[dpaterso]

Hey Boca,

Nice to hear from you (I was hoping you'd get to see my posts about Carter and Pivots).

I've actually never cross-checked nor cross-referenced Pivot Levels given by GCI (or Delta for that matter) but that could indeed be the reason. It does not stop HERE either i.e. I've found out in that past couple of weeks or so that there are also Camarilla Pivots as well as DeMark Pivots (and I think there were two or so more but they just don't readily come to mind right now)!!! One problem that I have found at GCI of late (well about a week ago anyway during all the 'craziness') was that there were errors or 'noise' on the charts sometimes i.e. they were having data feed problems so sometimes there was an erroneous 'spike' (NOT the broker 'stop hunting' I assure you) and, of course, this rendered the Pivots (well my Pivot Point Indicator anyway) totally useless for the next day and the coming week unlike the SIS which does not really 'care' about such things!!!

As you know: GCI was my very first broker so it's about (plus) two years I've been trading with them now. I've only ONCE had a problem with connectivity that was THEIR fault (they simply decided to do a system upgrade during the middle of MY trading day which, admittedly, was very early in THEIR morning but this was AGES ago)!!! Aside from that I have had connectvity problems between me and them once or twice but those have always turned out to be some connectivity issue between South Africa and the USA (GCI has a 'tracking utility' that shows you where the problem is in relation to the 'world'). Interestingly enough: I think that GCI's platform uses HTTP to connect whereas Delta's uses TCPIP. The reason I say this is that I have had occasion where I could not connect to GCI but I could connect to Delta no problem and this has only ocurred when my service providers DNS Servers have been down i.e. as long as I've had a connection to the Internet, even although I could not actually browse websites, I could still connect to Delta but not GCI at the time. This could explain the anomally to which you refer.

I must just tell you (while I / we're on the subject of GCI): I'm not sure if they're 'under new management' or if someone decided to 'take charge' and 'step up to the plate' but since I've been trading THIS TIME AROUND (using our trading systems) I find that orders are almost always executed at the price of the order and they now have instant order execution of many more instruments. There are one or two exceptions to this rule though and ONE of them is Platinum i.e. you NEVER get the price of your order and I've noticed that the Platinum price on the platform appears to hardly move during the day but when it does it's in big increments. I'm not sure if this is just how Platinum trades or if it's one of those instruments where they do not have a 'realtime feed' (or whatever you'd call it). Other than that though: I must say they have really done an 'about turn' (but then again: maybe it's just me that 'sort of' knows what 'things are about' now i.e. not sure to be honest)!!!

One thing you have to be careful of though (especially the 'new trader') at GCI: the cost of each lot is 'fixed' (in my case a single lot of ANYTHING only costs $25 in margin at 400:1 leverage). SO: the temptation is ALWAYS there to NOT follow our money management rules. At Delta for example, using our 1.875% margin per lot, you'd currently need about $3466 per full lot (10 000 units) of EUR/USD which would give you a $1 per pip movement. At GCI that very same EUR/USD $1 per pip movement would only cost you (me) $25 in margin so the tempation is always there to open 3 lots (which is still 'roughly speaking' not violating our 1.875% money management rule by too much). The problem NOW of course is that you're NOW getting $3 per pip movement and at THIS point you are INDEED now violating our money management rules and it's real easy to overtrade the account if you're not careful which, in hindsight, is probably the NUMBER ONE reason why I lost so much money at GCI in the past!!! I've found one or two trading statements lying around that I must have printed out last year. They're a joke now!!! There was like $800 in the account and I had like 10 positions open on different instruments (like the Dow for example). Now even although it APPEARED that I had LOADS of free margin there was INDEED a potentially HUGE problem. Remember that even back THEN the Dow could move 200 - 400 points in a day so you only had to be 'wrong' once and half your account was gone (which I managed to get 'right' countless times)!!! OH THE JOY of learning the hard way: no trading system and no money management!!! And even ASIDE from having robust trading systems and money management rules you also have to be VERY careful which instruments you trade at GCI (I've mentioned this before). The Bovespa Index can move in increments of $400 on a good / bad day for the same margin cost!!! The DAX as well!!! I AM, as a matter of interest, trying to work out some sort of money management rules based on the 'expected volatility' of an instrument for this reason so if anyone has any ideas then please feel free to comment. In other words: given the SAME margin cost you can trade EUR/USD AND the Bovespa at GCI BUT EUR/USD will only ever move SOOOOO much in a day whereas the Bovespa can make those same EUR/USD moves in a day look like 'market noise'!!!

Lastly: according to me and 'The Delta Phenomenon' I believe we're still going another leg down!!!

Regards,

Dale (forexbrokersonline.net).