of it..

 

[grantx]

Normbeef,

I've been told by CQG that execution via their order-routing is fine over the standard internet connection because their servers connect direct to the exchange(s). However, if I use X-Trader, this requires a vpn direct to my clearer which is then re-routed to the exchange. I'm a bit confused.

Another point if I may. I use 8mb broadband (Virgin) but this can be upgraded to 24mb. However, one test I did (can't remember which) showed that the maximum capacity for the exchange line (?) is only 5mb. So what is the point of offering greater capacity when it isn’t available? Are Virgin just taking the p1ss?

How can my friend gle101 achieve 100mb - optic cable or simply better Swedish telecomm infrastructure?

Please see 2-page attachment (if it helps).

Grant.

 

[normbeef]

ok... here it goes...

We must first understand "commercial" Exchange connectivity... which very much depends on the type of things you are trading.. and who your trading with.. so I will take stocks as I know this best.

"Genuine direct market access" (like all the big boys have) will give you prices / execution at sub Millisecond delay.. infact its on average 0.5milliseconds... "one way".. so not even a single millisecond delay !!

Second you must realise that connecting via any kind of internet connection (regardless of who its from in the UK) is massivley slower than direct connections into the various exchanges as they are "dedicated" bandwidth links (like leased lines and Ethernet over SDH) . also your "hop count" will be quite long as you traverse the internet to get to your re-sellers servers. (which in turn might be accessing the exchange via another company or directly ??? depends.. )

Third you must understand the difference between Volume and latency, and the under lying transmission medium / protocols that you are using across your connections. bigger Mbps does not necessarily give you more reliable / faster transmission... that is determined by many different things..

As I said in my earlier post... we have gone way off the subject so if you need a new post.. let me know...

Also that we are talking in the realms of millisecond / sub millisecond delays... so most retail traders will not even know that they are trading against the wrong prices some or most of the time.. this is why the big boys always get there before you... they can be in and out in the blink of an eye..

Sorry to rant on... but I think the above answers your questions... in essence - it depends who you trade with.. and how they are setup...

in relation to DSL... if thats what your buying from Virgin.. you are on a shared medium my friend...so you might be able to "burst" up to 24Mb's but you will not get 24Mbps available day and night... and sweden might well have an extensive fiber network... but if you trades need to get to london.. there is a physical distance problem regardless...

 

[marlintrdg]

Normbeef, Great post, "and now back to our program".

How's ODLS new spreadbetting platform working out, still not cleared to trade with them as yet after a week of paperwork and calls so I re-funded my fins account.

Still very interested to hear what others have to say though..

 

[grantx]

Normbeef,

Thanks for the info.

Grant.

 

[gle101]

Normbeef,

I've been told by CQG that execution via their order-routing is fine over the standard internet connection because their servers connect direct to the exchange(s). However, if I use X-Trader, this requires a vpn direct to my clearer which is then re-routed to the exchange. I'm a bit confused.

Another point if I may. I use 8mb broadband (Virgin) but this can be upgraded to 24mb. However, one test I did (can't remember which) showed that the maximum capacity for the exchange line (?) is only 5mb. So what is the point of offering greater capacity when it isn’t available? Are Virgin just taking the p1ss?

How can my friend gle101 achieve 100mb - optic cable or simply better Swedish telecomm infrastructure?

Please see 2-page attachment (if it helps).

Grant.

Hi Grant, Yes the Internet infrastructure is really up to good standard in Sweden. Also it is a very competitive market. I pay only £25 per month for a 100Mbits service.

Yes you probably have got a ADSL+ connection, still upload is only 1,5Mbits (sending orders). It will be interesting to see if I get an improvement in speed, trading with the UK. Yes I agree, now back to the subject of this thread.

 

[cryten]

Mr Odl if you bring mt4 with ftse and dax i'd pay you for it!

 

[marlintrdg]

Any New news on ODL? been a while..

 

[Phil Mibbutz]

Platform OK now, and zero spread on FTSE. Let's see the other SBs follow that!

 

[wilko]

Just tested ODL and prices still freeze unfortunately, so I am using Tradefair which has tighter shares spreads but the software isnt so well designed as ODL

 

[grantx]

Gle101,

Apologies for not acknowledging your post.

"£25 per month for a 100Mbits service" and everyone is very tall, blonde, healthy and young. People often ask me if I'm Swedish (or is that a turnip?).

I like the sound of Sweden. Is it expensive for a house, for example (just curious)?

Grant.