ProSpreads
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The actual mkt spread is shown on the ladder, like you say 1.2 pips wide, then we add or subtract .5 on the bid or offer side, this is advertised on the website, this can be shown on the platform or not, this depends on the trader. But the P&L window always includes the PS spread so shows actual net P&L, maybe not the tightest in all FX pairs but no requotes and instant fills may be of interest.
May I suggest it isn't accurately advertised. The comment at the bottom of the spread table "0-200 Spread: This is the fixed spread charge that is added to the underlying market spread to produce the ProSpreads spead bet price" is misleading as the real figure is double what this table says.
Jack Hughes
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Although I've been accused on other threads of 'having it in' for PS, it always seemed pretty clear about the spreads. The problem is that for the first 200 trades they're too wide.
rawrschach
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They have clearly stated that their spread is added to the underlying spread that the market exhibits, it's not exactly difficult to figure out.
For spreads, it is not difficult to understand. But documents on their website are either rare and out of date. For instance, you don't know the OCO orders even limit/stop orders don't work with the spot FX until you trade and realise those orders either not filled, or pulled when your log out from the Citrix client, or have an Internet problem. I lost a lot and then phoned them. At that time, they told me those orders were not functional yet!!! I had to keep my computer running and watch them! O!
Hi Komplex, you may phone them on Monday to find out yourself. As far as I am aware, the problems were still the same until last week. Actually, those functions have not been fully tested and put in working order yet. Implementation issue. I am not sure why they added the spot FX on the live platform.
Had an interesting issue with a so called margin call today, i.e. my position on ES Mini was closed whilst i was still in margin (by 15 pips).
My position would have turned into a profit. Im so pissed off. I have emailed Simon Brown to see what he thinks. Its not a lot of money as I was only trading 1 contract. (still £350).
We shall see if they value my business and make good their premature action as i have traded over 300 contract trades in the last few months.
I have to say until today I was relativly happy with these guys, I was able to trade on their discounted volume deal so the whole experiance really suited me.
I will post the result good or bad.
My position would have turned into a profit. Im so pissed off. I have emailed Simon Brown to see what he thinks. Its not a lot of money as I was only trading 1 contract. (still £350).
We shall see if they value my business and make good their premature action as i have traded over 300 contract trades in the last few months.
I have to say until today I was relativly happy with these guys, I was able to trade on their discounted volume deal so the whole experiance really suited me.
I will post the result good or bad.
montmorencyt2w
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I don't know how they order things at Prospreads, but if you are talking about stops, that's not the same as margin is it?
Because originally I started trading on a limited-risk account with IG Index, I was shielded from the realities of margin and margin calls. Margin or deposit was directly related to your stop size, e.g. @ £1/point and stop size=100, then margin or deposit=£100, and this never changed so long as the stop wasn't moved.
With non-guaranteed stops in non-limited-risk accounts it's different: there is a margin factor and/or Initial Margin Requirement based on the type of instrument and often the individual instrument and generally, the margin is quite a bit more than with the limited-risk account (obviously to try to guard against stops being over-run in volatile circumstances).
In addition to that, some firms insist that you have a certain percentage of your total margin available as cash in your account in addition to the actual total margin associated with open trades. This can be 100% or it can be e.g. 80 or 90%. If your "available margin" goes below this (and it can vary as the price varies which is the thing that catches you out) then they close your trades. This happened to me once, and I was as annoyed as you at first, but I hadn't understood their rules properly.
Now other firms (e.g. Tradefair, part of LCG) don't do it like that. The margin is set when the trade is opened, and provided you don't move your stop, the margin requirement won't change, so you know exactly where you are. You might still get margined out if a stop overruns badly I guess - I mean the trade with the over-running stop was going to be a loser anyway, but if it causes a margin call, then it might cause other trades to be closed as well that weren't at or near their stops.
I'm guessing that if you read Prospread's rules very carefully, then you will find they were in the right. The lesson would be that you need bags of space in your account for margin, i.e. don't overtrade for the size of your account (easily done though, I find...).
Because originally I started trading on a limited-risk account with IG Index, I was shielded from the realities of margin and margin calls. Margin or deposit was directly related to your stop size, e.g. @ £1/point and stop size=100, then margin or deposit=£100, and this never changed so long as the stop wasn't moved.
With non-guaranteed stops in non-limited-risk accounts it's different: there is a margin factor and/or Initial Margin Requirement based on the type of instrument and often the individual instrument and generally, the margin is quite a bit more than with the limited-risk account (obviously to try to guard against stops being over-run in volatile circumstances).
In addition to that, some firms insist that you have a certain percentage of your total margin available as cash in your account in addition to the actual total margin associated with open trades. This can be 100% or it can be e.g. 80 or 90%. If your "available margin" goes below this (and it can vary as the price varies which is the thing that catches you out) then they close your trades. This happened to me once, and I was as annoyed as you at first, but I hadn't understood their rules properly.
Now other firms (e.g. Tradefair, part of LCG) don't do it like that. The margin is set when the trade is opened, and provided you don't move your stop, the margin requirement won't change, so you know exactly where you are. You might still get margined out if a stop overruns badly I guess - I mean the trade with the over-running stop was going to be a loser anyway, but if it causes a margin call, then it might cause other trades to be closed as well that weren't at or near their stops.
I'm guessing that if you read Prospread's rules very carefully, then you will find they were in the right. The lesson would be that you need bags of space in your account for margin, i.e. don't overtrade for the size of your account (easily done though, I find...).
A Dashing Blade
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1) "A. ProSpreads will endeavour to contact its clients for more margins when the need arises; however, it is always the responsibility of the client to make sure they have enough free equity to hold their open positions. Should a client’s position prove untenable then liquidation or stop loss orders may be placed on the account to close positions automatically and in some cases prior to and therefore instead of the creation of any margin call notice. Clients must ensure that the telephone numbers supplied to ProSpreads are current and operative"
2) An other positions on?
3) Accidentaly hit the "Trade Out" button?
General points . . .
1) You got withing 15 ticks of a margin call on a single futures contract? That is insane.
2) Given that
a) you only seem to use TW2 as a forum for posting your broker problems
b) that you claim to be on their discount volume scheme despite only trading "300 contract trades in the last few months."
c) you go straight to the boss with any complaint
if I were in their shoes, I'd be putting you in the catagory of "client we can afford to lose"
ProSpreads
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We are looking into this issue, and contact you directly.
Dashing Blade - thanks for the post,
Over the last few months Prospreads have averaged about £3000pm in fees, as a company they are very aware (or at least should be) that i have the financial means due to my account activity. I make it clear in my post that Prospreads are very professional, thats why I use them, they are without doubt the best SB in my opionion.
Perhaps you are right and they dont want me as a client, i will just need to wait and see. Im sure within the letter of their T&C they are permitted to do what they did, but if you are honest with yourself they could probably pull any order at their discretion - it does not make it right.
I have contacted the Boss etc
Prospreads did have the decency to call me direct on the matter, unfortunatly Dashing Blade was correct and I am certainly in the catagory of "client they dont want".
They did point out that their T&C allow them to close any position at their discretion, this was never in doubt even by me. This was an issue that discretion on the part of ProSpreads could have paid them dividends - for the sake of £350 they loose thousands per month in fees from me. It probably cost them more than that to aquire me as a customer. Unfortunatly now is the time to move on. I use IG index for my forex trading and will now add futures to that list. The guys at Prospreads are a good personable bunch and I will miss them and their trading platform.
They did point out that their T&C allow them to close any position at their discretion, this was never in doubt even by me. This was an issue that discretion on the part of ProSpreads could have paid them dividends - for the sake of £350 they loose thousands per month in fees from me. It probably cost them more than that to aquire me as a customer. Unfortunatly now is the time to move on. I use IG index for my forex trading and will now add futures to that list. The guys at Prospreads are a good personable bunch and I will miss them and their trading platform.
A Dashing Blade
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Presumably there's a typo in one of those posts?
You're talking with the value of hindsight. would you have been as p1ssed had the market gapped against you?
With the greatest of respect (serious), I'm very happy that my broker pre-emptively closes people who use the maximum leverage possible.
Yes the typo is that I usually trade well over 300 lots "per month", the first 100 lots cost 1 handle per round trip (0.5 added to the spread per side) thats $5,000, then the round trip after this is 0.5 (0.25 added to the spread per side). $2,500 per 100 lots. This is over and above the market spread.
Prospreads are not cheap, what they offer is very good platform, no requotes and fast execution, they do what it says on the tin. My beef is that for paying a premium I would expect my broker to know me as a client, my tolorance, my funding capabilities etc, this can be done by loooking at the trading history, as a business man I do this with my clients, its basic stuff.
This is a matter of principle for, one I cannot possibly win.
Would I be pissed at the market gapping - NO I WOULDNT, I would be dissapointed that I had a non performing trade and move on.
As I have stated - I have closed my account with Prospreads
Prospreads are not cheap, what they offer is very good platform, no requotes and fast execution, they do what it says on the tin. My beef is that for paying a premium I would expect my broker to know me as a client, my tolorance, my funding capabilities etc, this can be done by loooking at the trading history, as a business man I do this with my clients, its basic stuff.
This is a matter of principle for, one I cannot possibly win.
Would I be pissed at the market gapping - NO I WOULDNT, I would be dissapointed that I had a non performing trade and move on.
As I have stated - I have closed my account with Prospreads
A Dashing Blade
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Take a guess at the number of brokers who have gone tit's up over the last 25 years because someone who was catagorised as "he's OK, he's good for the money" turned out er . . . not to be .
Many stockbroker mergers in 1988 (possibly the majority iirc) took place because of client defaults over the 1987 crash.
I really not having a pop here, but pointing out the reality of running a brokerage in this day and age.
Dashing - Im guessing you were or are a broker? I also take your comments in good faith and that you are not having a pop!
Yep I totally get it, its not about the money for me, it was the fact that I had a stop in place, the stop was within limits, it wasnt hit and the trade went to profit.
The problem with being pissed on matters of "principle" is you cannot win, at the end of the day as a customer I felt hard done by Prospreads and will vote with my feet.
I will also take every opportunity to pass on my experiance to anyone willing to listen, on this and any other forum I use. Its amazing the power of a few negative comments can have on placing doubt in the minds of potential clients. I will respond with my experiance to every post or question I see from users soliciting comments about prospreads.
I wished someone had placed such doubts with me. Yes Im bitter and no doubt I will wake up tommorrow feeling less fragile about this.
I did have an issue with IG index over £thousands a while back who despite being large and unpersonable managed the complaint so diffrently, I can say that they kept me as a customer and made me feel valued (and have made back many times more than they spent putting my complaint right). I even received a call from one of the IGIndex directors. I also made a point of posting the fact that I was very happy with the outcome.
When im wrong Im wrong but when you are devalued as a customer there are only a few options open to you to be heard - this is one of them. Yes you do leave yourself open to ridicule and to berated as an underfunded idiot, I however know the circumstances. Prospreads know the facts in the matter, they know the funding turnaround on my account and they know that their actions may have been premature, thats what matters. If it was a 10 lot trade I may actuall get it from their perspective, its the fact that it was a 1 lot with plenty of breathing space on a high threwput account.
To say they acted within their terms is no defence - in fact if we used that as our bible we would never trade as they have the right to close a trade at any point if you are winning or loseing.
It is important to share bad experiances like this, as its only on matters of discretionary decisions that a company can really be judged. At the end of the day business is business and in my opinion Prospreads called it wrong on this occasion.
I do appreciate your comments, they are very valid, at least you care enough to reply