The aim of this spread trading guide is to give you a method of earning money that I and thousands of other people in Ireland and in the UK use.
With a history that now dates back to almost 40 years, spread trading is increasingly becoming more mainstream. In the last ten years the spread betting markets has exploded, but even more so in the last five years. There are a number of reasons for that, notably the introduction of broadband and mobile phones, as well as huge volatility in the markets post 2008.
However, I have no intentions of giving you a history lesson, telling you all of the ins and outs of the stock markets or telling you how to use all of the functions of a spread betting firm. I trade indices and stocks with these methods. If you wish to apply these methods to trading Commodities, Forex Pairs, Stocks, House prices or a million and one other things, please do so. It will work for anything, but you have to know the area that you are going to trade in.
What I am trying to convey is that I do not trade in anything else, and therefore I cannot comment on anything else. It is up to you to watch and learn about anything else that you wish to apply this knowledge to.
I am going to give you the knowledge that you will need to make money spread betting.
Introduction to Spread Betting
Spread betting or spread trading as it is commonly referred to in Ireland offers a tax-free and efficient way of trading the price movements of thousands of financial markets including indices, shares, forex pairs, commodities and more.
Financial spread betting may at first seem dauntingly complex but this can’t be further from the truth and has a number of advantages for traders and investors who want to access the financial markets in a cost-efficient way. In fact there’s no comparison to be made between dealing with traditional Irish stock brokers like Goodbody Stockbrokers, Davy, BCP or Merrion Capital and dealing with a spread betting provider! Who are the recommended Irish spread betting firms? Marketspeads? Deltaindex? IG Index? CMC Markets?
However, even before considering creating an account, make sure that you fully understand the risks and possible rewards. First and foremost, in the UK and Ireland financial spread betting is tax free, with no capital gains tax or stamp duty to worry about. But not only that, spread trading also allows you to take advantage of both rising and falling markets. Conventionally, stock investors would liquidate their positions stay out of the stock market when it was falling. They had little other choice then since they would probably have ended losing money had they stayed invested.
Spread betting allows you to open a ‘short’ trade, meaning you would make money if the price goes down. It doesn’t matter if you are new to spread betting, or if you have already tried it and are looking for ways to improve your performance. This spread betting guide contains information for the absolute beginner, and has much to help the experienced better, too.
This guide takes you step-by-step through the process of spread betting, comparing it with other methods of making money from trading, then introduces you to the techniques that you will want to learn in order to decide what bets to place. Finally, before you go wild, there are sections on how to manage your spread betting account, limiting your betting to what you can really afford so that you can continue to profit in the long-term.
“It’s because long only is a dangerous place to be in an uncertain world. It is because you get heavily taxed on pretty much every financial gain you make.”
Note that nothing in this guide constitutes personal advice or provides any guarantee of profit. Best practices are explained, and it is up to you to apply them consistently to have the best chance of success. Good luck!