Which spreadbetting account??

Hi All,

I am preparing myself to get into spread betting at the moment and was wondering which company to go with to trade commodities and companies in the FTSE.

Which companies do you believe offer the best spreads??

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.:clap:

Jason

Difficult question. Does it have to be spread betting or would you consider CFDs? I so, check out these ones (good ones):
- igmarkets
- cmcmarkets
- synthesisbank/tradingfloor.com
- saxobank
- odl securities
- fxdirektbank

these ones here are worth a try but don´t know wheather or not they belong to the prime league of brokers:
- gci trading
- cityindex
- mig investments

i know many more brokers but can´t recall em currently... most brokers i know are traditional stock, derivative and future brokers (like e.g. interactive brokers). not spread betters.

jason_w said:

Hi All,

I am preparing myself to get into spread betting at the moment and was wondering which company to go with to trade commodities and companies in the FTSE.

Which companies do you believe offer the best spreads??

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.:clap:

Jason

Click to expand...

Sorry for the newbie question but what is spread betting? Thanks.

Cityindex should be avoided as they are fraudulent. Many people have lost money through their advisory service and a few more have lost it through inaccurate charting. They follow their own price range rather than that of the LSE for the FTSE 100 index. Best to use IGIndex.

Tradindex

I G Index/Markets
GNI Touch
dbFX - (Deutsche Bank) - have their own platform too -

I use IG Markets as they seem to the most reliable when big announcements come out.

I've used finspreads in the past and they were a joke.

liam1om said:

I use IG Markets as they seem to the most reliable when big announcements come out.

I've used finspreads in the past and they were a joke.

Click to expand...

I have posted a number of threads on this site knocking spreadbetting, however recently following a discussion with an aquaintance during which GFT were mentioned I decided I would take a look, for two weeks I have tracked their prices against the dow futures and a few currencies. They do I have to say so far appear to be as good as gold, no hanky panky with spikes. Yes spreads widen at times but not to ridicukous levels.

GFT's response when I asked them outright if they manipulated prices to take out stops was they are too big in the currency markets etc to risk damage to their reputation.
I followed their prices through tonights fed announcement they were pretty good v the futures.

Next step for me then is a small live trade and see how that goes. If I encounter any lets say hanky panky then I shall post accordingly.

Cheers
Nut

PS their platform is in my view excellent, I have no commercial connection with this or any other company.

I like a cobination of all 3 platforms I use, if I could marry all 3 together then I would have a perfect trading platform.

GFT's platform is the best imho ( that is between, GFT, CMC and IG) their charting software is pants, I have been in direct dialogue with them about it, geezer called Ben Hagen rang me from Chicago yesterday, said he was going to put forward some of my suggestions for improving it.

The charting software that IG are using although it is the same provider as CMC is better and comprehnsive from them. CMC's appears to be an adhoc version. There are a few bit's I would use from CMC, mailny their ease of navigation.

Can we please compile a sticky for "Which?" thread?

I think it is of anyone interest to have reasonably compact description of top 10 SB companies.

I propose categories: Platform, charting, customer service, depostis safety, "hunky punky" factor (C) Nut

Lets put opinions from personal experience in form of short description and ratings plus links to an existing discussions to explain particular points.

P.S. it will save time to all of you answering similar questions and make the forum neater (hopefully) removing unnecessary discussions over and over again.

Im all for having a rating off all the spread betting firms and reasons why they are good

i think that it would be a good idea to have such a system of reviews for brokers. its all well and good for those who have been members here for ages as they have a grasp of who is good and bad.

yes, i agree that newbies might want to try different brokers as a learning experience but wouldnt it be in everyones interest to review them? by knocking the awful ones, capitalism will force them to improve (or die). by highlighting flaws with the better ones we give them an incentive to improve too so they retain their status. we all gain with better trading platforms. this sites owner gains through becoming a credible and valued resource together with the possible financial gains this could lead to (advertising revenue etc.)

this forum uses vbulletin right? i am sure there are add-ons so that we can create some sort of review system. another idea could be to incorporate a cms (content management system) into this site such as joomla. i am certain that such review addons would be available for that.

other products could be reviewed later

i think that teams made up of staff and experienced members can review different brokers dependent on criteria (which? style star system) and write a little review too. these can be updated every 9months-year. members could then comment in the fora.

Broker recommendations are always going to depend to an extent on how you want to trade. It seems that many traders on this forum spend their time moaning about spread betting companies but they are very short term traders - in and out for a small number of ticks in a matter of minutes. From my experience you will find it difficult to get a good SB company that will let you trade like this and win consistently before making life difficult for you. If you are a swing or position trader then most of the brokers that get a bad rep actually become more than satisfactory. I have had an account with almost every single spread bet company that exists and I stil fnd E*Trade to be the best. I found they had the lowest spreads, the lowest margin requirements and very fast execution. I also found them very, very fair on the rare times I had a problem/complaint.

trader_dante said:

Broker recommendations are always going to depend to an extent on how you want to trade. It seems that many traders on this forum spend their time moaning about spread betting companies but they are very short term traders - in and out for a small number of ticks in a matter of minutes. From my experience you will find it difficult to get a good SB company that will let you trade like this and win consistently before making life difficult for you. If you are a swing or position trader then most of the brokers that get a bad rep actually become more than satisfactory. I have had an account with almost every single spread bet company that exists and I stil fnd E*Trade to be the best. I found they had the lowest spreads, the lowest margin requirements and very fast execution. I also found them very, very fair on the rare times I had a problem/complaint.

Click to expand...

there are certain variables that dont require a personal opinion but more of what is fact. ie one could state wide spreads, slow execution, slow platform.

one would then of course have to state personal opinions but be clear about it. an example would be in charting software ie. "in my opinion xyz trader's charting software is very confusing."

certain specs would have to be agreed upon as to what the star rating would consist of. good ideas would be:

speed of platform
speed of execution
spread size
margin requirement
choice of market
overall rating

straightforward really. would make a great guide and would keep companies on their toes a little

trader_dante said:

Broker recommendations are always going to depend to an extent on how you want to trade. It seems that many traders on this forum spend their time moaning about spread betting companies but they are very short term traders - in and out for a small number of ticks in a matter of minutes. From my experience you will find it difficult to get a good SB company that will let you trade like this and win consistently before making life difficult for you. If you are a swing or position trader then most of the brokers that get a bad rep actually become more than satisfactory. I have had an account with almost every single spread bet company that exists and I stil fnd E*Trade to be the best. I found they had the lowest spreads, the lowest margin requirements and very fast execution. I also found them very, very fair on the rare times I had a problem/complaint.

Click to expand...

Isn't E-Trade just another name for Capital Spreads, though?

I'm trading the FTSE using capitalspreads.com