I noticed that there is no thread for discussing Saxo Bank on this forum. Has anyone had any experience in dealing with them? If so what are your thoughts?
This is what I think.
IMHO their spreads are too wide (3 Point FTSE, 7 Point Dow, 5 point CABLE), margin requirements too great (10% on indices since the August volatility!) and their platform is too unreliable and slow. Also for the DMA CFD's you need to pay a monthly subscription fee to the relevant exchanges while ig markets give this for free. Saxo's overnight financing is LIBOR plus 3, which is edging on the more expensive side.
There is a 10 Basis point mark up on the Equity CFD's and that isn't DMA. IG's DMA is 10 and CMC is 8 basis points for non DMA.
One good thing is the ability to use stocks and bonds as collateral for speculative trading, which I imagine would appeal to people with a mix of long term views and short term. Also 160 fx pairs is very impressive, despite the fact that the spreads are very variable around news and wide for the rest of the time.
Also you find that if you do less than 1/2 a lot on the major FX pairs (£50,000 on cable for example, roughly £2.50 a point) you will get a $10 fee to cover administration. Now this wouldn't bother most people who trade heavily and have a sizable amount of risk capital but for a newbie over £2.50 per point is alot of risk and can be a very easy way to loose money.
Your fund's arn't segregated either but if you hold less than 40,000 euro's then you are protects by the Danish FSA.
They do however offer trailing stops and have a very good in house analyst team. They also give you UBS, BARCAP and Commonwealth bank of Australia FX analysis for free which is a good perk. Also you can see you entry points and pending orders on the charts which is handy, although you can't drag them up and down on the graph into new positions like GFT.
In short - Very expensive compared to competition, nice platform and range of fx pairs, lots of instruments on their platform but don't like the lack of fund segregation, the sizable and variable spreads plus the fact Saxotrader 2 seems very unreliable and freezes and crashes more than others I have used. Also im not sure if I would trust the Danish FSA as I would the english. They have had their authorization passported into the UK but they are still supervised by their home regulator.
Personally as a Spreadbetter I don't see any reason to switch to their services as they are very expensive, the platform is unreliable, the margin requirements would't allow me to diversify as much as I would like too and of course it's not tax free.
Im sticking to spreadbetting for now and when I need to upgrade it's straight to Interactive Brokers.
Any thoughts?
JK
This is what I think.
IMHO their spreads are too wide (3 Point FTSE, 7 Point Dow, 5 point CABLE), margin requirements too great (10% on indices since the August volatility!) and their platform is too unreliable and slow. Also for the DMA CFD's you need to pay a monthly subscription fee to the relevant exchanges while ig markets give this for free. Saxo's overnight financing is LIBOR plus 3, which is edging on the more expensive side.
There is a 10 Basis point mark up on the Equity CFD's and that isn't DMA. IG's DMA is 10 and CMC is 8 basis points for non DMA.
One good thing is the ability to use stocks and bonds as collateral for speculative trading, which I imagine would appeal to people with a mix of long term views and short term. Also 160 fx pairs is very impressive, despite the fact that the spreads are very variable around news and wide for the rest of the time.
Also you find that if you do less than 1/2 a lot on the major FX pairs (£50,000 on cable for example, roughly £2.50 a point) you will get a $10 fee to cover administration. Now this wouldn't bother most people who trade heavily and have a sizable amount of risk capital but for a newbie over £2.50 per point is alot of risk and can be a very easy way to loose money.
Your fund's arn't segregated either but if you hold less than 40,000 euro's then you are protects by the Danish FSA.
They do however offer trailing stops and have a very good in house analyst team. They also give you UBS, BARCAP and Commonwealth bank of Australia FX analysis for free which is a good perk. Also you can see you entry points and pending orders on the charts which is handy, although you can't drag them up and down on the graph into new positions like GFT.
In short - Very expensive compared to competition, nice platform and range of fx pairs, lots of instruments on their platform but don't like the lack of fund segregation, the sizable and variable spreads plus the fact Saxotrader 2 seems very unreliable and freezes and crashes more than others I have used. Also im not sure if I would trust the Danish FSA as I would the english. They have had their authorization passported into the UK but they are still supervised by their home regulator.
Personally as a Spreadbetter I don't see any reason to switch to their services as they are very expensive, the platform is unreliable, the margin requirements would't allow me to diversify as much as I would like too and of course it's not tax free.
Im sticking to spreadbetting for now and when I need to upgrade it's straight to Interactive Brokers.
Any thoughts?
JK
