Spreadex Review

Spreadex was established before the turn of the century, meaning they have a wealth of experience to offer a comprehensive financial spread betting service. They are one of the few spread betting firms that consistently post a profit and protect their investors’ money under the industry-standard FCA client money rules.

Spreadex offers the typical range of markets on Indices, FX, Shares, Bonds, Interest Rates, ETFs and Commodities, however, Spreadex specialises in small cap stocks, meaning they offer AIM stocks with a market cap of £1m+. Only Spreadex and IG offer such a comprehensive service on AIM stocks, but Spreadex offer a better service for their clients and will happily work an order (they go their brokers and pass on the cheapest price to the client) if the trade is a suitable size. The margin rates are also fixed making their service more transparent.

They’re the only firm to allow spread betting as well as sports betting using the same account. It was started in 1999 and recently experienced an overhaul in their services by getting a new platform with many features including charting applications.

Features of Trading Platform

The SpreadEx trading platform is a web based system that runs on flash. Trading is fairly easy with color coded “sell” and “buy” options as well as the chance to input stop and limit levels. Users can also use the “guaranteed stop loss” facility to ensure that the markets don’t “gap out” against them by jumping the limits. The price for a guaranteed stop loss is a 0.5% premium.

By clicking on an “edit” icon next to open trades, users can easily modify their stop and limit orders while the trade is in progress. It’s also easy to automatically initiate a trade when a certain condition is met such as a particular market hitting a price level. Advanced charting facilities are also available next to each market on the screen. Users can view the data based on many technical parameters such as Stochastic Oscillators, Bollinger Bands, and the Relative Strength Index.

Products Offered

SpreadEx offers spread betting on Shares, Indices, Interest Rates, Currencies and Commodities. The shares covered are limited to UK, European and US markets.

Interest rates spread betting is possible only for UK and US rates, but global bond markets are available as well. There are a large number of commodities that can be traded with even somewhat exotic products like wheat futures.

Customer service is something Spreadex is highly rated for by spread bettors; they have won “Best Customer Service” in the independent Investment Trends Awards for two years running. They are very efficient at dealing with questions and trading queries. For anyone that prefers to trade over the phone,
Spreadex is the best choice by far. Their trading floor has a wealth of experience with many of their traders from a city brokerage background. You do not get the feeling they hire the first graduate that walks through the door as with other firms.

Bid-Offer Spreads

Spreads – this is something that used to tarnish my positive trading experience with Spreadex as they used to be double the cost of other firms. However they have recently cut their spreads and are generally in-line with the most competitive spreads in the industry. A very positive step.

Looking at their new trading platform, it is very easy-to-use and I have had no reliability issues with it. They also have an excellent iPhone app that comes highly rated on the App Store. However, there are a couple of issues; it would be great to have a downloadable platform such as MetaTrader and also there is no app for Android phones. My account manager has assured me that an Android app is on the way at some point within the next 12 months.

If you like your sport, Spreadex also has a sports trading room so you can apply your sports knowledge to a spread betting product. Obviously the product is at odds with the financial side, but it is always a useful feature to have around the time of the Champions League and Grand National when I have a flutter. They are second to Sporting Index in terms of market share, but I find their service much more personable.

Pros

SpreadEx is famous for its customized service. A senior broker is allocated to each user as they sign up and though no advice is given, they will provide important facts and news items when they might be useful.

In addition, SpreadEx is the only firm that extends a line of credit to its customers allowing far greater leverage than otherwise possible with other spread betting companies. Their margin rates are also one of the lowest in the market with just 3% on the FTSE 350 shares.  The amount of credit for new customers ranges from £500 to £2000. More than that, and they will require verification of funds in your account over a period of 35 days.

Languages/Countries

SpreadEx operates only in English. Non UK customers have to jump through hoops to open an account. This is most likely due to their needing to verify bank information for their credit facilities.

Overall Summary

Those looking for a “low NTR” way to start spread betting will find SpreadEx a useful choice. Their customized service is probably the best in the Industry. But if you’re just looking for the cheapest solution, there are other firms that cater to that segment of the market.

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