IG Markets - Platform Faults & Gotchas

[adds]

In regards to my previous post about IG Markets charts being unable to chart exact open/close prices. Quote from IG Markets:

In regards to your query, please be advised that the discrepancy on charts are due to our chart provider is based in the UK. They are programmed to run from midnight to midnight so the information will not match our platform for daily open and close prices. The charts have always been set up like this unfortunately we can not change them to be synchronised with the market open and closed prices for pure deal.

I believe this could affect your technical analysis especially when charting penny stocks.

 

[wayno76]

Hey guys, heres my

I've been trading with IG for about 2yrs now with and am quite happy.
I scalp AU/USD and there have been many times I have been stopped out on unusually large spikes, but also my limits have been hit by these abnormal spikes.

On friday I encountered a glitch that went in my favour.

I had 6 contracts on and decided to take my profit before the US NFP data was released so I proceded to close all positions. I closed one and while it was processing I tried to close another and it crashed. I opened it up again and the same thing happened. I was getting quite frustrated but by the time I opened it up again for the third time I had gained another 60 pips on the remaining four contracts. I closed them one at a time and all was good.

I was F!@#$%! stoked!

 

[el caballo]

But is that really the type of broker to work with, given the unreliability? That platform crashes far too often from my experience.

 

[MONEYKING]

In regards to my previous post about IG Markets charts being unable to chart exact open/close prices. Quote from IG Markets:

Hi guys
Is anybody using MFGlobel (eMidas is there platform)for CFDs i am using them but have never heard of anybody in the chat rooms using them.I use to use CMC 3-years ago but those days they were market makers and they were always on the win side .I am trading only futures SPI now threw MFGlobel Futures(Pats platform) but still use my CFD platform to run on my other 2-screens the top 20 shares and to look at the XJO (CASH) charts it helps me with my trading during the day.Is there any reason why nobody is using them or now something that i don't now.Could anybody tel me if i can trade the SPI futures threw IB and if they have a good trading platform.

Cheers

 

[Joe Blow]

MONEYKING:

Please get into the habit of closing your quote tags so we know who's saying what.

See this thread if you are unsure about the quote tags: https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2737

Thanks!

 

[steve2222]

Hi Apocalypto..
That is quite a mouthful to spell on a Y day...
Are you still using Heinekin Ashey... I have an indicator coded now that gives it on a Multi-time frame (8 Time frames ) on the one chart i.e 5.. 15.. 30..60..240.. 1440..10080. and 43200.. min on the 5 min chart.. give us a hoy if you want it... (try doing that working out minutes when you've had a couple or five.. ).. (and thank heavens for the spell chequer )...

Cheers
............Kauri

P.S. little boxes down below are the heineken Asheys...

P.P.S. Untill an Aussie Broker goes with MT4 I ams taying with IG...

Hi Kauri,

Is this indicator still available? Does it work with IG Markets current web based charting package from IT-Finance?

 

[BradK]

I had an account with IG Markets - and their motto should be 'GOTCHA' - have three other mates who have closed their accounts.

Can't be bothered going into the details - what's the point. Just wanted another opportunity to put the boot in once again to this 'company'

Brad

 

[steve2222]

I had an account with IG Markets - and their motto should be 'GOTCHA' - have three other mates who have closed their accounts.

Can't be bothered going into the details - what's the point. Just wanted another opportunity to put the boot in once again to this 'company'

Brad

So who do use now Brad? Or have you gone with a broker like IB?

 

[Bobby]

I had an account with IG Markets - and their motto should be 'GOTCHA' - have three other mates who have closed their accounts.

Can't be bothered going into the details - what's the point. Just wanted another opportunity to put the boot in once again to this 'company'

Brad

Many would like to hear those details Brad , thats what good forums are all about !
IG should be very sensitive to criticism , easy to guess why

 

[nsim]

Another gotcha, which is probably related to the one adds reported.

The ProScreener module of the Realtime-Charts (IT-Charts) does not seem to work properly for Australian stocks, as the results it reports seem to be out by one day. My example is a simple SCREENER which looks something like:

ma200 = Average[200](close)
filter200 = ma200[1] < ma200 AND high > ma200 AND low < ma200 AND low[1] > ma200[1]
SCREENER[filter200]

When I ran it yesterday after the close of the Australian market it gave me some list of stocks, but all of them were already one daily tick ahead of this filter. By hand I found that CSL met the criteria, but was not on the list. So today (2:30pm) I ran the screener again and CSL is now on the list. Which is no good to me, as I needed this signal before the market opened.

If the advice adds got applies, and this is based on a UK time zone, then it won't be possible to use the ProScreener for EOD trading on Australian markets, because midnight there is 10am or so here!

 

[Wipit]

Hay Guys,

Joined up just now because I have been burn't by Ig as well. I still continue to this day trade with them because I feel that there's not to much of an alternative. Anyway noticed this morning on the ASX200 charts on any time frame between 10am to 10:15. The IG chart shown the indicie got as high as 4633.5 but when you check it against google finance and yahoo finance. The ASX200 only got as high 4626 on google and on yahoo only 4624. Anyway I placed a long trade and was only stopped out by 1 pip, I had a 12 Pip stop then returned on its merry way up!!! Is there a provider out there that doesn't influence the charts and the spread prices??? Plus who has the correct displaying charts??? No one can do TA on inaccurate data!!!

Cheers Fellas!

Brad

 

[nomore4s]

Hay Guys,

Joined up just now because I have been burn't by Ig as well. I still continue to this day trade with them because I feel that there's not to much of an alternative. Anyway noticed this morning on the ASX200 charts on any time frame between 10am to 10:15. The IG chart shown the indicie got as high as 4633.5 but when you check it against google finance and yahoo finance. The ASX200 only got as high 4626 on google and on yahoo only 4624. Anyway I placed a long trade and was only stopped out by 1 pip, I had a 12 Pip stop then returned on its merry way up!!! Is there a provider out there that doesn't influence the charts and the spread prices??? Plus who has the correct displaying charts??? No one can do TA on inaccurate data!!!

Cheers Fellas!

Brad

Hi Brad, welcome to the forums.

Now I'm not sure of your level of experience but there are probably a few things you need to understand when you trade with any CFD provider.

When you trade things like indexes & commodities with CFD providers, you are trading a synthetic market and as such the prices will not match up to any other data source - the provider creates the market but obviously it has to mirror the underlying markets to a certain extent or they will open themselves up to arb type trades. It does not matter which CFD provider you use to trade things like the Aussie 200 or whatever they call it, you will run into the same problems sooner or later. You just need to accept when trading CFD's that those are the rules and you have no choice but to play by them.

If you want to trade direct to the markets you need to use a broker like Interactive Brokers who provide you access to the futures markets but this also comes with a different set of challenges.

I have attached a chart of the todays trading of the current futures contract for you to compare the charts.

 

[skyQuake]

Hi Brad, welcome to the forums.

Now I'm not sure of your level of experience but there are probably a few things you need to understand when you trade with any CFD provider.

When you trade things like indexes & commodities with CFD providers, you are trading a synthetic market and as such the prices will not match up to any other data source - the provider creates the market but obviously it has to mirror the underlying markets to a certain extent or they will open themselves up to arb type trades. It does not matter which CFD provider you use to trade things like the Aussie 200 or whatever they call it, you will run into the same problems sooner or later. You just need to accept when trading CFD's that those are the rules and you have no choice but to play by them.

If you want to trade direct to the markets you need to use a broker like Interactive Brokers who provide you access to the futures markets but this also comes with a different set of challenges.

I have attached a chart of the todays trading of the current futures contract for you to compare the charts.

Agree. Theoretical Index got to 4634 right around the open.
ASX is a staggered open. That means if RIO is matching up 4% its gain wont be show in the cash index till RIO opens at 10:09am.

 

[skc]

Hay Guys,

Joined up just now because I have been burn't by Ig as well. I still continue to this day trade with them because I feel that there's not to much of an alternative. Anyway noticed this morning on the ASX200 charts on any time frame between 10am to 10:15. The IG chart shown the indicie got as high as 4633.5 but when you check it against google finance and yahoo finance. The ASX200 only got as high 4626 on google and on yahoo only 4624. Anyway I placed a long trade and was only stopped out by 1 pip, I had a 12 Pip stop then returned on its merry way up!!! Is there a provider out there that doesn't influence the charts and the spread prices??? Plus who has the correct displaying charts??? No one can do TA on inaccurate data!!!

Cheers Fellas!

Brad

There is nothing fishy about this data. The numbers you see with google and yahoo will not match because they are the XJO figures between 10am to 4pm. On the otherhand the IG Aus200 cash mirrors the futures market upto 10:11am or so (due to the staggered open as already pointed out).


My charts look exactly the same as yours so they are not moving spreads and prices just to hunt down your stops. IG does move prices a tiny bit during the day so their cash matches the XJO. But these adjustments are 0.5-1 points so no one can really arb it due to the spread.

I have used IG over the last 2 years and I can't say I've seen anything dodgy about their prices on Aus 200 except for the above.

P.S. On hindsight you got stopped out quite rightly anyway??

 

[Wipit]

Thanks fellas,

I've been trading around a couple of years, I haven't really had to delv into how MM works just trade the charts and just out of curiosity seen the asx200 up a lot more then anywhere else. I appreciate you guys clearing that up. I never used to trade with stops on the chart, just drew it up on the chart and if it hit I would get out. Sometimes would catch me out a couple of pips and other times pick 1 up. I just found this thread and started to second guess IG.

yeh there was no drama's in the way I got stopped out it just seemed IG quoted the bid price a bit high and there was a larger retracement then what I expected. I forget I'm playing in there backyard not mine!

Thanks Guys

Brad

 

[Lone Wolf]

I think it has been mentioned here before, but maybe worth pointing out again... Their charts are printed using the midpoint between the bid and ask price. So if the bid is 4602 and the ask is 4606, the chart will show 4604. So be aware that the charts aren't showing you the full range.

 

[dazzla]

Well no, and yes there is the PDS. I had a similar 'discussion' about an index trade with IG that just suddenly dropped by a massive amount, unrelated to the physical, and they basically said they can do what they like, it's in the contract you sign. With CFD market makers it's always in their favour.

Unfortunately these firms seem to spend a lot of time defending what would be seen by most reasonable people as underhand activities by hiding behind the Terms and Conditions.

To make matters worse they often have a clause saying that they can make ammendments to the T&Cs at their whim.

You really are taking a hugh leep of faith when you sign away your soul.

A case in hand is that of a friend of mine- IG Index changed the T&C's mid trade- he calculates that he was left £20,000 worse off.

To date rather than coming to a mutually beneficial arrangement they have quoted the T&Cs and have sent him Cease and Desist orders after he posted his story online. They continued to do this even though the web hosts had told IGIndex where to go.

Although he is UK based the site is hosted in the USA and is covered by the freedom of speech.

http://www.igindexarecheats.co.uk

He was able to retort that they were guilty of Harrassment (as they knew that the site was legal).

Who you decide to go with is a personal matter of choice and for most traders things seem to go quite smoothly- please do go through the T&Cs very, very carefully- you stand to lose more than your shirt.

 

[hangseng]

I gave up trading market indice and Fx with CFD's as the market maker rules and I found exactly what is being pointed out here.

I still uses CFD's however in a market they can't rule, direct shares using a direct market access platform. At least there you are only at the mercy of the market the same as if you bought with any other broker placing a trade you can see in any live platform, I monitor the placement using EtradePro live.

I have been highly successful with CFD's since I stopped trading in an MM's playground of mini's, where I lost out in most instances. Those spikes and instant reversals were just far too obvious and done for one purpose IMO, the reasoning given by the provider was anything but reasoned. If straight answers can't be given then I believe someone isn't being candid, not a place for my money.

Take care using CFD minis, it truly is a recipe for potentially large financial losses for the inexperienced. Don't thing stop losses will save you, they can see where they are and so obviously seek them out. In shares they can still see them but they have to fight the market to hit them, they don't control them.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Take care using CFD minis, it truly is a recipe for potentially large financial losses for the inexperienced. Don't thing stop losses will save you, they can see where they are and so obviously seek them out. In shares they can still see them but they have to fight the market to hit them, they don't control them.

To see if this stop tripping was happening I have tried these approaches with stop losses.
1) Placed stops close to price action
Result - price reverses and hits stop within seconds to minutes.
2) Placed stop far away or no stop at all (close manually)
Result - no problem with stops being hit because I don't think they can influence price action that greatly.

So to beat the Knob sitting at a computer monitoring your trade and sizing up those juicy stop losses close to the price action, don't let them know where you want to close.

Another gotcha is ...

If trend starts slowing and a reversal appears imminent you can watch a drive higher or extended spike up/down before price reverses. Then after price reversing, watch the bottom/top get squeezed again before continuing with the price reversal. Pinches all the close stop losses and trailing stops before completing the swing which pi$$es people off and throws them off their game.

It isn't a level playing field because too many people would be making money out of trading.