Trading CFDs

[barney]

Re: Trading CFD's

I use 2 cfd providers - IG Markets (L1 for controlled risk) for indexes, derivatives & precious metals & Etrade (Man) for DM access cfd's and normal shares (WebIress).

I have tried CMC but gave up after too many re-quotes, and spurious order changes.

The big negative with IG is that they don't pay interest on your cash account, & the L1 is pretty basic, (although the new tick charts are good). I have yet to find the perfect cfd provider.

Spikes in prices & charts are usually errors that IG don't hold you to eg if it did take you out of the trade a phone call usually fixes it (and the chart).

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Howdy UF, Just out of curiousity, what are E trade/Man's fees?? I am also with IG who only charge .01% so an order of say $8,000 (total value of trade) is only charged a fee of $8 ........I also have another CFD provider who has a minimum transaction fee of $10 ......... Therefore for smaller positions IG is far superior (this is handy when building a position slowly) ......... How does Man compare?? ....... Cheers.

 

[theasxgorilla]

Re: Trading CFD's

Howdy UF, Just out of curiousity, what are E trade/Man's fees?? I am also with IG who only charge .01% so an order of say $8,000 (total value of trade) is only charged a fee of $8 ........I also have another CFD provider who has a minimum transaction fee of $10 ......... Therefore for smaller positions IG is far superior (this is handy when building a position slowly) ......... How does Man compare?? ....... Cheers.

I'm interested to hear a little about Man as well.

 

[MichaelD]

Re: Trading CFD's

Spikes in prices & charts are usually errors that IG don't hold you to eg if it did take you out of the trade a phone call usually fixes it (and the chart).

I wonder if the phone call fixes the trade for you and not for everyone else?

 

[Kauri]

Re: Trading CFD's

I wonder if the phone call fixes the trade for you and not for everyone else?

The spike was caused by a feed fault from IT and no-one short should have been stopped out, I certainly wasn't. If you were a quick phone call will rectify the situation.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Re: Trading CFD's

Howdy UF, Just out of curiousity, what are E trade/Man's fees?? I am also with IG who only charge .01% so an order of say $8,000 (total value of trade) is only charged a fee of $8 ........I also have another CFD provider who has a minimum transaction fee of $10 ......... Therefore for smaller positions IG is far superior (this is handy when building a position slowly) ......... How does Man compare?? ....... Cheers.

Hi Barney, I'm on the professional rate on Power Etrade (WebIress combined with Man) minimum fee is $10. As for the percentage rate that is negotiable, as with most cfd providers. I started out at something like 0.15% and now I'm on 0.1%, as one of their 'active traders' or some such fancy name. Basically I rang them one day and said that IG was charging 0.1 and would they match it. After some mumbling about having to trade minimum amounts blah blah they changed it to .1%. Basically if you ask straight up to give you 0.1 or lower they usually want the business so they give it to you.

Theres also a monthly data fee of approx $80 or so, but reduces to zero depending on the number of trades.

Etrade is also DMA so no gsl, only contingent orders. Basically Etrade for share cfd's (& normal shares), IG for indexes.

 

[barney]

Re: Trading CFD's

Hi Barney, I'm on the professional rate on Power Etrade (WebIress combined with Man) minimum fee is $10. As for the percentage rate that is negotiable, as with most cfd providers. I started out at something like 0.15% and now I'm on 0.1%, as one of their 'active traders' or some such fancy name. Basically I rang them one day and said that IG was charging 0.1 and would they match it. After some mumbling about having to trade minimum amounts blah blah they changed it to .1%. Basically if you ask straight up to give you 0.1 or lower they usually want the business so they give it to you.

Theres also a monthly data fee of approx $80 or so, but reduces to zero depending on the number of trades.

Etrade is also DMA so no gsl, only contingent orders. Basically Etrade for share cfd's (& normal shares), IG for indexes.

Thanks for the info UF.

 

[hector]

Re: Trading CFD's

I'm with FP Markets at present, min trade $10 or o.1%. DMA, no GSL. Broadest universe, low margins, but no indices. Any stock you want to go long just ring them and next day it's there (penny dreadfuls @ 99%, but still cheaper brokerage than shares). Platform webIRESS $55 /m. Largest range of shorts too.

But I'm looking at Macquarie. Fees higher, margins higher. BUT - DMA and GSL. Trading platform is being developed in-house and will soon feature charting as well as depth/course of sales/watchlist/orders etc. I am sure that active traders will be able to reduce fees.

I really don't like webIRESS. The best platform I have used is eTrade Pro, unfortunately can't trade CFD's with it. So Mac might get the nod in the near future.

Also, at Mac each trader has a separate account rather than a pooled account (which exposes you to provider risk in the case of defaulters).

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Re: Trading CFD's

Yes, I've been watching Macquarie ever since they started. Just waiting for a few of their features to be improved eg watchlists, reduce fees maybe. Maybe the next move after IG?. I'm no fan of WebIress but it's fast & does the job.

 

[mikeg]

Re: Trading CFD's

Hi Uncle Festivus,

In reference to your quote below, why don't you use IG L2 platform for your CFD's. You can place an GSL on the L2?

I use 2 cfd providers - IG Markets (L1 for controlled risk) for indexes, derivatives & precious metals & Etrade (Man) for DM access cfd's and normal shares (WebIress).

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Re: Trading CFD's

Hi Uncle Festivus,

In reference to your quote below, why don't you use IG L2 platform for your CFD's. You can place an GSL on the L2?

Um... I thought this was not possible. I'm sure I was told by a rep that that was the attraction of their MM (L1) platform, and no gsl for L2. L1 does the job for now anyway.

 

[bvbfan]

Re: Trading CFD's

I'm with FP Markets at present, min trade $10 or o.1%. DMA, no GSL. Broadest universe, low margins, but no indices. Any stock you want to go long just ring them and next day it's there (penny dreadfuls @ 99%, but still cheaper brokerage than shares). Platform webIRESS $55 /m. Largest range of shorts too.

So if the margin is 99% why do you bother buying it on margin and paying finance costs when you could buy the stock outright?
I'm guessing liquidity issues would also be an issue either way?

 

[CanOz]

Re: Trading CFD's

Has anybody here looked at City Index? Pretty sure its a MM arrangement, but the list of shares and indices is quite substantial. At the moment i'm just using them to learn more and i'm not actually trading. Their requirements to join are very loose compared to MAN with Etrade, scary how easily i got an account.

Cheers,

 

[CanOz]

Re: Trading CFD's

Just wanted to bring this forward again....does anyone use City Index? I just wanted to know what you thought of it, the platform, the service, what they were like to trade with etc.

Cheers,

 

[clayton4115]

Re: Trading CFD's

im using cityindex, cant comment too much as i just started trading today ! :

 

[investorpaul]

Re: Trading CFD's

Ive just started trading CFDs (as my blog outlines). At the moment im focusing on the Uk market due to work commitments, but follow a fairly simple strategy of identifying support and resistance and waiting for it to be broken and identify up/downtrend movements to trade.

In addition to support/resistance and trends I utilize MACD, RSI and momentum to confirm decisions and identify signals to trade out of my position.

All my trades are intra day to limit risk and so far most have been around 30mins to 1.5hours.

I thought it would be interesting to know what strategies other CFD traders take? and i am especially interested in those who hold CFDs for a number of days and how they feel about the increased risk exposure of that?

If anyone is interested i will be posting on my blog after every trading day so you will be able to be kept up to date with what is going on.

 

[Wysiwyg]

Re: Trading CFD's

Ive just started trading CFDs (as my blog outlines).
If anyone is interested i will be posting on my blog after every trading day so you will be able to be kept up to date with what is going on.

Hi Paul, Do you think your discretionary approach will bring you unstuck?

For instance this following quote from your blog indicates you could have lost $200 rather quick which is more than the "2%" capital you supposedly risk/trade.Is no fixed stop loss a good practice in your opinion?

However it quickly retreated and I could tell momentum would not be with this stock for now. I hadnt seen a reason to sell and contniuned to hold, around the hour mark it started showing signs of weakness and I jumped ship. The end result was a profit of 13 pounds, a couple of minutes later it quickly dropped. If I had held I would have seen a loss of a couple of hundred dollars pretty quick. So although not successful in terms of return I was pleased with my timing and the reading of the market.

 

[clayton4115]

Re: Trading CFD's

im currently trading CFDs the ASX 200, as a hedge on my actual long portfolio, however if the market hits 3800 points i will have to get out of my short position and lose $4000 but hopefully my long core position would have gone up $10,000 so net result +$6000.

should have done this 12 months ago!!!!


p.s no stop loss in place.

 

[Glen48]

Re: Trading CFD's

A sell on Suncorp Monday 9/02 should bring results????

 

[investorpaul]

Re: Trading CFD's

Hi Paul, Do you think your discretionary approach will bring you unstuck?

For instance this following quote from your blog indicates you could have lost $200 rather quick which is more than the "2%" capital you supposedly risk/trade.Is no fixed stop loss a good practice in your opinion?

Wysiwyg,

Definately a valid point and something I hope to discuss in my blog. Basically I monitor the trade every second until I exit. I draw a line on the chart that is my "stop loss line" once it crosses that I exit the trade. Sure it could jump quickly, but thats the risk I take.

Why dont I use a stop loss? The guaranteed stop loss in IG markets has to be placed at least 5% away (which would wipe out most of my position anyway) and it costs like 50 pounds in commission which would make it alot hard to make a profit.

I havnt investigated their trailing stop losses to much but it does involved extra commission.

 

[sinner]

Re: Trading CFD's

You need to be careful investorpaul, unless you are using RT market data. The charts provided by IG lag behind the ticket price by a couple of seconds (if not more).

If the market is moving fast, and you are using IG charts, you will be entering and exiting trades late.