Markets and Platforms

[Shanghai]

Been hanging around the boards for a while and have been spending my last few years making the transition from investing (3-6 month holds) to adding some fun shorter term trades, and now moving to almost all shorter term (3-10 days) trades. Am pretty consistently in positive figures now after a year of mediocre results and have a set of rules for strategies and money management that have been developed over this time and that I am beginning to be happy with.

However I have some random questions. Perhaps these fit better in other places on the forum, so someone can slap me if that is the case.

I currently trade UK shares, but I am based in Asia. This is a market that I know and the trading day, from 3pm to midnight or so is ideal for me. However it seems to be that to trade UK shares shortish term that spreadbetting is the only way to go. I have used spreadbetting for a couple of years solely because the 0.5% stamp duty on the underlying is not required. Are there any viable options for trading platforms? The combined effect of stamp duty on a large series of trades will be a killer for me.

Of course another option would be to trade different instruments, eg commodities, or else trade different markets, but I hate to be dictated to, and have to develop new trading strategies, purely because of the UK tax situation.

The obvious related question is whether spread betting could be a feasible long term platform for a serious semi-professional trader. As always there are conflicting opinions.

 

[£10kLoser]

Hi

I may be new here but I've been trading over 10 years, mostly via spread betting. Who do you use? IG Index have a vast range of UK shares and an even vaster range of everything else.

For some reason, it looks like half the people on here look down on spread betting but my response is similar to yours - they can't be making enough profits to worry about tax! Having made my money at £100 a point, making and losing up to £10k a day (hence my name) from spread betting, I know for sure that it's a great platform for the totally serious, full-time pro.

Too many uneducated (trading wise) people blow their money on spread betting and then blame the company. The other thing is that I think many people like to pretend they are serious professionals by having a 'proper' broker...

Who gives a sh*t? It's how much money you make that counts.

Not too sure what you mean about viable options for trading platforms - if you still mean spread betting then the only choice is between the six or so companies with different platforms. I used to trade with CMC spreadbet and they were fine until it came to manually closing trades (rather than always using stops) when they were so slow that I lost a lot of money and switched to Cantor Index and then IG. With IG, I've always got the price I've clicked and my stops and limits have always been honoured despite my upgrading to a Standard Account (from the basic Limited Liability Account) in order not to be forced to pay the extra 3 pips for guaranteed stops. Even when they close them minutes later and the price has moved, I get the correct price (or I beat them to it and get an extra few pips).

The bottom line, as always with trading, is take no notice of the 'experts'. If they were really experts they'd not be giving advice on the TV or (like I'm doing) in forums - they'd be counting their money. My excuse is that I'm semi retired!

Go for it and make money - worrying about the best way to do it is just an excuse for inaction...

Bottom line, if you haven't tried IG Index, check them out. I'm well happy with them and I still do over 15 trades a week.

 

[Shanghai]

Good post 10kLoser, thanks for the reply. I also use IG Index and (I'm whispering as I say this) I have actually found them to be good. I have made money with them and if I have lost trades it is usually because they didn't go my way rather than IG Index hunting out my stops or other similar practices. What I'm trying to find out for certain is whether (to quote you) "it's a great platform for the total serious, full time pro". So it's good to get some positive feedback.

Totally agree also that many of the people who have blown their accounts will blame the spread betting company rather than themselves, but there is often the underlying tone from some posters here that spread betting is somehow a little unsavoury.

My comments about other platforms was whether there are any alternatives (other than spread betting) which would mean that I don't have to pay the stamp duty on purchases. It appears that there aren't and probably this is one of the main reasons for the spread betting companys in the first place.

I'm stepping up my trading now as I have reached the (expensive) point of knowing that I can be successful and I'm trying to get all the pieces in place.