Is Spread Betting the best way of investing

[1]Spread betting is open to everyone as you can open a spread betting account with a few hundred pounds. Credit is also available as spread betting firms often allow credit facilities and you also have exposure to a wide range of markets. You can bet on commodities, interest rates, currencies, sports and politics – all of which can be traded from the one account.

You also have the ability to go short (Sell in a falling market). Before spread betting came along, shorting stocks wasn't easy for ordinary investors. With spread betting, shorting is as easy as going long (Buying in a rising market). Shorting is not a natural activity for many new traders, but is essential for being a successful trader.

Tax is not applicable, as you don’t pay tax on your winnings. There are also low transaction costs, no stamp duty and no commissions. There is no need for currency exposure, as with some firms you can bet on, US stock in pounds per point rather than dollars per point. So you don’t have to worry about the dollar gong up or down in addition to worrying about the price movement of the instrument.

Spread betting can offer extreme leverage, for instance you can bet on a an index with only 3% margin ( money need in the account to make the trade).

As an example with a stock trading at 660p, you can have exposure to £660 worth of stock wth just £19.80 (3% of 660 = 19.8) of money in your account. But with high leverage comes high risk.

Spreak betting is growing rapidly, one recent estimate put the number of customers at between a quarter and half a million, with expected growth to in the excess of one million over the next 5 years.

Comments

Submitted by NorthReport on January 23, 2009 - 10:13pm.

I have a better idea - stay out of the stock market altogether as it is no more than a crap-shoot. You may as well go to the casinos as your chances of winning are probably better there.

Submitted by Tommy_Paine on January 24, 2009 - 7:28pm.

And any reasoned person should never bet against house odds.

Submitted by It's Me D on January 30, 2009 - 4:16pm.

Um, is this an advertisment???

Submitted by Caissa on January 30, 2009 - 4:18pm.

I thought based on the heading that it was about whether to take the points on the Super Bowl.

Submitted by luckystrike on May 25, 2009 - 4:59am.

a useful site about spread betting [Oh, I think not. Removing spam link.]

Submitted by Michelle on May 25, 2009 - 9:50am.

It costs money to advertise on rabble. So I'm removing the links. But I'm not going to delete or lock the thread since a discussion seems to have broken out.

Submitted by Spread Betting ... on July 30, 2009 - 6:31am.

The financial spread betting world have got a back wind from the US goverment, will the spreads betting going to become legal in the US?

Submitted by Michelle on July 30, 2009 - 7:04am.

Jebus, what's with all these spammers?

It costs money to advertise on rabble. Deleting links and closing thread and banning accounts. This isn't "news by the rest of us". Quit spamming our site with your crap.