Seven signs of a dealing desk that quietly dislikes winners

[Fairman]

Seven signs of a dealing desk that quietly dislikes winners

1. Fills slow down after a winning week.
2. Spread seems to widen at the exact moment of entry, then narrows after.
3. Positive slippage disappears while negative stays.
4. Requotes show up on only one side of the market.
5. Support suddenly wants to "verify trading activity."
6. Limit orders get filled only when price blows through them, not on touch.
7. Withdrawal requests meet new documentation requirements right after a big profit.

Any single item has a boring explanation. Platforms lag. Markets move. Compliance is sometimes just compliance.

Three or four together, repeated over a couple of months, tell a different story. The model of an internalising broker is simple: client losses are revenue, so consistent winners are a cost to be managed.

The cleanest test is running the same small strategy on two brokers, one agency or true ECN and one retail market maker, and comparing fills on identical signals. The difference tends to be visible inside a week.

A fair counterpoint: a broker can show several of these signs and still be honest. Liquidity providers do pull back after a burst of one-sided flow, and a feed that was quiet on Monday can look very different after a week of heavy news. The fair way to judge is by trend. A single bad day proves little. A steady worsening that tracks account profitability, and not market conditions, is the thing to worry about.

It also helps to keep notes in a form that survives a dispute. Screenshots of the quotes, timestamps, order tickets, and a plain log of every support exchange make a complaint far harder to brush off. Vague unhappiness gets a canned reply. A table of forty rejected orders with timestamps gets a human being.

The other practical move is keeping the balance at the broker lean. Withdraw profits on a regular schedule. A winning scalper at a dealing desk that dislikes winners is better off with less money at risk and a clear paper trail.

Which of these have shown up on an account, and how many at once?