Best fx spread betting firm?

Whats the best firm to open a £1000 retail acccount with?

By best I mean:
IMPORTANT - tightest spreads for major fx crosses
QUITE IMPORTANT - tightest spreads for other markets eg stock indices
QUITE IMPORTANT - How much margin/ leverage you can have
QUITE IMPORTANT - Are they safe/reliable companies

Who is the best for these criteria from IG, spreadex, cantor, capital, finspreads etc.

I have had a quick look around and they all seem to have chasm spreads. I mainly want to trade EUR USD GBP JPY CHF AUD CAD and may dabble with stock indices and the odd fixed income trade. I think 5 pips is quite wide for EUR USD and other crosses are 10 pips wide - am I mistaken?

The general consensus is that IG and CMC are the most reliable and treat their clients the fairest. What is the point in a 1pip spread if when you try to open a position, they shut you out or give you a price that is 10 pips worse?

Take a look at Cantor Index. Tight spreads and pretty much instant execution. Not been slipped on a stop yet either.

Steve.

Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to your question. You have to try with a couple of different SB's, depending on the instrument you are trading. They all have flaws of some kind or the other. See if you can find a good balance between spreads, platform functionality and reliability. Also, because of financial security, it might be wise to have your trading capital divided between a few good SB companies.

Listen to shadow ninja,

you've titled the most important as being "IMPORTANT - tightest spreads for major fx crosses" to Reliable/safe as not so in comparison "QUITE IMPORTANT - Are they safe/reliable companies", surely this should be THE most important issue. If you can make money with slightly larger spreads then surely you'll do fine with the tightest spreads but the bottom line has to be quick/instant execution and reliability.

Try out several companies then pick the best one for you, therefor no one can take responsibilty for being biased with who they use as it's you who trialed them personally and decided to trade with.

i have tried ig, cmc i think ig is better and easy to use than cmc. the only thing that pisses me off is the real time charting with ig becomes slow and for a technical trader it a losses making thing.

I am completely new to this.So far I found TradeFair really easy to use - CMC I am completely lost with. When I say lost I mean £130 in less than 20 minutes because I could not work out how to put the friggin stop on quick enough! With the £100 intro bonus I am down £30, so not quite so bad

stevo4105 said:

I am completely new to this.So far I found TradeFair really easy to use - CMC I am completely lost with. When I say lost I mean £130 in less than 20 minutes because I could not work out how to put the friggin stop on quick enough! With the £100 intro bonus I am down £30, so not quite so bad

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Welcome to the wonderful world of trading. It sounds like you need to read up on money management. This will save you from a lot of pain and frustration.

Lee Shepherd said:

Listen to shadow ninja,
you've titled the most important as being "IMPORTANT - tightest spreads for major fx crosses" to Reliable/safe as not so in comparison "QUITE IMPORTANT - Are they safe/reliable companies", surely this should be THE most important issue.

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Completely agree with Lee, but if you want I'll offer you zero spreads and 20% loss returns if you sign up to my company and deposit $10,000 or more...

D'oh