Jump straight to the book, or…
Over on my “Talk with Tony” page, Martin asked me an interesting question about which spread betting company I would choose as a preference. He asked…
“If it’s not too personal a question, what spread betting company to you place the majority of your smaller (i.e. £1 Point Spread Bets wit) in practice?
I’ve noted (from your kind reply to my guaranteed stop-losses query)the reminder that certain spread betting companies – for a small fee – allow clients to add a guaranteed stop-loss to an existing be, if / when desired.
However, I wonder whether – despite that fact – most of the time, in practice, you’re still compelled to use another spread betting company that does ‘not’ offer that facility, but does provide either tighter-spreads, a wider range of the Small Cap Stocks (that I gather you often prefer to bet on) or a smaller minimum bet size (i.e. £1 point)?”
While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, my thought process might run something like this:
#1: If the stock is available to trade on Capital Spreads or InterTrader (or possibly Financial Spreads), trade there in order to take advantage of the excellent guaranteedstop orders — after double-checking that the spread and / or minimum guaranteed stop distance is not too wide.
#2: If the small-cap or obscure equity is not available on those platforms, open the trade on IG Index (where it will more likely be available) — after double-checking that the spread and / or minimum guaranteed stop distance is not too wide.
#3: If those preferred platforms are down, or for some reason the trading parameters (like the spread and the minimum stop distance) are too onerous, consider the other platforms like ETX Capital, Spread Co or SpreadEx.
Currently, this would be my default order of preference, and yours might be different. Sometimes there may be a specific reason for deviating from this script, such as IG Index offering very small minimum stake sizes within the first few weeks of opening an account. Or (as was the case today for a particular equity) Spread Co offering a tighter minimum guaranteed stop distance. Or if I wanted to use the ETX Capital trade-through-charts facility specifically to demonstrate a trading idea on this blog.
In any event, I would likely open the same trade on a couple of trading platforms — for comparative purposes, and as a guard against one of them being down when I need to amend or close the trade. And I only have a choice of provider for any particular trade because I hold accounts with more than one of the spread betting companies.
Disclaimer: this posting is for general education only; it is not trading advice.