Recent content by alphahunter

For perfectly matched long short positions on a stock (force open), IG requires a 5% margin on the total gross position. Example: SmallCap @ 25% margin a) Enter Long L > INITIAL REQUIREMENT = L X 25% then b) Enter Short L > TOTAL REQUIREMENT = 2XL X 5% (in effect from 25% L to 10% L) then...

IG Index pulled out from Spanish stocks and is now doing the same with the Italian ones, ironically at a time when these two countries are truning around marketwise and lots of utilities loaded with debt cheaper by the day. Reasons given is economics for Spain and legal for Italy - can't be...

kef2138, Are you trading small mid or large caps? I don't use them in large caps and very occasionally on mid caps, unless I am expecting a binary event such as the outcome of a law case, a company in take-over talks, etc,... GSL can get hit more often that you think, only to see the share...

Hi Lucas, I understand why they are doing it - the risk has increased - I was looking for opinions & comments as to who should bear this increased risk, so thank you for your reply - all the more so that this is not a topic that had the crowd exicted. In a way, I feel "appeased" to know that...

I'm wondering if you've been in that situation before. I placed a Long spreadbet on a stock with a Guaranteed Stop Loss. At the time of the bet, the minimal distance was 5% for the stop to be triggered. The following days, I adjusted the GLS up and down as to keep in line with the share price...

HI, I would download S&P index daily's data from yahoo finance and work out the statistics OHLC and overnight.

Superhot tropic it seems. Looks like IG had a point in not publishing brokers' changes then...

bhupe, You can see straight away that the selling prices were higher than the buying prices. This was a glitch in the platform, or more precisely in the prices feed and this has nothing to do with flushing anybody, no stop-losses would have been triggered, no one could have dealt on erroneous...

IG has taken down the provision of their daily Global Stocks Broker Rating, which collected brokers' ratings from Bloomberg and other sources. This was particularely useful for European stocks as there isn't a single source of info - apart from fee-paying Bloomberg - unlike for the UK stocks...

Spreadbeta, Thanks for taking the time and articulating your opinion on FP. Like you I do small to large UK caps, with an extra dose of French ones (SBF120), long and short, although the latter mostly on mid to large caps. I use IG and the 2%-5% spread on small caps and 1%-2% on mid cap not...

Thanks Simon, I usually take a couple of days, sometimes more, to research these small and mid-cap stocks in which I take a short position up to £10,000 only and tend avoid the ones already heavily shorted by HF (and I usually hold the positions for a week to say a over couple of earning...

Spreadbeta, that makes sense and if confirmed, that would annoy me hugely as I do mostly long-short. I can deal with alpha risk, not with the macro/QE/political vane. First time I read about a DMA-based spreadbetting platform. Are you happy with FP Market? Simon, would you have a excel list...

Thanks Simon, I understand these points and have always understood them but that is not the question I am raising if I may. Neither the French authorities nor the UK ones are banning borrowed shorts (the Irish/Spain/Italy/French you are referring goes back to 2010 then 2011, for financial stocks...

I have just finished comparing on excel the IG's lists of stocks in August 2011 and January 2013 for the UK market. About 3/4 of the ones that could be shorted in 2011 can't be so anymore. A large proportion of the ones that can be shorted today are short dailies only, which is not interesting...

0007, It looks like we are a bit like-minded. I agree, plenty of stocks to short but if you trade around your long-term short positions, you may not be able to come back once you've part-covered on a tactical basis. The only way around this IMVHO is to take a trading long position on the CFD...