The Market Maker 'Myth'

Who was this with - Smart Live Markets or IG?

IG - don't get me wrong - there are some others much, much worse. Some other SB companies have tens or even hundreds of points discrepancy, invented prices, connection problems, massive slippages, suspended dealing etc. So in the greater scheme of things they are quite reasonable.

IMO If one is unfortunate of being played on a regular basis, they stand no chance whatsoever.
 
IMO If one is unfortunate of being played on a regular basis, they stand no chance whatsoever.

That is true. But are you sure you are being played on a regular basis ? I detected not much play from them so far apart from yesterday where their prices lagged another source I use. Could be a technical issue.
 
SLM seem to have major technical problems. Constant requotes, you can get invalid price several times in a row and often experience slippage of up to 7 points on something like EURUSD (and thats not over news). Happens on live and demo platforms (to be honest i think demo is actually worse) which is why i think they are genuine technical issues and not silly games.

I spoke to two guys at SLM yesterday and they did say that the Demo is exactly the same as the live platform, so maybe its not 'someone' rejecting 10 trades in a row, but is in fact just a messed up system, which is a shame because a well functioning MT4 on SB would be excellent.. does anyone know of any other SB / CFD firms that have it?
 
That is true. But are you sure you are being played on a regular basis ? I detected not much play from them so far apart from yesterday where their prices lagged another source I use. Could be a technical issue.

BJ - I don't feel like spending long time trying to find out. If I don't like it - I leave.

About them - I don't use them that much. Must say that price refusals may discourage me from using their services on a regular basis.
 
IG - don't get me wrong - there are some others much, much worse. Some other SB companies have tens or even hundreds of points discrepancy, invented prices, connection problems, massive slippages, suspended dealing etc. So in the greater scheme of things they are quite reasonable.

IMO If one is unfortunate of being played on a regular basis, they stand no chance whatsoever.

That's interesting. I must say that I haven't had any particular problems, although I must stress I'm only talking about their "futures". Perhaps that is not worth monkeying around with because the real prices are what they are being on a proper exchange. Forex might well be very different.

I spent some time running IG's prices alongside those from my futures broker and there was effectively no appreciable difference (again, assuming you're not trying to do very quick, short trades, which nobody in their right mind does with a bucket shop anyway).

I do get slippage on NQ from time to time, although I get it when trading in the real market as well, I think that's just a function of how fast it can move. Try just trading NQ using limit orders, the best trades you'll often get partial fills if you get filled at all. I always enter with market orders, because almost always if there is some slippage it's worth it to get in. That said, my stops and targets are probably quite wide by the standards of most people that do futures intraday, so a half point slip isn't an issue for me compared to someone that's shooting for a few ticks.

I think you've been very fair to them, and I'd agree that among their peers IG are not at all bad. Again, it just comes down to the individual, how and what you trade etc.

To Doom I'd say that you need to treat it as a business, which means not becoming reliant on any one broker or bucketeer. I've tried quite a few, and have a number of accounts that I'm familiar and comfortable with, so the moment I'm not happy with someone I can dump them and resume trading elsewhere without a break.
 
Paz, the IG Future prices are DMA at all times and with them having no transaction fee to enter and exit the trade, its actually more cost effective than most ECN brokers imo... and yes i'd say that IG are the best out of the bunch from experience, i just want a SB firm thats good to have MT4...
 
Paz, the IG Future prices are DMA at all times and with them having no transaction fee to enter and exit the trade, its actually more cost effective than most ECN brokers imo... and yes i'd say that IG are the best out of the bunch from experience, i just want a SB firm thats good to have MT4...

Yeah, when you're trading smaller size they work out good. The wider spread (for example 4 ticks on YM) doesn't get to be an issue unless you're trading enough to make it worth paying commissions, plus platform and data fees if they're not all-in (and if they are you normally look at pretty hefty commissions).

Propsreads can be cheaper (I think ibet financials as well) once you're doing enough trips. I do reasonable size but low frequency, although it shouldn't be too long until I'd be better off moving.

I do like SB though, so if it is possible to stay within that somewhere I will do.

If you don't mind me asking, what's the love of MT4? I've never used it so I don't know. Wasn't there a lot of scandal about a "virtual dealer plug-in" or whatever it was? I'm sure I've read a lot of complaints somewhere.
 
Well its just he functionality that is appealing to me, i have heard good and bad stories but its the most trusted Platform in the world with a 7 figure number of users... also i like how you can hook it up to these MT4 stats programmes that logs your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly % etc.. that seems a pretty cool way of keeping track of how your trading is going because thats not available with the likes of IG or Pro spreads Charts
 
Well its just he functionality that is appealing to me, i have heard good and bad stories but its the most trusted Platform in the world with a 7 figure number of users... also i like how you can hook it up to these MT4 stats programmes that logs your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly % etc.. that seems a pretty cool way of keeping track of how your trading is going because thats not available with the likes of IG or Pro spreads Charts

Oh, OK. I suppose it's back to the thing about what you need. In terms of functionality (horrible word) I need very little really. I've got no indicators and the only thing on my charts are some side to side lines I draw myself, I don't even use trend lines and whatnot. So I don't get any benefit from lots of features, although obviously I appreciate that some people do.

I can see the appeal of a good stats thing, but being fairly low frequency (5 trades is a busy week for me) I don't have a problem doing it manually. The other thing is I don't like to get too hung up on stats, because I found that it would artificially distort my approach
 
(again, assuming you're not trying to do very quick, short trades, which nobody in their right mind does with a bucket shop anyway).

Ok, so I have the wrong mind because I scalp using SB. What's even more wrong is all my scalps work and none of my longer term positions work.

See some of my wrongness from just now. Did someone wants to see 10 winning trades ?

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Sorry Joe, I wasn't referring to you - you're the exception obviously. You b1tch-slap the markets and the bucket shops like they were whores who asked for extra to do DP anal.

I'm talking about regular joes, not Beginner Joes. I know you're a great operator - look at how you work those £0.75 orders into the market. If anyone but a genius tried that they'd send it to the moon or break it wide open.
 
Very good scalping there Joe, impressive! If you keep that up then there's no reason you can't do £10+ per point
 
It's ok if you don't mind being rejected entry 7 times within 4 minutes.

Do you trade manually or use orders? When I work out my entry levels I have less problems with an order- don't have to watch it, either.
 
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