| Overall Rating |   |
| Spreads | |
| Execution |  |
| Support | |
Established in 1996 CMC Markets is the brand name of CMC Markets UK Plc and CMC Spreadbet Plc. CMC Markets (CMC stands for Currency Management Corporation) is one of the bigger spread betting providers with some 16 offices around the world. CMC Markets’ bespoke Marketmaker system is a pretty good system when you get used to it, but a bit daunting for a newcomer. Their software can either be downloaded on to the desktop, or or accessed via a web browser.
Tags: CMC, CMC Markets, cmcmarkets, deal4free
Posted on April 30th, 2016 at 6:16 am
I have been quite successful with this broker and would have recommended them but it seems if you make a decent amount of money with them as I’ve experienced re-quotes. I assume these guys must have a dealing desk?
Their customer support sucks because their people are unwilling to help clients.
Posted on October 28th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
I really like CMC markets platform. Black background, green when the price is going up and red when it’s going down, and the trading is pretty instant, with very little slippage. In spite of that, the website logs me off at random times, so very difficult to follow a trade in progress. It only takes a minute to log back in, but in a volatile forex market, that minute can cost. So for this reason i don’t think I would use them as my main trading platform.
Posted on April 21st, 2012 at 1:14 pm
-
-
-
-
4I trade indices. The number of requotes is unbelievable. I am always getting requoted. Would like to see 1pt spreads. Often found that they would not honor my profit limits when ftse had closed. One night, when short the market went down passed my limit. I saw that I had not been closed out. So I closed my my limit, then entered a new buy to close the short trade. I was requoted five points, but this still gave me over thirty points more profit. I took the quote. After executing the buy, some minutes later there was an adjustment to my account to where my original limit buy order had been set. Some ten minutes later, the dealer must have realized he had to honor the requote. It gave me an extra 3500 profit. However, I noticed I started getting more requotes than previously and had stops getting knocked out more often than before.
Posted on February 5th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
-
-
-
-
2.8CMC provide a reasonably good trading platform with many features that lack with others – however I find the platform very unreliable as it constantly and frequently has the habit of automatically disconnecting me or loggin me out. It does no make any difference if I am using my mac book or the laptop – this can get very frustrating when monitoring a trade or trades. I have read that many other traders have also encountered this issue, I was hoping they would fix it – if not I would just have to stop using them altogether.
Posted on November 16th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
-
-
- Not Rated
- Not Rated
2.5i have tried spread betting cmc used to have wide spread on small aim shares found it difficult to trade to make a profit…
Posted on March 16th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
Opened account couple years ago and didnt like it. Lost most of my money through bad trading and the fact that when i tried to close position on large movements price would get constant requotes lossing more money. Plus when closes position it did not closes my limits and would buy/sell unknown to me.
Now they have a NEW PLATFORM which I LOVE. Instant quotes and when you click close, the price you see when closing is the price you get. Costumer services seems to be good also. My only dislike of new platform is the axis are never at even numbers like neither is the time. Tried changing all settings but nothing seems to work.
Overall top marks
Posted on August 9th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
CMC markets new platform look and feel is awesome. Charting features need to be worked on and screen optimisation is not great. I asked them about this and they said they were improving it. The cash commodity concept is interesting I want to have some more information about it before I make up my mind. It may not be the apple to microsoft yet but this has the potential to really change the digital derivative marketplace. Work to go but I’m watching this space. Spreads are good, margins reasonable, pricing is reliable, there’s an overiding portfolio based stop loss which although does not guarantee stops is a pretty good cushion from volatile movements. Saved my shirt last week when wheat went through the roof.
Posted on May 13th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
-
-
-
-
3.8I have an account with CMC which I only use for back up. I found that when I compared the spreads with IG Index they were more or less the same until the market reversed. At that point CMC’s spread would widen greater than IG on the sell side. This caught me out to the tune of of about 5-10 points on some trades that I monitored. I think CMC have the best education videos available on CMC PLUS but for trading IG is head and shoulders in front of them. The only downside of IG is that their forex spreads can be bettered on other sites but that’s not an unsolvable problem. Oh, another downside of CMC is that all of their trades go through a dealer so you can get slippage and re quotes when the markets are at there most active – useless if you are day trade scalping.
Posted on April 5th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
I’ve used both CMC and IG Index. The one thing i didn’t like about the CMC platform was, if you manually close a position that had a stop and limit attached to it, the stop and limit are not cancelled with the manual close. They are still in the system and if you don’t cancel them, you find trades opening as if by magic. Be aware, caught me out a couple of times….
Posted on September 12th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
-
-
-
-
4.5A few people moan about CMC Markets but really I think they are quite good – one of the things I like is that they always show a warning box ten minutes before major events. For margin leverage, they vary between 2% and 50%. The margins vary according to risk and liquidity of the underlying asset. I also like the fact that they are big enough that it ought to be safe dealing with them.
Their web platform, although useless for charts, is one of the best I’ve found for ‘effectiveness’ and although their desktop client isn’t up to my liking, the interactive chat with their customer service has proved invaluable. Perhaps the only problem I’ve noticed is that instead of support they seem to employ sales people…
Posted on August 9th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
-
-
-
-
2.8IMO CMC requote all the time compared to other spreadbetting firms, and i always seem to get slippage on exit too. The customer service isn’t great either. The only reason I’m still here is because the leverage is great, the liquidity is good on most things, the spreads aren’t too bad for forex and indexes (silver is a shocker, gold is bearable). They are OK for swing/position trading, but i wouldn’t use them if you want instant accurate fills. They gave me £200 so i shouldn’t really grumble about them too much!
Posted on July 10th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I spread bet with CMC. No complaints other than CMC give a fair number of requotes. I use both IG and CMC so that if one goes down whilst I’m trading I can hedge any open position with the other. I also run ftse 1 min chart on trading IG with the 5 minute chart running on cmc or ftse on IG and DAX on cmc.
Something worth pointing on shares trading is that IG Index have auto rollover which closes and immediately opens the bet at the end of the day. However because they actually close it and then re-open it, it means that any loss/profit becomes a real and not a paper loss/profit even if after a day or 2 the share becomes completely profitable. CMC on the hand have a rolling daily bet that does NOT actually close the bet but rolls it over with the supposed advantage that losses/profits on any day prior to the actual close are paper and not actual ones. This gives some of the advantage of a CFD but with a spread bet with obvious tax advantages.
Posted on February 3rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm
-
-
-
-
3.3Good
-> Good spreads and margins.
-> Requotes in fast moving markets means you can exit with a market order.
-> Can trade really small parcels which is useful if you like to scale in and out.
Bad
-> FX spreads can [and do regularly] widen up to 50-60pips during periods of low liquidity so you can’t really use stops with FX.
-> One point against cmc is that once a position is open, you have to watch it – some sb co’s have a button to close your position I believe and that will automatically cancel the stops – cmc is a little more complicated and you usually need to manually cancel the stops once you’ve closed a position.
Posted on November 11th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
-
-
-
-
2.5Charting is now changed. ProRealtime was great and now they created their own, very limited and buggy version. No more backtesting or creating own indicators. Software is really limiting trading. It will consume your computers resources and freeze if you do not know how to change the Java that comes with the platform to more robust version. You can have only a very limited number of indicators to charts or you need a supercomputer. Stops will be hit if price is close enough (a few pips). Market price normally fair, sometimes 1 pip slippage. Help desk provides standard answers but normally do not answer the question or solve problems. Normally they have not even heard about similar issues (ie. software freeze and memory leak) or they are working to solve the problem (year after year). CMC Plus is not open for everyone. They do not even tell the criteria who will get that service (that is bad marketing). I use CMC Markets until I find more reliable company. They have all the potential to be number one, but somehow I have a feeling that they only wait to get your money so why put any money to make a more realible platform and service as most people will loose anyway?
Posted on October 23rd, 2008 at 10:16 am
-
-
-
-
3.5Their spread is ‘average’ – there are much better spreads out there but you usually pay for this in other ways (requotes, slippage, etc). So good spreads doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest trading.
the only problem i found with them was the support – when i called the guy on the phone was rude…
However, I’ve found the platform to be great. They even have good news flow which pops out automatically onto whatever site you happen to be on when a significant announcement is made…so latest oil inventory figures or non-farm payrolls or profit warning will be flagged up instantly. The charting is good and you can place trades directly through the charts.
Posted on August 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 am
-
-
-
-
3.8Been with CMC for around 5 years now and have had no major problems (in the last couple of years!). I have found their after sales care to have really improved and they now have a 24-hour help desk that I have never had any problems getting through to… unlike the CMC of old.
Having used CMC marketmaker, IG & Man spread betting. CMC far superior imo with ability to move quickly in and out of multi preset windows but does not have access to as many smallcaps & aim as IG & Man who offer any over….I believe £15M M/cap. I very seldom trade aim so not a problem. CMC much better for US markets and commodities. CMC good live chart package – Man 15min delayed – can’t remember IG’s. CMC gave me faster dealing….never had a problem slippage when closing as I did occasionally with Man & IG. I would suggest you think about the size of companies you want to deal in and phone CMC to see if they provide for them; not sure but I think you maybe limited to SETS & SETSmm. Despite the fact they have widened their spreads on equities they are still cheaper than any of their competitors so am still very happy to be trading with them.