Greece...

Generali

mwpt wrote: »

Hmm, you sure? Since this started as a discussion about how we'd invest, I'm speaking as amateur investors. What options are available for CFD trading to an amateur investor that yield dividends? And if it's only in a single name, that is also pointless since we were talking about trading the index.

IG will sell you CFDs that include dividends on various indices:

http://www.ig.com/au/indices-cfd-details

As I say, if you have a short position you have to pay out dividends so it would be pretty unreasonable not to receive dividends on a long position!

We offer cash and futures CFDs on a wide range of global stock indices. Our cash index CFDs are undated transactions which aim to replicate the cash price of the underlying index, and are therefore adjusted for interest and dividends [7]. Notes in [square brackets] can be found at the bottom of the page.

The interest component of the price is due to the leveraged nature of the product.

So if you have a long CFD on the FTSE100 and BP pays a dividend then that dividend will be added to the value of the CFD rather than being paid out as cash.

CFDs on cash stock indices are undated transactions that do not expire (unless requested, please see note 9). For each day that a position is open, adjustments are calculated to reflect the effect of interest (i), and, if necessary, dividends (ii).

(ii)A dividend adjustment is applied to take account of the ex-dividend adjustment to the index. This is the number of points by which the index price must be adjusted downwards to take account of those shares in the index which go ex-dividend at the close of the cash market. We will use the ex-dividend figure estimated by Bloomberg (E&OE), rounded to the tick size we use for that index, to determine what adjustment to apply. In the case of long positions, the dividend adjustment is credited to the client's account. In the case of short positions, the dividend adjustment is debited from the client's account.

mystic_trev

Generali wrote: »

Most people trading like you lose money in the end.

I've never traded CFD's and certainly never will. I don't really want to repeat the same disasters I've had with my Spread betting accounts. I never really understood (at the time) why IG were all over me like a rash, when I opened my first account about fifteen years ago, although I soon did! Being called in the middle of the night (whilst on holiday) for margin calls, is not a particularly pleasant experience! Needless to say I lost quite a bit before deciding to close my Account.

You'd have thought I would have learnt from this experience? No, I repeated it all again 10 years later with the same results!:eek:

Never again!

chucknorris

Generali wrote: »

Most people trading like you lose money in the end.

I think that you might possibly be misunderstanding what I am actually doing (or rather how infrequently I am doing it), I am not doing anything like 'day trading'. All I am doing is perhaps getting in and out of my ETF's 1 to 3 times per year when it looks high or low, and 'attempting' to do so before the ex dividend date (so I don't lose dividend income). I can see that it is possible that I may miss out on some growth, but as I said above I believe that this risk is at least partially balanced by the opportunity of being out/partially out of the market when (not if) there is a fall, but I can't see any losses arising from doing what I am doing, compared to leaving my money in the market all the time (so if the market dropped I would have a paper loss anyway).

wotsthat

Bloomberg this morning reckoned €2bn had exited Greek banks in the last week. They also showed a graph which starkly demonstrated net outflows since at least 2009 - it looks like a 6 year bank run.

The ECB are providing liquidity to support Greek banks but I realise I don't understand what this means. Is the ECB providing liquidity which is then withdrawn on pay day from the cashpoint? That would make some sense to me because I still can't work out how any Greek would be daft enough to keep all but the bare minimum of Euros in a Greek bank.

michaels

TBH you make exactly the same losses/gains in a FTSE tracker as you do eith the CFD - the difference being with the CFD you don't tie up all your capital.

Edit: However I can't claim to be an expert, my limited esperience was opening accounts in mine and DWs names both of which had a 500 intro bonus that had to be traded before withdrawal and setting offsetting trades, and still managed to get it wrong with the stop loss settings when the market managed to hit the loss side one and turn before hitting the profit side which somehow I had managed to set 0.5 points higher because the market had moved slightly between putting the trades on in each account. I wasn't watching real time and by the time I realised what had happened that evening I had lost half of the 900 quid 'locked in profit'. I already think that if I were to trade and beat the market it would only be by luck but that experience also deterred me from doing any further CFD 'matched betting'.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

TBH you make exactly the same losses/gains in a FTSE tracker as you do eith the CFD - the difference being with the CFD you don't tie up all your capital.

Plus with a CFD you don't pay stamp duty.

purch

Generali wrote: »

Most people trading like you lose money in the end.

Most people trading like me do :eek:

tom9980

No massive panic where my parents are but there was small queue's at ATM's most locals seem to have limited amounts they can take out while mum withdrew €800 over the past few days. Biggest concern is can they get home if it hits the fan?

antrobus

wotsthat wrote: »

Bloomberg this morning reckoned €2bn had exited Greek banks in the last week. They also showed a graph which starkly demonstrated net outflows since at least 2009 - it looks like a 6 year bank run.....

It was €2bn between Monday and Wednesday. The BBC have €3bn between Monday and Thursday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33195732

wotsthat wrote: »

...The ECB are providing liquidity to support Greek banks but I realise I don't understand what this means.....

It means that as depositors withdraw funds from the Greek banking sector as a whole, the ECB is filling the gap. Greek Bank has €100bn of deposits and so advances loans of €100bn to a grateful populace. Nervous depositors request withdrawal of €10bn from their accounts, which Greek Bank cannot accomodate because the money is all tied up in loans. Good old ECB (as central banks do) acts as lender of last resort, and deposits €10bn with Greek Bank.

Greek Bank is now happy because the books still balance.

wotsthat wrote: »

.... Is the ECB providing liquidity which is then withdrawn on pay day from the cashpoint? ...

No, it doesn't have anything to do with availability of bank notes as such. Although if the ECB was not able to provide the liquidity, the banks might not be able to allow the withdrawals.

wotsthat wrote: »

....That would make some sense to me because I still can't work out how any Greek would be daft enough to keep all but the bare minimum of Euros in a Greek bank.

The number of daft Greeks appears to be falling rapidly.

mystic_trev

I wonder what'll happen on Monday?

I expect they'll 'fudge it' again. Agree to disagree and arrange to meet up for another round of bun fights in six months time!