can I ask why in the Invest option of your platform you donāt show the spread of any stock.
As a platform that seems to be concerned with protecting your customers it seems a very strange decision. Youāll be aware that huge spreads can really damage an investorās trade. Essentially with any buys on your platform the customer is taking a huge leap of faith that there isnāt a large spread.
Iāve seem spreads of 70% on CFD, so how do I know this wonāt happen to me if I buy some shares on invest? This seems somewhat negligent.
Itās shown on CFD so why not invest? I donāt know of any other reputable platform that doesnāt offer this information.
The spread isnāt visible as we recently replaced the bid/ask prices on the platform with the Last Trade Price (LTP).
This is the price at which the most recent transaction for a product occurred, and as the industry standard attests to a productās value better than buy/sell prices, which only indicate supply & demand.
Also, it brings us a step closer to introducing extended trading hours. Prices are alreadylive.
For those that disagree, since the bid/ask prices have previously been available in the app, would it be possible to offer the option to have both or switch back?
LTP although considered a valid option, is certainly not the norm in the UK/EU for the valuation of portfolios, financial reporting or to be used as an indicator for potential dealing prices.
To be honest, its not generally material to me as I collate all my portfolios offline for consistency and 212 is now the outlier at least in the app.
Hey, @Dougal1984. We currently do not have plans to offer charting on more than one type of quotes or display the bid/ask quotes.
While at the end of the day, itās a business decision to follow the industry norm and adopt LTP quotes for charting, here are some of the reasons why it is specifically helpful for extended hours charting:
As LTP reflects actual trades being made on the market, it more accurately shows premarket activity at a time when liquidity is considerably lower than usual.
As mentioned, market conditions worsen during extended hours, and Bid/Ask spreads can widen significantly. This can distort the chart and make it more difficult to interpret.
When it comes to trading and technical analysis, LTP charts provide more reliable support and resistance levels because they are based on actual trades rather than bid and ask prices, which are dictated by market makers.
As Bid/Ask spread can widen significantly (for example, Bid - $80 and Ask - $100), LTP shows you more precisely the market sentiment at the time (for example, a trade done at $95).
āAs mentioned, market conditions worsen during extended hours, and Bid/Ask spreads can widen significantly. This can distort the chart and make it more difficult to interpret.ā
This is what happens in CFD but at least I know what price Iām getting. This is kind of my point. I know 212 restrict some stocks to avoid āunfavourable order execution.ā By not showing the spread, especially after hours, this is exactly what will happen.
Without seeing the spread, AH trading will surely cause customers more problems than benefits.
There could always be the option to see the chart with or without after hours trading; like Trading View, WeBullā¦ etc.
Iām not trying to be difficult, I think AH trading will be a great addition. I just want it to be safe, viable and benefit customers to use.
We fully understand your point, and weāre looking for the same outcome for our clients. Nevertheless, weāll keep your feedback in mind
IBKR may use the same feed provider as ours in some scenarios (you can read more here). However, the quotes displayed on our and IBKRās charts are entirely different from what the execution of orders is based on. Our orders are executed according to our execution policy, where IBKR is our intermediary.
Hi. I think there is a risk of confusing or amalgamating two completely different things. Firstly, I can understand (and agree) with comments about charting and its important that charts are good for technical analysis. T212 has a good charting package (not as good as something like TradingView but much better than many broker websites). Thus I think it is important that chart integrity is considered and kept for technical analysis reasons. However, that is entirely different to being able to see bid/offer or spread or quote when placing an order/tradeā¦ When trading it is really important to know what the order is going to execute at.
@Michael.M sorry to make a follow up comment. Your comments highlight the need to see bid/offer or spread when trading. You say that its important that charts arenāt distorted by widening spread during out-of-hours trading or times of low liquidity. I completely agree with that but it is exactly the reason why people want to see the spread when placing an order. We canāt see volume so we donāt know whether spread has narrowed or widenedā¦
We really need to be seeing bid ask spreads.
Im not going to blindly buy something without knowing the spread, that has the possibility of putting me down by 10% or whatever by blindly buying.
Having recently bought somethng to find it was not only off the end of the candle but off the chart, I agree with you, weāre trading blind on T212.
It was just pointed out in another thread (credit to ??? due) that the spread is shown on the relevant exchange site. If the LTP is different, I donāt know if a tiny sale/sell would show it. That approach to finding a price was suggested to me by a T212 moderator/helper, so thatās what Iāve been doing.
Edit:
I see that the LTP is shown on the LSE, but I canāt find it on the Nasdaq
The spread isnāt T212 fault but it is entirely within T212 ability to address the problem and provide visibility of the spread and/or bid/offer. It is made that people are effectively placing market orders blind and simply hoping that it will execute at an acceptable price
I generally use limit orders to avoid the problems with T212/spread/not seeing bid/offerā¦ However, when the price is volatile you canāt even use limit orders with cfd because if the price dips below the price your setting as you click the button and then instantly ticks back up it will execute as a stop buy without any upper limit on the execution price.
Love T212 generally but there are some serious weaknesses.
Yup.
Limit orders cause grief too.
You place an order, the candles go through it, nothing happens.
You increase your bid.
Still nothing happens
The price goes up.
You try a bit higher
Nothing happens
The price goes up
You try higher
ad infuriatum.
I checked two today today. One would have been much more volume than the other, both were 50 pips off the end of the stock market spread. Does that sound about right?
T212 earning a living | guess.
What guides you where to bid? They can be very slow, so today I tried 1% above quoted price, go do something else, the price moves through it. Tried 2% and left it. It never got executedā¦
You possibly donāt understand what you have signed up to as itās not how 212 make a living.
212 offer us DMA - that means direct market access trading on the exchange only.
They have changed the quoted prices to last traded - in my opinion you want to see the bid/ask, so you know what you could potentially sell your holding for (bid), or buy more shares(ask), because that is an up to date quote from the exchange and fluctuate as much as the LTP can sit anywhere in between, so itās not a great indicator for performance either if you can flip/flip between the two.
What stocks were you attempting to trade - have you checked the spread in the exchange / market liquidity on the exchange?
Itās hard for us to comment without knowing what security you were trying to trade and at what limit price, if any.
No I donāt know. . Do they explain?
What I expected was for the price I get to be indicated usefuly by the chart. Within the candle, say.
I now realise that it is not. The price you get can be āmilesā off the end of the candle. Price alerts and stop losses also trigger way off. One stop - sale today was 0.75% off the end of the candle, twice! One was Nio, hardly a minor stock. It cost me money. Forex traders use 20 pips SL distance, donāt they? I checked the History. Did I type 56 instead of 65? No, it was miles out.
I asked āchatā and was told that stop losses arenāt supposed to be accurate, or very near the current price. Unexpected.
The charts are āonly indicativeā, ok.
I looked at the exchange but it takes too long and even then I couldnāt find very useful figures, as theyāre delayed. Some Lastest Prices I looked at didnāt even say if they were buys or sells, in a way I could understand.
Iāve had better, and worse than the bid ask prices they quote. I havenāt seen it match once. If you go at āmarketā, particularly with an ETP say, itās very much worse. Off the b****y chart in one case!
It really is better to try selling Ā£1 or $1, to see what happens and how long it takes. Iāve got the same prices with the remaining 9999999 doing that so far.
As I said elsewhere, Limit orders are like spitting in the wind, you have to try to guess how many percent someone wants, away from the exchange, or indicated, price. You wait, and the price moves away.
One of the chat people said there isnāt a bid/offer spread, the buy and sell prices are the same. No comment.
(It wasnāt the same one who told me support and resistance lines were marked on the charts.)
