Best spread betting broker

Hi,

I am getting into spreadbetting, I've been using ETX Capital for a few months as they have a practice account.

Can anyone tell me the best spread betting platform/broker to use?? Recommendations with your reasons would be much appreciated.

I am only a beginner and will not be trading massive amounts of cash.

Thanks
JK

Surely we have some spread betters on trade2win.com

JK
This gets answered all the time on T2W.

There's plenty of firms out there to take your pick from. I work for two - Spreadex and ShortsandLongs. The latter is more geared for low staking clients and beginners.

Forget that for a moment though. what is it you are looking for? what products do you trade? what kind of stakes? is spread more imprtant or how much you need to fund by? Why would you not open through ETX?

Goose

if you want an account that lets you put lowstake trades down, you can use either iii.co.uk - u get £100 free when u open the acc, or ig index...they let you do like 50p sometimes less for 8 weeks i think its..on alot of products.

Thanks Guys!! Much appreciated...

I have started an account on ETX but the spreads are not that great and the minimum stake is £1. Another thing I've noticed is the realtime - its doesn't seem that real... seeing as I have bloomberg next to me.
I like to have a flutter on mainly stocks, indices and futures.

Ideally I would like a firm which allows low stakes, has decent spreads and

Also from my understanding, spread bets can be placed when the underlying market is closed... A lot of spread betting firms will not allow this (while the market does) are they any spread betting firms that you know of which allow this??

Thanks again!!

I hope you mean a bloomberg terminal and not the TV channel. It drives me nuts when our clients say the prices don't match the TV!

No excuse for not matching a bloomberg terminal though. Except for daily indices which are priced off the futures.

ShortsandLongs offers the best spreads and £1 minimums but you can't move orders out of hours. But do you REALLY need this option? if so, not the firm for you.

Not sure which firms allow you to trade under a pound but i'll find out....

Thanks Goose!

Yes, yes of course I mean a BB Terminal...

No I don't NEED this option but it would be an advantage.

I might give ShortsandLongs ago then... definitely open to any other suggestion though... and you're findings Goose...

Thanks again!!
JK

jamessk said:

Thanks Goose!

Yes, yes of course I mean a BB Terminal...

No I don't NEED this option but it would be an advantage.

I might give ShortsandLongs ago then... definitely open to any other suggestion though... and you're findings Goose...

Thanks again!!
JK

Click to expand...

I think it is possible to open an account in another currency at Dealingdesk or VDM, and still trading 1 unit. Also, you could consider trading CFDs at some of the MT4 brokers offering micro lots.

Good luck!

It would have to be ODL. Extremely tight spreads and customer service is the best there is out there.

Good luck

jamessk said:

Thanks Guys!! Much appreciated...

I have started an account on ETX but the spreads are not that great and the minimum stake is £1. Another thing I've noticed is the realtime - its doesn't seem that real... seeing as I have bloomberg next to me.
I like to have a flutter on mainly stocks, indices and futures.

Ideally I would like a firm which allows low stakes, has decent spreads and

Also from my understanding, spread bets can be placed when the underlying market is closed... A lot of spread betting firms will not allow this (while the market does) are they any spread betting firms that you know of which allow this??

Thanks again!!

Click to expand...

James

Thanks for opening the player account on our Green Platform. We have just launched our brand new 'Silver' platform. There are plenty of improvements compared to Green, for example, FX is now quoted 24 hours a day with 32 currency pairs that have fixed spreads from 2 pips.

We're happy to accept orders on markets that are closed but you need to be aware that you're running the risk of slippage being applied if there is a gap between the close and open.

if you want to have a look at our silver account send me a message and i'll have £100 put in to it for you to have a play around with.

Good luck, Rob.

I just found out that you can't trade 1 unit with some currencies at VDM, as stated by me earlier on this thread, sorry about that.

ETX Capital said:

James

Thanks for opening the player account on our Green Platform. We have just launched our brand new 'Silver' platform. There are plenty of improvements compared to Green, for example, FX is now quoted 24 hours a day with 32 currency pairs that have fixed spreads from 2 pips.

We're happy to accept orders on markets that are closed but you need to be aware that you're running the risk of slippage being applied if there is a gap between the close and open.

if you want to have a look at our silver account send me a message and i'll have £100 put in to it for you to have a play around with.

Good luck, Rob.

Click to expand...

Thanks Rob, I have looked at the sliver account but when comparing accounts, the minimum £1 bet box was not ticked... therefore please confirm the smallest stake allowed on the silver account...

JK

jamessk said:

Thanks Rob, I have looked at the sliver account but when comparing accounts, the minimum £1 bet box was not ticked... therefore please confirm the smallest stake allowed on the silver account...

JK

Click to expand...

Hi James,

We are testing some new releases in UAT at the moment, the releases are scheduled to go live in a fortnight and one of the improvements will be sub £1 betting.

Thanks, Rob.

Hi James

I'm a new Silver trader with ETX. Their platform is, to my admittedly inexperienced eye, one of the best out there, and their advanced charting is good and easy to use. I applied for a Silver account, Rob immediately funded it with £100, so I was able to run their advanced charting.
My interest is Forex spot pairs, I'm not interested in anything else at the moment. On the major pairs their minimum is £1/point, and I think their spreads are pretty competitive... if I recall correctly Euro/USD, Euro/GBP are 2 points, GBP/USD, USD/JPY are 3 points, and the rest are 4 points.
I started trading real-time yesterday using my free £100, just 2 trades gave me a 7-point profit, so 7% in a day is OK by me. When you close out a position they are incredibly quick, both my trades were closed in less than a second... when I was using a CS demo account it sometimes took 10-20 seconds to close, which was totally useless.

Hope this helps and good luck!

IGINDEX is the best this is my opinion ...

tar said:

IGINDEX is the best this is my opinion ...

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I'd be interested to know the whys and wherefores of your opinion. I had a look at IG, impressive but they don't have a demo account so there was no way I could practice trading with their platform. For me that's a no-no, no way am I, as a complete newbie to SB, going to plunge into live trading with real money using a platform which is unfamiliar to me.

I had demo accounts with Capital Spreads, GFT and ETX which I played around with before I made my decision as to which one to use with real money. Also, IG don't have fixed spreads in the FX spot market as far as I understand it, their spreads are variable (I may be wrong here, but looking at their website that would seem to be the case).

Paul-B said:

I'd be interested to know the whys and wherefores of your opinion. I had a look at IG, impressive but they don't have a demo account so there was no way I could practice trading with their platform. For me that's a no-no, no way am I, as a complete newbie to SB, going to plunge into live trading with real money using a platform which is unfamiliar to me.

I had demo accounts with Capital Spreads, GFT and ETX which I played around with before I made my decision as to which one to use with real money. Also, IG don't have fixed spreads in the FX spot market as far as I understand it, their spreads are variable (I may be wrong here, but looking at their website that would seem to be the case).

Click to expand...

Hi , u can have demo account with IG forex and IG markets , it is the same platform but less products i told u this b4 a week , and when u open an account with them they give u the chance to bet in small aizes for 6 weeks ...

For me IG is the best they invented Spread betting and they r a FTSE250 company with an annual net profit of 100 m $ , they r strong and reliable and they can handle big traders and big profits , they r not born yesterday ...
2- lower margin requirments ...
3- Guaranteed stops is avaible ...
4- excellent customer service ..
5- price improvement : they give positive slippage if the price goes against u when u r taking the bet and they fill u at the better price ( sometimes 40 points ) .. in the other hand they dont give negative slippage only 1-2 pips and its rare ...
6-Nice charts , they have proscreener with their charts , u can code and scan thousands of stocks in one second , for example : lets say u want US stocks with a 60+ RSI and with a share price between 30 $ - 40 $ , u can code the ( Proscreener ) using the built-in help and then u search the shares list . For stocks traders this facility is very important . another example : u can code the screener to search for FX pairs with ( 10 MA over 21 MA over 50 SMA ) ... u can use any indicator u want in your code , i only gave some examples .
7- huge range of products including options and 7000 stocks ...
8-Trailing stops ...
9- Dealing directly from the charts ...
10-SMS and email alerts ( price alerts )
11- Also u can use their L2 dealer software and trade stocks and futures using direct access ... Also if u r big u can trade spot FX directly with Tier 1 banks ...
12- 24 hour trading and u can trade stocks from the bill to the bill ...

I am talking about ( Plus account ) , but with limited risk accounts u will pay extra spread and i dont advice u ...

Anyway this is my opinion , and i dont know y i answered your question , stay with ETX or CS ... and enjoy ...

There's a point... Rob @ ETX,

If I remember rightly ETX do not always guarantee stops losses do they? Or has that changed?

Some of the spreads at IG are a bit steep though. For example, U.S Crude at 8-10 pips spread whereas you can get 4-5 elsewhere.

jamessk said:

There's a point... Rob @ ETX,

If I remember rightly ETX do not always guarantee stops losses do they? Or has that changed?

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James

You're correct. We do not offer a guaranteed stop.

It is being discussed at the moment and will be something we offer in due course. I understand that it is important to a certain user base but a lot of things are important as well and to take a platform live means a few compromises need to be made in order to get the platform launched.

There comes a point commercially where you need to launch but that doesn't mean that the platform is complete. It means that it is considered a strong enough platform to compete straight off the bat. Our development is on going and we will be releasing added functionality reguarly and I assure you that all constructive comments from T2W members will be considered and implemented where ever possible.

Thanks, Rob.