Historical chart data missing on spreadbet futures contracts

[dnl]

When using the Spreadbet web-platform, is there a way to display historical chart data on new futures contracts?

At the moment, when a contract expires and you trade the next contract, all of the historical data is gone. You can't even draw something as simple as support/resistance lines because the candlestick data isn't there. 

Other platforms/charting software allows you to select the continuous current contract, so you can see everything in the past. With IG, as soon as a futures contract expires you've got nothing.

Is there a work-around? Are your tech teams working on this feature?

I've tried RealTime Pro but that also has its quirks. 

[bug-or-feature]

It is not possible. Unfortunately, the way IG offer futures based spread bets makes it useless for historical data. Instead of having a unique epic for each contract, they recycle them. So, right now the bet for the June expiry FTSE 100 bet is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH1.IP

and the September contract is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH2.IP

but those are the only two epics. The December one will be back to MONTH1. Some futures have more than 2 epics, but they all recycle. Its very unhelpful. You'd be better off looking at the charts of real futures. Even then it is not easy, as often the price of a spread bet is a multiple of the underlying future.

I have moaned about this in the past, but there semms to be no appetite to improve things from IG

[dnl]

On 23/03/2023 at 12:07, bug-or-feature said:

It is not possible. Unfortunately, the way IG offer futures based spread bets makes it useless for historical data. Instead of having a unique epic for each contract, they recycle them. So, right now the bet for the June expiry FTSE 100 bet is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH1.IP

and the September contract is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH2.IP

but those are the only two epics. The December one will be back to MONTH1. Some futures have more than 2 epics, but they all recycle. Its very unhelpful. You'd be better off looking at the charts of real futures. Even then it is not easy, as often the price of a spread bet is a multiple of the underlying future.

I have moaned about this in the past, but there semms to be no appetite to improve things from IG

Cheers for the detailed response. What a rubbish implementation. It's basically unusable. 

I'm hoping the TradingView integration includes SB and the problem is fixed there.

There are other UK brokers which offer futures, but their platform/charting isn't as good, however they do display the historical data. At the moment I'm thinking about flip-flopping between two, using IG when enough data is there, then going through the other one when it's not. It's really not ideal but I only trade a handful of markets so it's doable until one of the brokers does it all.

"You'd be better off looking at the charts of real futures." Yep the price can be different. Candlesticks, timeframes, it can all get a bit wonky.

 

 

[dnl]

On 23/03/2023 at 12:07, bug-or-feature said:

It is not possible. Unfortunately, the way IG offer futures based spread bets makes it useless for historical data. Instead of having a unique epic for each contract, they recycle them. So, right now the bet for the June expiry FTSE 100 bet is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH1.IP

and the September contract is

IX.D.FTSE.MONTH2.IP

but those are the only two epics. The December one will be back to MONTH1. Some futures have more than 2 epics, but they all recycle. Its very unhelpful. You'd be better off looking at the charts of real futures. Even then it is not easy, as often the price of a spread bet is a multiple of the underlying future.

I have moaned about this in the past, but there semms to be no appetite to improve things from IG

Both the May and April NG contracts have data all the way back to 2012.. So I'm a bit confused now.

[dnl]

8 minutes ago, dnl said:

Both the May and April NG contracts have data all the way back to 2012.. So I'm a bit confused now.

As do Gold, Silver, CL, etc. so IG should be able to do the same for the index futures.

[bug-or-feature]

22 hours ago, dnl said:

Both the May and April NG contracts have data all the way back to 2012.. So I'm a bit confused now.

Sure, you can get data for April and May right now, because April and May are active and tradeable. But you cannot get March or February, or any other month or year. Maybe read my reply again, and make sure you understand the difference.