B
Black Swan
TBH I thought the market place, in terms of active traders, was bigger than this article suggests. But we're a right clever bunch of over-educated nerds... 
New research gives a snapshot of the UK’s investment industry, and shows that punters are a demanding bunch
SPREAD BETTING has been in the UK for more than a decade now and it has been growing rapidly in popularity among the private investor community. But just who is your typical spread better, why do they use spread betting and what exactly do they think of all the providers battling it out for market share? The answers to all these questions can be found in a new report from Australian research firm Investment Trends, which conducted the first ever survey of British financial spread betters and contracts for difference (CFDs) traders on behalf of the spread betting industry in the UK.
So just how big is the financial spread betting industry? Only 83,000 spread betters have placed at least one trade in the past 12 months, which is fewer than you might have thought. And of these 83,000 spread betters, only a tenth also trade CFDs. (The number of traders who only use CFDs is estimated to be 10,000.)
Tim Howkins, chief executive of IG Group, says: “This survey shows that although the industry may have a strong and growing client base, there’s still plenty of potential to introduce many more retail customers to this innovative form of trading.”
And who are these spread betters? Well, unsurprisingly they are likely to be male. Just 7 per cent of active spread betters are women – an issue the industry is well aware it has to address if it wants to grow its client base. And most spread betters do so part time: only 4 per cent of spread betters consider themselves to be a professional trader. Indeed, there are as many retired people or students spread betting as there are professional traders. The majority either work in finance (15 per cent) or in computing (14 per cent).
And on the whole, financial spread betters tend to be highly educated individuals with 35 per cent having an undergraduate degree and 16 per cent a masters. More than 10 per cent of CFD traders have an MBA qualification and they are also more likely to have a graduate qualification than spread betters.
So why are these traders using spread betting and CFDs rather than using a stock broker or an independent financial adviser? Well, according to the research, the three main reasons cited by active spread betters are access to markets that would otherwise be unavailable, the ability to go short, and exploiting leverage to accelerate investment returns. Only 22 per cent of financial spread betters say that they use the product in order to hedge their existing investments, confirming spread betting as a predominantly speculative tool. Spread betting’s tax free status in the UK was also a consideration for 49 per cent of spread betters
http://www.cityam.com/markets-and-investments/i5yjswhkfk.html
New research gives a snapshot of the UK’s investment industry, and shows that punters are a demanding bunch
SPREAD BETTING has been in the UK for more than a decade now and it has been growing rapidly in popularity among the private investor community. But just who is your typical spread better, why do they use spread betting and what exactly do they think of all the providers battling it out for market share? The answers to all these questions can be found in a new report from Australian research firm Investment Trends, which conducted the first ever survey of British financial spread betters and contracts for difference (CFDs) traders on behalf of the spread betting industry in the UK.
So just how big is the financial spread betting industry? Only 83,000 spread betters have placed at least one trade in the past 12 months, which is fewer than you might have thought. And of these 83,000 spread betters, only a tenth also trade CFDs. (The number of traders who only use CFDs is estimated to be 10,000.)
Tim Howkins, chief executive of IG Group, says: “This survey shows that although the industry may have a strong and growing client base, there’s still plenty of potential to introduce many more retail customers to this innovative form of trading.”
And who are these spread betters? Well, unsurprisingly they are likely to be male. Just 7 per cent of active spread betters are women – an issue the industry is well aware it has to address if it wants to grow its client base. And most spread betters do so part time: only 4 per cent of spread betters consider themselves to be a professional trader. Indeed, there are as many retired people or students spread betting as there are professional traders. The majority either work in finance (15 per cent) or in computing (14 per cent).
And on the whole, financial spread betters tend to be highly educated individuals with 35 per cent having an undergraduate degree and 16 per cent a masters. More than 10 per cent of CFD traders have an MBA qualification and they are also more likely to have a graduate qualification than spread betters.
So why are these traders using spread betting and CFDs rather than using a stock broker or an independent financial adviser? Well, according to the research, the three main reasons cited by active spread betters are access to markets that would otherwise be unavailable, the ability to go short, and exploiting leverage to accelerate investment returns. Only 22 per cent of financial spread betters say that they use the product in order to hedge their existing investments, confirming spread betting as a predominantly speculative tool. Spread betting’s tax free status in the UK was also a consideration for 49 per cent of spread betters
http://www.cityam.com/markets-and-investments/i5yjswhkfk.html
