The only pros I can see is that it's tax free. I tried to place two trades on Friday at approx 500 pounds or 12 per point and my order was too big for a near 1 billion mcap company FTSE 250 company with ig index. How can you make big money from spread betting when such limits are placed?
M
malaguti
Why do you say your order was too big? You got an error message saying reduce your stake size? there are much bigger trades than that happening every day for IG. Are you sure you just didn't have enough in your account to cover it?
M
malaguti
have you asked IG mrfixit? Failing that, have you actually tried to purchase a 1000 shares in that company using a proper broker, ie one that places your order in the underlying market. £12 per point will cover your spread but most execution only brokers will charge you about the same to buy those same number of shares and if its in your isa its tax free.
random12345
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RSH I don't know where you get this from re millions per tick, maybe you're being a bit sarcastic to say the least. They pretty much have a hard cap of £300/pt on forex - you cannot get filled more than that even on the phone - they don't do wide average fills.
Nobody in the world bets millions per tick on a single or narrow spread price fill. Absolutely nobody.
random12345
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But yeah £12 a pt is nothing, should easily get a fill.
Shakone
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Mike Ashley the Newcastle chairman lost around 130m-300m with IG on a bet on HBOS. I don't know what size that was per point, but I think they will allow larger size and quote a larger spread if it's worth it for them. They would be mad not to.
I also remember reading that he bet 1000's of pounds per pip on forex with them. I don't think this is available to regular retail clients though, so on that you're right.
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random12345
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Individual quotes across a range of prices on a single stock where they could take a whole day to get back to you and an individual trades a tangible percentage of the total daily volume weren't what I was referring to, but I take the point based on the context of the original question since that was in a single stock.
Millions per point though...?
Shakone
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Is it perhaps that you haven't reached the minimum size for the instrument (a long shot I know)? Or perhaps it needs to be in multiples of 5 or 10? Does seem weird that £12 is rejected.
yellowfloyd
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Mate I have had the same issue time and time again using various spread betting accounts and each time I speak to someone I get the same responses and it started to really wind me up. I agree with you that the only real pro is the tax element which only really comes into play when you are making a decent profit anyway! I’ve switched to CFD’s now and find it much better for fills in the market especially for equities (the indices are still the same). I have to pay a little commission fee with the CFD’s but it’s pretty small fry really. I’ve got a couple of accounts now and don’t think I would go back to spread betting. My biggest issue with these spread betting firms are that they make when I lose and vice versa so I’m automatically thinking why would they give me a decent fill, if they stand a higher chance of losing. I’d go down the route of CFD’s mate.
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yellowfloyd
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In my experience spread betting is fine if you're doing smaller positions but hundreds of pounds (even less) you are at the broker's mercy as to whether you will get a fill. You may be better off trading CFDs DMA where there is no broker intervention.
ffsear
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What stock were you trying to trade? I trade US shares and some of the max sizes are as small as £5pp - But you can always trade again to increase your position.
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