Spread Betting - pros & cons?

Just considering stepping into the trading world (cautiously!) - so a few basic questions on SB. I'm ideally looking at a day trading 'scalping' approach, in a liquid market, which is open longer hours than just 9-5 (Forex??).

1. I presume the tax free nature of SB makes it a very attractive medium for trading. Are there any other significant benefits over conventional trading?

2. What type of trades are definitely not possible with SB? ......and what are the key disadvantages over running a conventional trading account?

Thanks

Hi, im in a sinilar situation ive bean learning trading for a while now and am considering going full time myself. My method is also short term Forex.

The main advantage of using SB is tax as you say. From what i gather the only time SB can be a problem is with scalping, longer term trading is fine. Some say if you start taking regular profits the SB company will start delaying your market orders and requoting you all athe time so that scalping becomes very hard.

The way to get better fills is to use a ECN fx broker where there is no conflict of interest between the broker and the trader, but there is obviously tax if you are successful!

Ive never had any problems with IG index so I am going to start to trade short term with them, but if they start playing any games I will change to an ECN broker.

alfiemal said:

Hi, im in a sinilar situation ive bean learning trading for a while now and am considering going full time myself. My method is also short term Forex.

The main advantage of using SB is tax as you say. From what i gather the only time SB can be a problem is with scalping, longer term trading is fine. Some say if you start taking regular profits the SB company will start delaying your market orders and requoting you all athe time so that scalping becomes very hard.

The way to get better fills is to use a ECN fx broker where there is no conflict of interest between the broker and the trader, but there is obviously tax if you are successful!

Ive never had any problems with IG index so I am going to start to trade short term with them, but if they start playing any games I will change to an ECN broker.

Click to expand...

Honestly, until this has actually happened to you I'd take anecdotal reports of this with a pinch of salt. IMHO you could quietly and efficiently take a grand a trading day off the major SB firms (100-200 pips) without them ever banning you, (and I'm still yet to see clear evidence of banning when simply playing the game with a straight bat). When you get to that stage you'll have other concerns...