Home

Spread betting offers a unique way to trade the worlds financial markets. From Orange juice to Coffee, Gold to Oil, Interest rates and stocks, Financial Spread Betting will allow you to trade these via the internet or over the phone. It’s simple and inexpensive to place trades and all profits are currently free from UK Capital Gains tax. The only trading costs are those of the extra spread size and any rolling charges for keeping positions open overnight. Making a profit, however, is not as easy as it might seem at first. It will require self discipline and hard work to be successful, but if you can master your flaws then there is no reason that you couldn’t make a success of it.

Now I like to think of myself as a straight talker and an honest gent, therefore I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that spread betting is easy if you follow a few simple tips. Oh no, In fact it’s the complete opposite. Financial Spread Betting is hard work and it will take time for you to develop and hone the necessary skills required to make yourself a success in the long term.

The aim of this site it to give you the tools to help you along the path to trading success. The first step on that path it to start your education. If you are just starting out it’s going to be a long road on the path to success but hopefully spread betting education will help you along the way.

We don’t offer any guarantees of  success purely from reading the material contained within this site but hopefully you will get what you need from it. The path so success is a long and lonely one and any successful spread bettor will tell you it’s not going to be easy. There is a reason that 90% of spread betting newbies fail but if your careful and learn as much as you can hopefully you will join the 10% of winners.

So what are you waiting for? Start learning now and get your spread betting career underway today. You never know you might find your good at it.

The Basics

It does not matter which instrument you wish to trade in, you will be offered two prices, the lower price is the one you should be looking at if you believe the underlying instrument will fall in value and the higher price should be taken into account if you believe the price will rise. The lower price is known as the bid price and the higher is called the offer price. The difference between the two prices is known as the ’spread’ and this is where the spread betting firms make their profits.

When you make a trade you specify an amount of money that you wish to bet per pip or per point as it is more commonly known. At this point it should be realised that even if you are placing a small unit stake, i.e. £2 per pip, it can soon add up to a large amount of money if the market moves against you. As an example, if you place a buy trade on the FTSE at £2 per point and the market moves against you and falls 80 points in a matter of minutes, and you decide to close the trade you will have lost £160, at £20 per point you will have lost £1600. On the other hand the trade could move in the direction you require and you will of course then be looking at a nice profit. Many spread betting firms offer their own guide to spread betting so you will be able to find more details on their specific process and trading platforms.

Limiting Losses

Many firms offer the option of placing a stop loss on your trades. This is a figure that you put in place when the trade is made which means that if the trade moves against you the trade will be closed automatically. It is usually the case that if you opt for the stop loss facility you will have to pay a larger spread but for the peace of mind that this gives it is well worth it. It is possible to use what is known as a moving stop loss. This can be a very effective way to trade because you are locking in your profits.

Lets say for example that you have sold the FTSE at £2 per pip at 5500 with a stop loss of 5550. Your decision to sell has been proved correct and the FTSE is now standing at 5420. You are now able to bring in the stop loss to 5450 which means you have locked in a profit of around £100 with still the potential to make some more money.