Spreadbet provider pop-quiz

[shellhead]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of developing a systematic shares trading system with a holding period of 3-5 days. I plan to execute this via a spreadbet account if possible. I'm wondering which company's offering best matches my hopefully simple requirements and was hoping to crowdsource some information from fellow board-members. My questions are as follows, and are mostly asked with UK/European and/or US share bets in mind:

1/ Submission of limit orders outside of market hours. I have seen that IG Index only accept a new strategy order (i.e. limit order) while there are live prices. I would like to come home from work, download the day's data and then come up with orders for the following day and submit them then and there. I have a job so don't think it's going to be viable to enter 5-10 orders at 08:00 sharp each morning. My orders will be good until the end of the following trading day.

2/ Honouring of opening auction price. This should be a no-brainer and I can't imagine any SB provider would do anything else but if I send an order to buy at 100p for a share then it opens at 95p I would always expect my fill to be at 95p. That's what happens on-exchange if I submit my order into the opening auction. Has anyone encountered an SB provider that wouldn't do this, and that I should therefore avoid?

3/ Automation. I understand GFT have an API they don't market but can be signed up for with a suitably-sized account and NDA-signing. Does anyone else? Or do the NDAs preclude even confirmation/denial of the existence of said APIs? I'm less hopeful on this front, but it's worth asking I suppose... I guess the general absence of APIs is due to the fear of being arbitraged vs. the underlying market,

4/ Funding. Obviously I can check this out but who is the cheapest for overnight position holding? I intend to be broadly balanced between longs and shorts so it's the libor+x fee for longs and libor-x credit for shorts I have in mind (that I think CMC used to apply some years ago).

Any insights from users of SB accounts or even representatives of SB companies most welcome.

Thanks.

 

[shellhead]

Hi Lotontech,

I tried my IG app on iPhone tonight to try a new limit order on a US stock at 22:30. To my surprise it accepted the order just fine. I had tried this for sure in the past 6 months and it had been rejected due to no live price.

I'll try to remember to try as well pre-1430 tomorrow.

Thanks for the suggestion of trying again!

 

[SpreadBeta]

Hi shellhead,

given your requirements I would suggest you take a look at FP Markets SB offering, as it seems the to be the closest of the many SB Cos I have used over the years. Comments below relate to LSE equities, I have no experience of any others on their platform.

1) If you place a limit order on their platform well after the LSE has closed (say > 6pm) the order will sit on your order pad and will (at least in the experiment I did last night), automatically be in effect from 7:50am the next day ready for the Opening Auction. (I think all open orders are however cleared about 5pm-6pm ish so you may need to re-enter orders each evening after 6pm)

2) As FP offer simulated DMA (they hedge 100% of all cleiet orders in the Market) you will get the Opening Auction price + 10bs Spread costs, or will buy at the bid / sell at the Ask during the day (i.e. Crossing the Spread) - A significant cost saving over other SBs where even wth limit ordes you are effectively Buying at the Ask and Selling at the Bid when dealing via their platforms. (You CAN get opening Auction prices and cross the spread with other SBs but this in normally only for larger clients with say £50K+ balance in your account, via phone, as they will simply hedge your order into the LSE and give your the Market price + ? basis points for their spread costs)

3) Not aware of any SB that have an API (if you find one can you post here to let me / others know)

4) I think Funding is Libor +/- 3% or 2.5% - Not sure which. However as the costs of Market entry / exit usually dominates the costs of running any system, as you can see in any backtesting you do (unless it only trades say less than once per month, and holds positions open for all this time). The reduced costs in crossing the spread or obtaining Opening / Closing Auction prices that are obtained via limit orders are therefore much more important that the LIBOR impact to your systems profit / loss.

There is an FP Markets thread somewhere on this board that is worth a read to provide further background info on other pros / cons.