Does sound quite excessive. I'm pretty sure if you contact them and explain, they will sort it out. You won't get back any profits you may have made, but you won't take the loss. Just make sure when you get in touch you give them all the exact details and times. Are you sure the trade was closed at 1420 GMT? According to my Alpari chart, the high of 1.62273 that you talk about happened at 1420 CET which is 1 hour ahead of the UK and therefore 2 hours ahead of GMT, so 1220 GMT. If you can be completely accurate with them, I imagine the loss will be reversed fairly quickly.
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Joined Apr 2009
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Status: Volume is everything
|972 Posts
HEY! I HAVE THE SAME $%"** PROBLEM!! I got triggered a buystop order at 1.25795 by Alpari last minute of Friday. the highest was 1.25675.
Is that fair?
Might be the spread. My LIVE account with a different broker ended Friday with a 25.9 pip spread on EURUSD!! (usually 1.5 at most) - Spreads at the end of the week can gyrate wildly at times and hit stops.
Might be the spread. My LIVE account with a different broker ended Friday with a 25.9 pip spread on EURUSD!! (usually 1.5 at most) - Spreads at the end of the week can gyrate wildly at times and hit stops.
I thought about this to begin with, but then a 78 pip spread seemed quite excessive, especially a full 10 minutes before the news was released. I've seen a 50 pip spread on other pairs "on" the news release for a few seconds but never that much and so far in advance. But.....I've never traded this pair before so I am no expert. Still worth contacting Alpari and asking them about it.
Dogberry, were you watching the spread at the time? Or did you come back to this after the event to see you had been stopped out?
Interesting to find out if this was a 78 pip spread and if so I shall firmly continue to avoid this currency pair.
Hi, flotsom,
Many thanks for your reply. You're right, it's 14:20 CET instead of GMT. I didn't watch the spread at the time. Actually I never watch the market. I trade using my own EAs, which place all my orders at 11:00 pm British time. Also I never checked carefully how my orders opened and closed. Perhaps I should check them from now on.
I thought about this to begin with, but then a 78 pip spread seemed quite excessive, especially a full 10 minutes before the news was released. I've seen a 50 pip spread on other pairs "on" the news release for a few seconds but never that much and so far in advance. But.....I've never traded this pair before so I am no expert. Still worth contacting Alpari and asking them about it.
Dogberry, were you watching the spread at the time? Or did you come back to this after the event to see you had been stopped out?
Do understand that your position is a SELL with SL @ 1.63049. And the highest you said was 1.62273. This high is a BID price not an ASK Price. If you take into consideration volatility and widened spread of perhaps 80~100 pips (which is not uncommon for exotic pairs like GBPCHF), it could hit the SL of 1.63049 and beyond.
This is why MT4 charting is lacking.. It is only showing the BID price on the charts - NO ASK price which is what you need right now..
GBPCHF is an exotic pair; do not compare the tight spread of EURUSD or USDJPY or GBPUSD with GBPCHF. A wide spread of >60 pip spread on GBPCHF is common during news releases or a few minutes before news at that.
FYI: In my broker, USDJPY spread a few minutes before news was 31 pips, about 30+ times the normal. I can imagine GBPCHF would have an astronomical 150 pips spread during that time.
might as well not trade at all if we have to consider the spread might rise to about 100 pips and our SL triggered because of it.
Ignored
Just remember that the spread can work both ways if you have a take profit order in place. Spreads are like slippage.....sometimes it works against you and other times it works for you, and ultimately balances out.
Also a widening spread of that extremity is rare & often dependent on the currency pair you are trading. At the time of this particular trade in question, I was watching GBP/USD and the EUR/USD, and at no point before, during, or after the news item release did my spread go beyond 4.2 and 3.5 respectively. So just pick your currencies carefully in accordance with the trading style you adopt.
At 14:30 (MT4 time) 02/07/2010 there was the Non-farm payroll announcement in the US and this affected the major currency crosses. This figure is released on the first Friday of every month and is always eagerly anticipated. This announcement causes a lot of volility and uncertainty in the forex market and affects all the major currency pairs.
We use floating spreads. This means that our prices simply mirror the prices in the market. Over the release of major economic announcements we may be forced to widen our spread to reflect the spreads being quoted to Alpari UK by the major banks, our liquidity providers. It is not uncommon for the spread to fluctuate considerably over news releases. If we did not widen out spreads over this time it would result in the company being exposed to unnecessary risk of loss.
Trading over major announcements is very risky and not recommended.
Here are the journal entries for your account showing the exact second your trade was closed:
1 00:01:04 92.235.207.54 '46366': order #17057577, sell 0.03 GBPCHF at 1.60666
1 14:29:56 '46366': stop loss #17057577 at 1.63049 (1.61006 / 1.63198)
I have attached the tick data for the related period showing the spreads. As you can see the spreads were considerably wider than usual.
For more information on the Nonfarm Payrolls announcment and the Econonmic Calender please click on the link below:
