Regular readers will know that I have spread betting accounts with most providers. This is not only for journalistic reasons (so I can write about them) but also because their slightly different offerings means that they can be useful in different scenarios.
Let me tell you what I think about spread betting company Trade Nation. These are not the usual plus points of tight spreads and fast execution that we would expect from all spread betting companies, but the factors that I personally think make Trade Nation stand out from the pack.
A Special Offer of Free Money!
Where else can you find fixed and tight spreads?
But, how much can you save with tight spreads? This is a key point because even if the spreads are tight, is it worth dropping the add ons? To figure out if the savings are worth it we’ll take a look at UK 100 and calculate what a trader could save:
A £10pp FTSE trade now attracts margin of £3675 with the current stock price at circa 7350 (5% MR).
Therefore, a client trading £10pp at Trade Nation in the UK100 index will “pay” £8 per round trip (£10 X 0.8pt spread). 3 round trips per day is then (3 X 0.8 spread) X £10pp = £24 in “costs”, if they do this 5 days per week their cost is £120 per week.
If the spread is a 1pt at a competitors’, they will pay (3 trades X 1pt) X £10 = £30 per day; 5 X per week is then £150.
In the above example, clients are saving 20% on the spread by trading with Core Spreads, but costs do add up for high frequency traders.
Retrospective Guaranteed Stop Orders
I’m a big fan of guaranteed stop orders that limit risk to an absolute level when prices “gap down” in volatile markets, but many spread betting companies make you decide whether you want your stop order to be guaranteed at the time you open your trade. With Trade Nation you don’t need to pay for the insurance of guaranteeing your stop order until you really need to.
Nice Platform with a Wide Range of Markets
A few spread betting companies make their platforms so complicated that you spend more time adjusting windows and widgets than you spend planning and executing your trades. Not so with Trade Nation, who utilise a very intuitive trading platform.
Some spread betting (and other trading) companies restrict you to trading stock indices and major “blue chip” shares, whereas Trade Nation has one of the widest range of individual equities available for trading.
Wise Words from Trade Nation
“The words spread betting implies that there is a gamble and element of luck in trading, but in my experience trading the markets profitably cannot be further away from the action of gambling. Investing in your education so as to understand how fundamental news moves the markets and how technical patterns and levels lead to self-fulfilling market movements will not only give you the tools and knowledge to trade but also the confidence to be profitable. Trading with confidence and with pre-defined goals and stops is how to profit from trading; if you fail to plan in trading, you are inevitably planning to fail.”
Conclusion
So now you know what I like about Trade Nation fixed, tight spreads, the benefit of retrospective guaranteed stop orders and a nice intuitive platform with a wide range of markets. Find out what you think.
Disclaimer: this posting is for general education only; it is not trading advice.