Single Stocks

Posted By Robert On Wednesday, November 27th, 2013 With 0 Comments

You can have access to thousands of shares both on the UK and International exchanges with spread betting. Also the advantages of spread betting on shares are becoming increasingly apparent.

Here are a few examples:

Trade on leverage: buying shares through a traditional broker requires you to put up the full value, or 100% of the equity deal. Most providers offer competitive initial margin requirements, some as low as 5% of the share value or equivalent to 20 times leverage.

Profits are free from capital gains tax.*
There is no commission to pay (the only charge is our dealing spread) and stamp duty does not apply to spread bets on UK Equities.**
You can sell (go short) equities to open a position as well as buy them. This may be advantageous if you decide to hedge an underlying equity position or believe that certain equity is overvalued and want to take advantage of a potential fall in the share price.
The minimum bet size can start from as low as 50p per point in some cases (50p is the equivalent of just 50 shares).
You can execute your trades immediately on the live platform.
A Limited Risk Account has a free guaranteed stop facility so you do not have to worry about slippage or ‘gap’ fills.

*Tax laws are subject to change and may differ if you pay tax in a jurisdiction outside the UK.
**Stamp duty may apply to Irish and Greek stocks. Please call the dealing desk for more information.

Bet per point

Shares trade on a bet per one point or one penny basis. A £5 bet is the equivalent of 500 shares. You can trade any share in £, $ or €. When a position is closed in a foreign currency any profit or loss will be converted to your base currency in your Cash balance.

UK shares: 1 Penny
European shares: 1 Euro cent
US shares: 1 US cent

Dealing Spreads

Providers add a dealing spread to the underlying market spread of the share that you are trading. It is calculated as a percentage of the current bid and offer of the underlying share. Market convention uses the term ‘basis points’ (bps) where 0.01% = 1 basis point. Below is a list of typical spreads.

Daily Rolling Bets
UK 100 shares: 0.10% (per side)
UK 100 non 100: from 0.20%
European shares: from 0.20%
US shares: from 0.20%

Please be aware that the underlying market spread may become volatile and widen significantly, especially at the open and end of a trading period.