Hi, there are some good threads on platforms on sharescen e.com. I have put some of those comments below FYI. I use IG markets and have found them to be good but you need access to a decent live screen from elsewhere because IG is only designed for making trades.
Quote ========================== Man Platform: I use Man mostly these days, if you do a bit of trading .0125% is the rate otherwise you're on the standard .025% rate, and yes you can sit in the offer/bid. Another plus with Man is you can have it linked to another account and you trade through web iress, which also means you only pay the ASX royalties once. For the slightly more expensive brokerage at Man I personally think it is well worth it over CMC however you can't short as many stocks.
CMC Platform: I have used Marketech for about a year, and they use the Saxo Bank platform as well. At the start of this year Marketech increased the margin on a lot of their CFDs so I decided to move to another provider and chose CMC. The CMC platform sucks compared to the Saxo Bank one. And I'm just talking about the trading interface, not any issues to do with market making. They have built their own widget interface, so it is clunky and often non-intuitive (for example, if you click on one of your shares in the position summary there is no feedback). Many of the interfaces are annoying to use. For example, you can't select a stop order and amend it. You have to cancel it and create another. I could go on and on. I also dislike the daily mark-to-market reporting. I want to see how much my position has changed since I opened it, not since GMT midnight yesterday. Amazingly this is version 5 of the software. The usability of the trading interface is definitely something to consider when choosing a provider.
Sonray Platform: I trade with Sonray and the platform is provided by Saxo Bank. It is all direct market except for a dozen like Newcrest and RIO that are market made for some reason. I use two screens at home so when I enter a trade on the trade platform I can see it go through into the physical market on my Etrade screen instantly. There are not only stock CFD's but also Futures and FX as well as equities, so I can lodge my shares in the account and use them as security to trade on margin. Am now trading Japanese cfd's on this platform. Margin is 10% across all the shares from Perseverance to BHP. If you have had
(20min delay)