Financial Spread Betting

drrat

Hi, I have been lucky enough to get a £1000 prize in a spread betting account and have to make a bunch of trades before I can withdraw.

I am considering a couple of options to get through the trades I need to get through.

The first being just to simple make some fairly risk free trades to see me through the minimum requirements for withdrawel. Such as some fairly safe shares.

The second being to offset the risk with another spreadbetting account (hopwfully with an opening offer of some description). I know offsetting one spreadbetting company with another works for sports spreads, howver the financial world is slightly more risky, would it be feasible in a financial spread?

Aegis

I don't see why it wouldn't. Buy the FTSE 100 in one account and sell it in another and you should be able to close the position after just long enough to qualify as a trade. I suppose the one thing to look out for is very quick movements between closing the trades, in which case it might be worth looking at opening up a binary position (i.e. one which pays or not based on whether an index is above a specified point or not). You would have to make sure that the binary bets were centred around the exact same point (e.g. FTSE 100 being above 5,600 on 6 April) and with similar odds to eliminate potential losses, but quick market movements would make no difference at all to this method (i.e it's available).

Olipro

drrat wrote: »

Hi, I have been lucky enough to get a £1000 prize in a spread betting account and have to make a bunch of trades before I can withdraw.

I am considering a couple of options to get through the trades I need to get through.

The first being just to simple make some fairly risk free trades to see me through the minimum requirements for withdrawel. Such as some fairly safe shares.

The second being to offset the risk with another spreadbetting account (hopwfully with an opening offer of some description). I know offsetting one spreadbetting company with another works for sports spreads, howver the financial world is slightly more risky, would it be feasible in a financial spread?

I imagine the UK shares are probably quoted at £1 per point minimum right? and I assume that a 1p move in the share means a 1p gain/loss.

so, simply find a share with a few pence spread and just buy and sell it a few times in very rapid succession... the amount you lose will be the spread multiplied by the number of trades they require... even if it's 10 trades, I doubt you'll lose more than a few quid at most.

drrat

Thanks, guys I will use my demo acccount to look at these methods.

tradetime

drrat wrote: »

Hi, I have been lucky enough to get a £1000 prize in a spread betting account and have to make a bunch of trades before I can withdraw.

I am considering a couple of options to get through the trades I need to get through.

The first being just to simple make some fairly risk free trades to see me through the minimum requirements for withdrawel. Such as some fairly safe shares.

The second being to offset the risk with another spreadbetting account (hopwfully with an opening offer of some description). I know offsetting one spreadbetting company with another works for sports spreads, howver the financial world is slightly more risky, would it be feasible in a financial spread?

Fairly simple if your Spreadbet company offers futures bets alongside rolling daily bets. Pick a fairly slow moving index such as the S&P500 and place equal bets, long futures and short rolling, or vice versa, do it during market hours, 2:30pm - 8:00pm and ensure the bet s are closed before the market closes or the spread usually widens. The bet should be risk neutral and all you will lose is the spread. Current contract for futures on the S&P is June in case your firm offers a choice of contracts.