HeOfMuchDisgrunt

Why is this stock unavailable to open for non-Pro clients? Surely a fund is less risky than an individual stock.

Not really a full answer to the poster's question though, is it?

You're up against stupid ESMA and FCA rules that are supposed to protect the retail trader but actually hinder them and cause greater losses by forcing you out of positions you could have ridden if your margin wasn't massively used up on both sides of a net neutral low-risk trade with a maximum possible loss rather than an open-ended one.

This may be an unintended consequence of ESMA rules or just the FCA being stupid, but when I have an open short option position I pay the same initial margin as a futures contract no matter how far out of the money it is or regardless of having an offsetting long option position at a different strike to cap the possible loss. Worst of all, if the position moves heavily in-the-money the short option requires much more variation margin but the long position doesn't credit my account with the unrealised profit, so I could be put on a massive margin call and not be able to trade anything else even though my overall position on the particular market has remained net neutral throughout the large move in the underlying. I also have to post full margin on both sides of an option straddle/strangle which is ridiculous as you can only possibly lose on one side at expiry. Do IG recognise this as a problem and are they currently arguing it out with the FCA?

Multiple times have you guys been asked to offer logarithmic chart scales as a tick-box option, but you consistently fail to provide it. Why, when it would be so simple to implement? I would also appreciate a column that showed the margin being consumed by each position. I also think it would be useful to have the option to plot simple moving averages a half-span behind instead of up with the current price.

A missed opportunity to ask about logarithmic scales.

Very strange, when you think that they handle rights issues properly (including on CFD and spread-bet accounts) yet those similarly involve the holder having to make an election whether or not to take up their shares.

Who do you trade with? Few seem to quote on-line prices. People have been on at IG for years to do it.

@CharlotteIG I'm lending my support to this campaign. It's embarrassingly pre-historic not to have a log-scale toggle. It's not as if it would be hard to program either. Why deny your clients such basic functionality?

@MongiIG Thanks - I understand that you are saying IG will not be legally restricted or prevented from offering these products, but what I'd like to know is whether IG anticipates Basel III affecting any of these markets, eg in terms of liquidity, availability of products in the underlying markets, etc. Are there any products that IG is currently considering withdrawing by its own choice as a result of Basel III?

@MongiIG Let me clarify the question - is Basel III likely to affect IG's provision of products such as Gold and Silver options and futures and other precious metals?

@ArvinIG Cheers, dude! Good to get an acknowledgement. Do please let us all know what the tech team say. People don't mind offering feedback on the understanding that not every single 'genius' customer idea can be implemented immediately, but what irks people the most is to give seemingly good, constructive ideas and have no feedback at all as to why the idea can't be used now or ever. It drives us nuts as customers when we obviously know what we want and what we aren't getting even though we realise the requested add-ons aren't difficult to bolt on from a coding perspective.

@AndaIG Could information like this not be included in more detail on the info tabs? Often the expired options continue to update even though the settlement price has already been determined so it's hard to guess when or at what equivalent price one should roll or trade into the underlying. Also, an option to settle into an underlying product or roll into the next month rather than cash settle would be a useful feature for many traders.

@ArvinIG I would like to make a few additional suggestions for improving the platform. I understand that all products are shown in every account-type even if some can't be traded from within that account, eg a "non-leveraged only" product will still be shown in a spread-bet or CFD account (and note that the "Margin" info tab for some reason incorrectly continues to show a table of margin tiers that actually don't apply to a non-leveraged product.). Other products are sometimes "no controlled risk", "unborrowable", "closing only", etc. it's incredibly annoying and time-consuming to search through a list of results, pick out individual stocks/products, see a chart you like then have to check the info tab to see if you can actually trade the product. Why could there not be a series of symbols or letters in one or more columns, like there is for the "market open/closed" column (that, for example, sometimes has a "telephone only" symbol), but also included in the search results so that one can instantly see which products can be "eliminated from enquiries"? Perhaps the Alert feature could be augmented to include being able to be set to notify when "unborrowable" stocks, e.g. recent IPOs, become borrowable or when positions that were "closing only" go back to normal trading (if that ever happens). Also, in "Positions" I can see my total gain or loss for each position but not that day's movement, unless I duplicate the Positions into a separate custom list which DOES have this column, but if I do that then I cannot enter the position size as well so I have to flick back and forth between two almost identical windows. Also, it would be really useful to have a separate toggleable on/off column that could show the total margin currently being used by each position. Currently, if I have to bring up a deal ticket as if to close the position, just to see how much margin is being consumed, I'm at risk of mis-clicking and closing the position unintentionally. Thanks.

@CharlotteIG Can we have a response to our feedback on this topic please?