zbs
I've been effectively - although not always deliberately - day trading gold using spreadbets and it's been very profitable, as much as anything because conditions have been right for it, just as they were for wheat earlier in the year and have been for oil.
As long as the price moves by enough to cover the spread - which it has often done within minutes, let alone during the course of the day - then you're fine. I've been opening positions in the morning; setting a stop as soon as the price goes above my first target and another at a price which will make me very happy, and then leaving it.
Because of the volatile nature of the markets, more often than not I'm stopped out within 24 hours, often overnight, so my bank increases and I can quite often open another position at a price much lower than I've been stopped at, during the course of the next morning.
Whilst I know it's down to market conditions rather than my acumen - although I do have clear strategies for timing my entry and setting my exit points - it's been pretty much a licence to print money for me for much of this year, although the key questions are 'for how much longer?' and 'which other commodities might produce the same results in the future?'.
For what it's worth, I think that both oil and gold have further to go.
