jas-105 said:
Simon,
From what I can gather, futuresbetting.com operate in exactly the same way as every other spreadbetting company , except they offer a tighter spread. The price that I have been trading on has been different from the actual underlying
Their (Ffastfill) software automatically makes a spread price around the underlying market and I believe all client positions are fully hedged automatically (in fact their narrow spread would probably make it prohibitive to take the other side of a client bet, unlike some other spreadbetting companies that have the "built-in" edge of a wider spread price initially).
It is the closest thing to trading the futures through an arcade in my opinion and, for a similar volume that a professional may reach, is comparable on costs, except that the software (remember that FFastfill is a front-end used by a lot of arcade traders), charts and live sqwawk are all free.
Please feel free to comment Simon as I imagine you have a lot of experience in this industry,
Thanks.
Just had a long chat with these guys at the FOW ehxibition at the Barbican
They basically provide a "straight through trading facility" to the underlying exchange.
The exchange prices and depth are total transparent, the software goes like s**t off a shoval.
As to pricing, take the bund as an example. The contract size is EUR10 a cent.
You see the live, real time quote on the exchange (I phone my trading desk and verified this)
Say this is 123.34 - 123.35 (0.01 = 10EUR remember)
the futuresbetting quote would be 123.336 - 123.344 if you want to sell/buy at the bid or
123.346 - 123.354 if you want to sell/buy at the offer
ie EUR4 per contract.
If you want to sell at the bid or buy at the ask then the order goes stright thru and is executed on the exchange, buying at the bid/selling at the ask means you join the queue on the exchange (Eurex is a first come first filled)
There's a 200 millsecond time lag between your button click and their execution on the exchange.
I take the point about this being a grey area wrt tax treatment but they spent over 2 years clearing the regulatory hurdles with the Gibralter FSA.
Also, it's segregated client accounts held in a British based account at Barclay's so you money is about as safe as you can get in this business.