How does it Work?

I don’t know why more people don’t do spread bets or CFDs. The major upside is that there is no Capital Gains Tax to pay and you can leverage or short companies if you like (it is a bet, not a holding). Of course, the downside is that you don’t enjoy shareholder rights.

I still hold some shares in an individual savings accounts (ISA). The majority of my money is on spreadbets though. They give wide market access and you can get most tickers. You also get good free charting, and most of the companies are large enough to be resilient. I use CMC, Capital Spreads and IG Index (mostly IG index).

Do you get dividends if you are long with a spread bet?

Yes, you get them indirectly. I was surprised in my earlier days when I used to get deposits from somewhere and it turns out these are dividends.

How does it work?

With IG Index you can do a spread bet against a certain expiry option on a share. I normally pick the furthest away expiry – on a share like DGO this is the September expiry. For these there is no rollover cost each night. The only real cost is that the spread is a few points wider than a shares spread, or a day cash price spread.

When expiry comes around you can either close it and open a new one yourself, or you can ring them and “roll it over” to the next expiry period. The cost for this is half the spread on the next period. They are mostly quarterly expiry periods.

A plus for spreadbets is no per trade fee, so you can do as many as you like (but there is still a significant buy sell spread)

DGO cash: 442.89 – 445.86
Sept expiry: 444.32 – 450.45

Who is suitable?

Spread Betting and CFD’s suitable for traders/speculators and perhaps to hedge shares held in a bear market. Not so suitable for long term investors.

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Getting started with financial spread betting is a piece of cake. This following guide will help you take your first step into the profitable world of financial spread betting.

The first step in the financial spread betting guide is to understand the meaning of spread betting. Financial spread betting is a way of leveraging your investment with small amount of money placed on financial related bets. The meaning of this is that you can get started with a small amount of money as low as 10 GBP and make it into 100 GBP with a single bet. The available financial markets vary from commodities to shares stocks and currencies.

And now all you need to know is about the spread, what is the spread?

The spread is the high and low value of a financial market as set by the spread betting company. For example: The high and low value of oil per barrel in a certain day at a certain time is between $70 – $72 per barrel. And the investor needs to decide whether at the end of the bet the oil price will be above or below that price. As simple as that.

Now we need to know what we can be on: Anything from commodities (oil, gas, silver, gold, wheat..) to stocks, shares, currencies (forex) and more. There’s a lot you can bet on. Now that you know the basic concept of financial spread betting we’ll move onto the next step which is finding the best financial spread betting program.

In order to find yourself the best financial spread betting company to get started with you need to learn about the different offers. First read the reviews about the spread betting companies. You need to make sure they have support, licensed and regulated in the UK and that the available payment method match the ones you can handle.

If you are planning to start low, check the minimum amount per bet and the minimum deposit amount.

Make sure the spread betting company is having a stop loss feature. The stop loss is meant to protect you from losing more than you originally deposit to the spread betting company. Get familiarized with the software. If it’s too complicated, move to another place.

That’s it. You are good to go. We recommend practicing first before you invest your first pound. Most financial spread betting companies offer a practice platform which simulate the real thing.