Brokers for options UK

Stoploss54

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Hi, I would be grateful for advice on brokers for buying and selling options in the UK. Several well known brokers do not seem to offer a service for UK residents and others won’t allow clients to trade US options. I am only looking for execution only service and cost per transaction is important

In addition if any of you hav views on data providers I would be very intereted
Bestr geards
Stoploss54
 
hi, try IB & OptionsXpress. I use both, not that i trade options much.
 
Many thanks rsh01, any views on the differences between IB and optionsXpress?

In my v short time using both these are the pros:
IB: lower option (& other prods) fees; quite intricate (but takes bit of time to get used to - for me anyway) trading platform with realtime data; ease/speed of adjusting orders; can customise nicely if you are trading a lot of stocks or across a lot of markets then can set it up to have pretty much everything quoted and just a cpl of clicks away; can load up pages of options chains also; quick/easy to anaylse margin requirements; combo options interface is pretty good - making easy to setup fly's/condors etc; api link supposed to be good if you want to use excel/anything else to do more analysis...not got that far yet! demo platform good; risk navigator for analysing positions is ok for a noob - just started using.

OptionX: has more option on futures products; lower margins; simple browser interface - though thats a downside also; dont think theres a minimum to open acct.

Cons
IB: charts are apparently crap (heard some ppl mention that the chart data is incorrect - not sure how that happens) - but you can use the tick data for most charts packages eg esignal - not using the charts myself at present; need $10k to open acct
OX: the browser interface is slower to navigate around (on my pc it is anyway); 15min delay for quotes.

Sure others can add more, and no doubt different opinions. Cust service is good for both - though IB werent partic helpful when i asked about greek analysis - found that out by watching a webinar....wealth of webinars/tutorials & upcoming presentations on IB platforms/options trader etc. I tend to use IB for viewing prices/reviewing possible combo positions, and using OX to place orders on less liquid/products (have only placed a few v small live orders); am using the IB demo platform to trade weekly option combos - which is useful to use.

see the tabs "RUT" et al on this guys, well you can have as many of them you want & load up with hundreds of quotes, stats, greeks etc.
How To Trade Credit Spreads With Interactive Brokers - YouTube

i will post some screen shots up over the w/e.

I purchased hoadley excel to model options as well, so if i want to see impact on payout or greeks curve by hypothetically adjusting my position then its pretty useful. theres a lot more to hoadley but not yet delved too much into it.

what options are you wanting to trade? you may have already seen but the cboe website has some excellent webinars (archived & new) for free, been ploughing through dan sheridan ones, funny guy.
 
Cons
IB: charts are apparently crap (heard some ppl mention that the chart data is incorrect - not sure how that happens)

just read this:

When you chart with IB you have several options of what to chart:

1) Mid price
2) Trades only
3) Bid/Ask

If you choose 1) or 3) the charts will display every quote even if the market didn't trade there. This might be the reasoning.


http://www.trade2win.com/boards/direct-access/18316-interactive-brokers.html#post231354

...so perhaps the ppl who thought it was incorrect had 1 or 3 settings
 
Many thanks rshO1 I am really appreciative of your advice. Good luck with your trading

I use Hartmann Capital now, they use J-trader if you are looking at software, but I prefer talking to the dealer. Costs are fine and they seem to know their stuff in UK options which is what I trade.
 
I use Hartmann Capital now, they use J-trader if you are looking at software, but I prefer talking to the dealer. Costs are fine and they seem to know their stuff in UK options which is what I trade.


Thanks for infos apau
 
Has anyone had any success with option spread bets? Particularly daily options on the FTSE 100? I'd start a new thread but I don't have the requisite number of posts. Any experiences or advice on short-term option spread betting would be much appreciated. Sorry to hijack this old thread a little.
 
Has anyone had any success with option spread bets? Particularly daily options on the FTSE 100? I'd start a new thread but I don't have the requisite number of posts. Any experiences or advice on short-term option spread betting would be much appreciated. Sorry to hijack this old thread a little.

do you mean binary options or the options which some of the SB firms provide eg IG has 'options on FX majors'? there's a lot of unregulated binary option brokers, so be careful. some threads over in that section you should read.

Whichever product you are trading it suggests you have some view of where that market is or isnt going, so techniques on how to trade them will be similar to trading other products/markets. Can you be a bit more specific about what you are looking for.....do you want more info on fundamental analysis, or technical analysis? Trading strategies, chart analysis, indicators, broker info, platform suggestions, EAs etc etc?

I would suggest you read the FAQs posts in the threads also.
 
Thanks very much for your reply. Yes I really should have given more details!

I didn't mean binary options and intend to steer clear of them. I'm about to experiment (with a 'Trading Academy' 10p per point account at Finspreads) with taking a position early in the day on the FTSE via buying a call or put option as a spread bet. I would do this alongside my existing equity day trades placed with another provider.

In terms of my view, I propose to take a simple view during the first half hour of trading as to the direction the FTSE will take, based on overnight analysis of charts and what I have planned for the equity trades. On a reasonable number of days per year it'll move 30 points in one direction, or more, even if it doesn't close there. It didn't today in useful way, because the bailout news came long before the open, but on a positive but less news-oriented day it seems plausible for it to open near where it closed and eventually reach a high or low 30+ points away.

The plan on a predicted positive day would be to buy a call option close to the money somewhere between c. 8 and 8.30 and keep an eye what happens, with a limit order to exercise it should the profit be equal to the premium paid (thus permitting break-even if 50% of positions are correct).

Taking this sort of position, which could potentially be open 6-8 hours, as a simple spread bet would be unacceptably costly in terms of stops, given the intraday volatility (a stop 30pt away would not be guaranteed to be safe from normal spikes up and down, and would cost as much or more if triggered as an option premium). With the right premium pricing (a big if) daily option spread bets would make it much more possible to take this sort of overall intraday view.

I've been looking a lot at the options discussions here, but they tend to focus on monthly or quarterly options, and almost never on spread bets designed to mirror daily options.

I'd really appreciate any advice, or indeed any savage deconstructions of this possibility, if it's misguided!


do you mean binary options or the options which some of the SB firms provide eg IG has 'options on FX majors'? there's a lot of unregulated binary option brokers, so be careful. some threads over in that section you should read.

Whichever product you are trading it suggests you have some view of where that market is or isnt going, so techniques on how to trade them will be similar to trading other products/markets. Can you be a bit more specific about what you are looking for.....do you want more info on fundamental analysis, or technical analysis? Trading strategies, chart analysis, indicators, broker info, platform suggestions, EAs etc etc?

I would suggest you read the FAQs posts in the threads also.
 
TradeMonster accepts UK customers and their platform is better than the majority bar IB and ToS
 
Hi, I would be grateful for advice on brokers for buying and selling options in the UK. Several well known brokers do not seem to offer a service for UK residents and others won’t allow clients to trade US options. I am only looking for execution only service and cost per transaction is important

In addition if any of you hav views on data providers I would be very intereted
Bestr geards
Stoploss54

Hey I am too looking for the same. I have searched on the web about binary options. One thing was common, why people say don't trade US options. I don't understand the message behind it.... Is it very risky to trade US options or is it something else??? Please reply.....
 
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