SORRY you can only place an order to close on this market

[ST]

I have been getting a variety of frustrating "sorry" messages when trying to place trades. I may spend a day or two or a week or more watching a stock, annotate the chart with the technical attributes then get a message like this one when I go to execute a trade !! 

 

The stock today was the US stock Cloud Peak Energy. This occurred on both the Mar17 and Dec17 bets

 

Could this information not be shown on the platform so that one can immediately make alternative arrangements for trading the stock in question or exclude it from ones watch list. Fortunately this one only came up on a scan yesterday so I did n't waste much time following it but that is not always the case.

 

It would also be interesting to know the "why" of the message.

 

Thanks

[HannahL]

Hi , thanks for your post.

 

Firstly, the reason you're seeing this error message is because the stock in question does not meet our minimum criteria to be traded on a leveraged basis.  We look at market cap, liquidity and free float and have certain thresholds for a stock to be eligible for spread betting or CFD trading.  When it doesn't meet these, it can only be traded on a share dealing - non-leveraged - account. The reason the share still appears as available on the platform is because some clients will have open positions on it.

 

You can check the status of any product by going to the Get Info ticket associated with it, and scrolling to the bottom - you'll see 'Closings Only' if the stock is no longer available for leveraged trading.  I think it's a good suggestion that these stocks perhaps be distinguished in some way to make it even more evident that they are unavailable, so I'll pass that on to the developers to see if this can be implemented in a future update!

 

Let us know if you have any more questions.

 

Thanks,

Hannah

 

 

[ST]

Thank you for your helpful reply Hannah.

 

I take it that this is a stock which has previously met your requirements but has now fallen short of them since its inclusion for trading.

 

In future I will look at the "get info" facility before considering a stock for trading but as you say it would be nice if these stocks could be seen at a glance. Perhaps a change of the colour and the icon on the left of the listing similar to the way it changes to depict a telephone and turns orange when the stock goes telephone only dealing.   

[Guest pauldulake]

Yes very frustrating....be better if could be highlighted so as not to waist time.

[Tri]

It usually happens to stocks that are likely to go in one direction, up or down. If IG were to allow us to trade, we will almost certainly be making money, hence not good for them. Easier to simply prevent any new trades to limit their risk.

[ST]

Hi Tri.

 

Do IG not take the same position in the market via a CFD and make their money on the spread?

 

Cheers 

[Tri]

Hi Hannah,

 

If your CFD is the same as spreadbetting, then the answer is No, IG doesn't take the same position in the market.

I don't do CFD as you surely know.

[Tri]

Actually, if IG were to mirror all positions and only made money on the spread, there wouldn't have been occasions when traders can't open new positions.

[Tri]

Sorry ST, I got you mixed up with Hannah. Apologies

[ST]

No problem Tri.

 

I appreciate a your reply. I just wondered why you thought Hannan, being an IG employee would be asking that question?

 

Please allow me to digress one moment. On the subject of receiving replies to posts, the house (IG) have n't replied to some of my posts. On one occasion I got a reply months later but it appeared to be prompted by another member having the same query. This occurs, despite every email from their help desk automatically including a message encouraging one to use the community??

 

Now let's get back on topic. Hannah (not me :-), said this above:

 

"Firstly, the reason you're seeing this error message is because the stock in question does not meet our minimum criteria to be traded on a leveraged basis.  We look at market cap, liquidity and free float and have certain thresholds for a stock to be eligible for spread betting or CFD trading.  When it doesn't meet these, it can only be traded on a share dealing - non-leveraged - account."

 

Rightly, or perhaps wrongly, I just assumed that the reason for them not offering a spread bet on these markets is because they could not go elsewhere to take the same position to hedge themselves. I understand this is the way they operate their CFD business and naturally assumed it applied to spread betting also?

[HannahL]

Hello  and , thanks for your posts.

 

Firstly, apologies for any delay in getting back to you - if you do not '@xxx' with someone's name highlighted then it does not send them a notification so can sometimes get lost!  We do try to keep abreast of any threads, but if it seems that the conversation is between members, we don't want to intervene too much.

 

As I mentioned previously, we have minimum thresholds for stocks to be available on either a spread betting or CFD account.  The main reason for this is that if we have hedged a position and need to trade out of a relatively large exposure, this may be difficult in a less liquid market.  It is not, however, to prevent clients from profiting; we benefit when clients trade (spread and commission), so it is in our interests to offer as many possibilities for clients to do so!

 

I hope this clarifies your doubts, but please let me know if you have any more questions.

 

Thanks!

Hannah

[ST]

Hi , referring to your last post, does that mean that IG hedges/takes/mirrors the same position elsewhere for every spread bet that is taken by IG clients?

 

TIA

[HannahL]

Hi , we don't hedge every single position as we will take as many as possible on our book - netting off long and short clients in the same market.

 

Any more questions just ask!

 

Thanks,

Hannah

[Tri]

ST, I've been busy so no reply from me for a long time, but if you are still around, I am going to post here. Don't take anything on face value.

I was typing on a small phone and got confused when Hannah's name was highlighted and thought it was a rhetorical question.

Spreadbetting companies operate differently to share brokers.

Bye for now.

[ST]

No problem Tri, I appreciate your reply.

 

I'm still hanging on in  (that has nothing to do with which side I dress on :-)

 

I look forward to reading more of your valuable contributions to the community.

 

Cheers

[Tri]

It's been a bit of time...

As I said, I would come back to you, ST.

To put it briefly, when IG tells you something, they only tell you as much or as minimum as you need to hear. If you do not look into the statements further and accept at face value, good for them. But you go in the false assurance that you have the correct answers. And you don't, but you don't know it.

When our former PM came up with the "Big Society" phrase, most people understood it to mean something really positive.

However, the more intelligent and quick thinking people realised that what that meant was actually spending cuts, less support from the state. Well, years later, we know that the latter group were the wise ones, not the populous who were all very ready to cheer the big slogan.

Likewise, when you hear from IG and other spread betting companies certain information, look a bit closer, squint your eyes and you will realise that it's not what it appears to be.

For example, they say that they are an execution only broker. True that they are an execution only as far as not giving you advice on what to do, but this is where their execution only finishes. They are not a broker in the first place, let alone an execution only. There is nothing to broker. A broker places a certain transaction on your behalf. IG does not do anything on your behalf (speaking about spread betting here, not shareholding).

IG creates a pool. You swim in it. The pool isn't part of the big ocean. Some swim on the short side, some swim long. Eventually most swimmers drown (officially 82%). A few manage to leave with their swimming trunks still on.

 

IG tells you that they hedge their exposure. Many think that every trade they place is mirrored on the real market, that is, the big ocean. IG also admits that they swallow some of the risks themselves. "Some" ? How much is this "some" and does it really matter?

The fact is that the management of the swimming pool has to pour some water from time to time into the pool and add chlorine - that is their exposure. How they do it, is none of my business. IG's so called exposure is irrelevant to us, the punters (aka traders). They may be going to the big ocean to get some water or turn the taps on or work on alternative employment to raise some funds and pay a contractor to deliver some water...Regardless. The fact is, when you and I place a bet, IG does not jump up and place an identical or similar bet on the real market. And when you and I happen to win, this is money that IG has to pay out of the pool. When we lose, our money goes into the pool. Not the big ocean.

Spreadbetting has never been a broker type of transaction and relationship with clients and the market. It's a fictional device, like a computer game, where you bet in the hope of winning. It has no replication in the real world and no connection with the real world (apart from charts following somewhat, albeit not necessarily that closely, the prices on the market).

 

There is a bit more to it, but the above is hopefully, a useful outline.

GL!

 

 

[Tri]

I tried to go long on Pireus Bank and other Greek banks a year or 2 ago. Several attempts, but always the same thing - ' You can only close positions on this market'

For the last month Pireus has been going up at the rate of 35% in one day, 34% on the next, 75% at opening on the following, etc. Double your money in a day or Two.

And IG is trying to fool me that they don't lose money when I win and don't make money when I lose. It's so clear, that it cannot be any clearer than that that IG lies and profits from our loses.

[GeorgePizarro]

Hi ,

 

Please note that IG are still not offering Greek stocks due to the volatility and continuing uncertainty surrounding Greece. Due to this each Greek stock is set to 'Closings Only' which means we are no longer offering the stock and so clients can only close existing positions. We will generally do this if a stock is too small or illiquid.

 

Having taken a look at Piraeus Bank I cannot see these quick vast increases in price that you refer to, however, there have been a few corporate actions on the stock in the last year or two which will explain the large moves on charts, but we aware these pose no material change to the stocks market cap.

 

In regards to your last comment, IG is fortunate that we have a vast number of clients and so we can net off or internalise a lot of client exposure as we will have long and short clients. There are of course times when there are more long or short which leaves IG with an exposure to that market, and so we hedge this exposure in the underlying market to reduce the risk to IG.

 

Hopefully this answers your queries, feel free to ask any further questions.

 

Thanks,

Michael

[Tri]

Thank you for your reply.

Typical with IG. The left hand has no idea what the right one is going. I received notifications from IG about the said price increases of Pireus and if my phone allowed me to attach pictures (I can't see how I can do it on this forum) you'd see the evidence.

As far as hedging is concerned, with all due respect, you guys are simply repeating what you are told to say.

The bottom line is that IG takes our money when we lose and IG has a vested interest in us losing, not winning on our bets. If you were to investigate how your employer makes its profits, you'll understand.

 

[Tri]

[Tri]

OK, the mobile version of your site doesn't have extras like attachments etc. I uploaded the photos on the desktop version. 

 

Back to the thread - everything I ever said, I can prove.  Everything that IG claims contrary to my assertions, is mere smoke and mirrors. 

[JamesIG]

 - thanks for your message and attached images showing the alert you received for a closed market. I shall make sure to pass this onto our developers and I've opened an incident with our iOS, Android and mobile team to look into this. 

 

I'm sorry that you're not happy with the in depth replies and reasons behind why some markets will be closing only, why we don't offer Greek stocks, and how we price and hedge our markets. From your post I understand that you don't agree with these reasons, and some wider principles regarding IG's business model, but in this instance you are categorically incorrect. 

 

Our trading services help and support team are not just customer service focused, but also have an in depth knowledge of the financial markets and are very knowledgeable about the business in general. Our aim is not only to assist in trading, education, and customer support issues, but also assist in any query a client may have about the wider business and deal execution.

 

I would strongly recommend having a look at the video below and if you still have queries please call our help desk and ask to speak to one of our Senior Sales traders who will be able to take some time to talk you though it one one one. 

 

 

I am locking this thread because the topic of conversation has deviated from the original query. If you, anyone in this thread, or any new IG Community member would like to open a new thread to further discuss any specific point touched on above, please feel free to do so. 

[JamesIG]

test

[Guest Ed Vanci]

As far as I can see, IG are simply covering themselves as we have noticed:

1. Only happens when a market is moving well, so they dont want you making profit. Standard 'bookie' scam.

2. The same market is not closed on other brokers like Pepperstone etc. Which is where we trade our REAL money.

[Guest igigigigi]

Can I place multiple buy orders at different levels and later close the one I want in no particular order?

[ArvinIG]

On 01/04/2021 at 14:42, Guest igigigigi said:

Can I place multiple buy orders at different levels and later close the one I want in no particular order?

Hi,
Yes you can, you will need to go to you order tab on the left hand side of the platform. From there you can close your order in any particular order:


All the best - Arvin