Direct Access means u are accessing the REAL exchange. A centralised place, where u will trade with other traders. ur orders are sent to the exhange, and what u view on ur screen is directly from the exchange
e.g. in the other thread i mention CBOT exchange, if u have a TT trading platform, and u are connected to the CBOT exchange then u will see the same prices as the bois in the pit in Chicago will seem maybe a 1/100 millisecond difference (although the best TT is pretty ill)
SB make their own markets - thus r called market makers. They can quote a market at desired level away from the real exchange quoted markets (although not too far otherwise fsa will be squeezing ther balls) e.g if real market is at bid6000 ask 6001 , they can go bid5999 ask 6002, and sometimes a number of points away! (depending on which little client they want to squeeze), and ofocurse they can make money from going into the real markets.
SBs play a very clever game, and they know alot of people will ulimatly lose.
PS. im not going to say a name - but from what i believe, a very very large and well established spread bet company held a meeting/party for about 6 of their clients a some years ago, because those 6 were the only consistant winners who were able to grow their equity line steadily. (out of the many 10,000's clients they may have)!
...its a game
