Advantages of spread betting
Spread betting offers numerous advantages over conventional trading, including the ability to go short anytime, tax-free profits*, margined trading and more. We offer prices on thousands of financial instruments globally, including indices, shares, currencies, commodities and treasuries.
Speculate on falling markets
When you spread bet, you don't physically buy the instrument on which you are taking a position. You instead speculate on whether you expect prices to rise or fall. This means that if you think the price of a particular instrument is going to fall, you can go short (sell) the product and if you think prices are going to rise, you go long (buy).
No stamp duty
Unlike traditional shares trading, you don't have to pay stamp duty when you spread bet because you are not buying the underlying product. Instead, you take a position based on whether you expect the price of that product to rise or fall.
Profits are tax free*
Spread betting profits are exempt from capital gains tax (CGT) in the UK. However, tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and tax laws are subject to change.
Trade using margin
Spread betting is traded on margin (or deposit). Margined trading allows you to do more with your capital – you can open more or bigger positions than you would be able to if you had to fund the full value of the position. For example, if the margin rate for a product is 5%, and you wanted to place a bet worth £200, you would only use £10 from your available account balance to open your position. Remember, however, that spread betting using margin can increase your losses as well as profits as they are relative to the full value of the position.
Risk management
We offer a number of risk-management tools, including stop-loss orders and guaranteed stop-loss orders. A stop-loss order may help you manage your exposure by setting a price level beyond which you are not prepared to risk any more of your capital on a position. When used effectively, a stop-loss order should automatically close your position if the price of the relevant instrument moves against you and reaches the price level where you wish to exit that position.
It's important to remember that regular and trailing stop-losses may not protect you from market gapping or slippage. For 100% certainty that your stop-loss will be executed at the exact price you want, you can use guaranteed stop-loss orders, for a small premium charge. Other risk-management features include trailing stop-loss orders and take-profit orders. For more details please read our Order Execution Policy.
Access to thousands of global instruments
Spread betting can be a cost-efficient way to speculate on new markets. We offer prices on thousands of shares, plus currencies, indices, commodities and treasuries from across the globe. View our full range of spread betting markets.
Commission-free trading
Spread betting is exempt from many of the costs that you face when you trade shares with a stock broker. For example, there is no commission, stamp duty or capital gains tax to pay. As a company, we are remunerated through the spread we offer on each product. Learn more about spreads.
24-hour trading
You can spread bet on a huge number of forex pairs 24 hours a day, from Sunday evening through to Friday night. We also offer many indices, commodities and treasuries which are almost tradable around the clock, bar a short break. For example, the UK 100 is available to trade between 1am on Mondays and 9pm on Fridays, apart from two breaks between 9.15pm and 9.30pm, and 10pm to 11pm.
See our spread betting guides to further your learning.