CMC Markets – have you got any confidence in them...?

[BigBob]

Well, I certainly don't.... For what it's worth, here's a brief note of my personal experience....

I first started trading with them in 2006 – I opened an account with a relatively small amount, my general idea was to trade shorter time frames to add another dimension to my investment portfolio. I didn't do particularly well the first time around, but in hindsight, maybe it wasn't just me.... I noticed that my stops always seemed to be hit with inexplicable swings just prior to moves in either direction and these did not always seem to be reflected in the underlying markets. I also had a number of problems when executing “market” trades – basically the orders would not confirm or cancel immediately which made it difficult to ascertain where my positions were at, but they would eventually trigger and clear and things would come right, so though it was annoying it didn't really bother me.

That first time around I lasted as a trader for about 6 months, before crashing out... I went back to the drawing board and didn't trade for about 12 months, before I started again in late 2007 and this is where I finally lost whatever confidence I had in CMC Markets...

The first major incidence was in the week of the first “Bernanke Put”. I had been doing OK on some short term trades and decided to pull some money out of the market. I did an online withdrawal request and received an e-mail to confirm that my request had been received and would be actioned the same day. Only the next day I found there had been no money transferred to my account and when I contacted them I was told that I had to lodge a complaint and that they would investigate. The market then moved against me and Mr. Market gouged back what I had tried to remove from his grasp.... About 2 weeks later I received a letter from CMC stating that they had been “busy” that day and that their manual process for my withdrawal request had not been actioned. No apology, no compensation (oh, not true – they offered me $4, which I by the way, never got), nothing basically.... The final straw, and no, this has nothing to do with the slowness of executing market orders, with the consequent re-quotes, that for some reason always seem to work against you, was today, where I came home from work to find that my account had been liquidated earlier today... I had received no notification that it was on margin call, that it was within liquidation limits or in fact that it had been liquidated... The market had moved in my favour, and had I not been liquidated I would have made a decent few thousand dollars... I again rang CMC to find out what was going on and again received no sensible explanation and was told to lodge a complaint... Well, instead I asked them to close my account and when they told me that they couldn't, I got slightly agitated and they hung up on me....

anyway, it's probably a blessing in disguise... I'm not really cut out to be a trader... but if I was to trade again, would I use CMC again....? not in a hundred years...!! I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole! And I hope this posting may make others think twice too....!