T2W's Charity Spreadbetting Account

OK, long overdue and much anticipated, we are finally ready to go live with the T2W Charity Spreadbetting Account, suggested by counter_violent some months ago. It's taken a jolly long time to setup but we're now good to go.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, I'll summarise.

The people at Capital Spreads have come up with £1000 for us to basically play with. This is real money, in a real spreadbetting account, that will be run by you, the members of T2W, with the trades executed by the administrators of this site.

The £1000 is a monthly figure, and all winnings (if any!) over the £1000 will be donated at the end of each month to a charity you choose, determined by the above poll. Once the money has been donated, the account will be returned to £1000 and we start all over again.

So, this is a nice way for everyone who talks the talk to show us how good you are, or for less experienced traders to see how it actually works out, as trades will be chosen on a random basis using a method I'll come to shortly.

NOTES ON THE POLL:

I have added five 'default' charities to the poll. If there is one you would particularly like to see added, please PM me - do NOT post it here on this thread.


MAKING TRADES:


We are going to run a thread on a daily basis from 9am - 9am. During this time, members will be able to suggest a trade to be executed the following morning. After 9am, the thread will be closed and a post number chosen at random via web-based random number generator.

Trades must meet specific guidelines:

All trades must have an entry point
All trades must have an exit (target) point
All trades must be good for that day only (no rollovers to start with)
All trades must have a stop

Suggestions for trades that do not meet these requirements will be ignored.

Once the post has been chosen, the executor (admins) will say which post has been chosen and will enter the trade into the Capital Spreads platform at 0930 that day.

At the same time a new thread will be opened for the following days' trade, same conditions as before.

When the trade has completed, results will be posted to the first thread. If execution conditions are not met, then no other trades will be run.

At the end of the month's period, all trades will be closed, the account balance returned to £1000 and the difference sent by Capital Spreads to the charity on behalf of them/T2W. This should be a win-win for everyone really.

There are some restrictions on what we can trade, however. Please make a note of the following before making suggestions for trades (this will probably be duplicated on the daily thread).

RESTRICTIONS:

In the event that the charity vote is ‘hijacked’ by some parties acting in concert, London Capital Group (Capital Spreads) shall act as the final arbiter as to the Charity to be chosen. The default charities shall be the RNLI, Cancer Research and Oxfam.

In any one calendar month LCG will cap the total to be donated at £1000.

Any loses will be absorbed by LCG.

The Traders will not make any bets in Non UK Equities or in Heating Oil or Natural Gas contracts.

The maximum stake will be £1 a point in indices, energy and metal commodities and Currency Markets. The maximum stake in all other contracts shall be £2.

This maximum stake is also the maximum cumulative position in an individual market. The maximum stake is also the maximum stake in any group of markets with differing expiry dates. (i.e. The Traders may only have a £2 bet in Barclays. Not a £2 bet in Rolling Daily Barclays, £2 in March Barclays and £2 in June Barclays)

All open positions must have stops attached.

END RESTRICTIONS

That pretty much sums it up. We know that the selection and execution method is not ideal but we've been through a few scenarios and with the various restrictions we have (time, management) this is the best option right now. If we can refine it in time we will, but I'm keen to get it up and running.

The first day of the Charity Trading Account will be this coming Monday, July 23rd. I shall be opening a thread in a few moments for your suggestions for trades on that day.

The first suggestion thread for 23/07/07 is here

charity account - the rematch

is the charity account going to be reopened any time soon? in some areas of the site its been said the accounts loss of money was inevitable. i completely disagree and would like to see it open again even if its only for one month to test the theory. i genuinely believe if the same people that traded it last time trade it again we would not only get the £500 back but would finish the month more than £500 up on top.
im confident there will be a lot of interested observers and paticipants.
any chance of a rerun?

I'm waiting.

I would participate if you allowed longer term trades (i.e. with rollovers) or on futures. For instance a simple £1/pip long position on the gold future last month would have generated a great return.

i had double checked with Capital Spreads and was told :in practice, this charity account cannot be accept by any firm (SB or CFD provider) regulated by FSA.

But anyway, I need to thank you all as a brain-storm which I just bring this into a financial intermedium business for its marketing campaign two days later.

Can someone please tell me why this is not going ahead, I think its a great idea.