FT Guide to Financial Spread Betting

If you think spread betting is complex and high risk then think again. Stuart Fieldhouse demonstrates that with the right knowledge and approach it needn’t be. From opening an account and carrying out basic technical analysis through to assessing market opportunities and minimising risk, this book offers a comprehensive walk-through of everything you need to know to trade successfully. The Financial Times Guide to Spread Betting gives you the tools to spread bet with confidence. The book includes:

• Different ways to trade, the markets available and various approaches you can use in those markets
• How to integrate spread betting into a wider investment strategyandhow to hedge your share portfolio
• Trading in new markets, such as commodities, forex and government bonds
• Managing risk and what to do when markets turn volatile

Introduction:

Financial spread betting is the fastest growing form of online trading in the UK today. The increasing use of the internet for trading activities, coupled with an interest on the part of the public in trading other financial markets outside physical share markets, has led to this spectacular growth. Financial spread betting has the additional attraction of being tax free, with no capital gains tax or stamp duty levied on transactions.

Advertising by the companies that offer spread betting is ubiquitous, on railway station billboards, in business newspapers and even on television. But for someone who is not familiar with spread betting, it can look dauntingly complex from the outside. This book sets out to be a primer for the beginner interested in the world of spread betting; there is information within that can guide you through the early stages of your spread betting career, as well as chapters that will become of more interest once you have placed your first few trades.

Before you hit that ‘buy’ button and immerse yourself in the world of online financial markets that spread betting offers you access to, it is vitally important that you make sure you know what you’re doing. Every day, hundreds of people open and fund an online financial spread betting account, often lured by special offers or the attractive prospect of being able to pocket any profits without paying tax. Perhaps it is the glamour of trading fast-moving financial markets that causes individuals to stake thousands of pounds on trades that can lose them that stake – and more – in a matter of minutes.

Yet as with many things in life, online trading can be more rewarding if you do a little homework, spend some time informing yourself about the choices that you are being presented with and educate yourself about some of the risks you face as a trader. There are, after all, many lower risk ways to make money: that’s what financial advisers and the multi-billion pound fund management industry is there for. But if you are taken with the idea of trading, and potentially generating some extra income for yourself (or even making a living from this eventually), then it is critically important that you only place your first live trade once you are completely sure of the risks you are taking on.

To many who have not placed a trade online, financial spread betting probably seems like an esoteric, inaccessible and high risk area of investment. Parallels are sometimes drawn with gambling, especially sports spread betting. To all intents and purposes, spread betting is gambling, in that you are betting on price movements and not paying tax on your winnings. The UK tax authorities treat it as gambling for this very reason. The prices you trade on are not the market prices: they are very similar, and it takes skill to make money from this consistently, but you are not trading the market itself.

Contents:

• How to spread bet
• Finding the right spread betting company
• Risk management for the margin trader
• Spread betting on shares and indexes
• Commodities for the first timer
• Forex – the world’s biggest financial market
• Spread betting on debt and interest rates
• Technical analysis
• Finding your own trading style
• Other types of spread bets
• Further resources

FT Guide to Financial Spread Betting By Stuart Fieldhouse pdf