Cantor Index - What's on offer online -:

Founded in 1945 by Bernard Gerald Cantor and John Fitzgerald as a limited partnership Cantor Fitzgerald is one of 21 primary dealers who are licensed to trade U.S. government securities directly with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Cantor Fitzgerald International is today one of the largest bond trading companies in the world with over 55 years' experience as a wholesale financial intermediary. The group also specialises in investment banking, asset management, market data and brokerage services.

The financial spread betting branch of Cantor Fitzgerald International was established in May 2000 with the launch of a trading platform based on the eSpeed system. In 2003, it rolled out Cantor Mobile, a real-time mobile-trading device that now handles a significant portion of Cantor Index's trading. In a bid to make their service as unique & imaginative as possible, Cantor Index have recently introduced a movie betting system where investors can spread bet on potential US box office grossings a of newly released film.

General Points (we will strive to keep this review up-to-date)

Cantor Index will allow you to open an account and use the platform (so no minimum amount to just open a Cantor Index spread betting account), but you will not be able to place trades until you fund the account.
Cantor Index state that they aim to hedge all client bets in the underlying markets, certainly the big bets. This should imply that they don't really mind if you win, so there should be no 'mysterious web problems' when you try to close a deal...etc.
You can create your own watchlist of markets - in fact you can build up to 5 pages of your own with each page holding up to 26 products.
The minimum bet at Cantor Index is £2 per point on single UK shares, £1 per point on foreign stocks and £3 per point on indices. The minimum bet accepted on the telephone is £10
All daily bets are settled at the cash price unless they have the word 'Future' in them. For example the Daily FTSE will settle at the Cash price but the Daily FTSE Future will settle at the Futures price. Trading times are 08:00-16:30 for UK stocks, 08:00-16:00 Euro 50 and 14:30-21:00 for US stocks.
FTSE 350 stocks margin vary from stock to stock and start at 25% and range up to 70%.
Financing costs for rolling positions: Charges or income are applied to positions that are held overnight. For long positions, you pay the current interest rate plus 2.5%. For short positions, Cantor pays you the current interest rate minus 2.5%. Cantor do not currently charge negative interest on short positions.
Quarterly contract UK and European stock charges: For UK stocks Cantor's spread is calculated using 0.6% for the near month and 0.8% for the far month. For European stocks, CantorIndex's Spread will be 0.6% of the underlying share price on the near month contract and 0.8% on the far.
Quarterly contract USA stock charges: For US stocks, Cantor's spread will reflect both a flat rate charge and a spread of 2% for the duration of the contract. The flat rate charge for US stocks is 4 cents round trip. This means that you would have the funding charges plus 2 cents to get in and out of the bet.
Will quote all UK stocks with a market capitalisation greater than £50m - Cantor may also (at its discretion) quote prices on stocks of smaller capitalisation. CantorIndex may also quote some AIM stocks if these have at least a 50 million market cap but there are also other variable that have to be factored in such as from Cantor's view point, for instance how expensive it is for them to finance the stock and the liquidity of the stock. Small cap stocks less than 50 million will not be quoted. Stock availability will restrict shorting at times on small less liquid stocks.
CantorIndex offers guaranteed stop losses on the majority of SETS shares. Cantor does not allow controlled risk bets on non-SETS or European/US shares unless agreed in advance. The minimum guaranteed stop loss distance for a stock like Rank Group (FTSE 250) would be at the moment roughly 6p away from the guaranteed opening level. However, keep in mind that minimum stop distances will vary from product to product or share to share. The maximum distance away to place your stop if you have the funds in the account to cover your loss would be 1p if you are selling to close. If you sold to open, the maximum distance would be dependent on the funds on your account. There is no cost to move guaranteed stop losses once placed. Additionally, when closing the bet there is no Cantor spread to pay, you are closed at the forward 'adjusted' market price.

Cantor Index no longer offer credit accounts (at the time of writing they offer Deposit and Guaranteed Stop Loss accounts).
Cantor have closed the Spreadfair sports spread betting exchange in December 2008 to focus on financials.
Not possible to open an account with Cantor if you live outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Live Streaming Dow Jones and Reuters Newswires.
Cantor's eSpeed trading platform is browser based so, and I have tried this, it can be accessed from most machines (internet cafes...etc).
Interest: Cantor Index has a discretionary policy and pays interest only on large amounts.

Good Points

Cantor's eSpeed dealing platform and crisp, easy to see what is going on. The site is densely populated and yet easy to find your way around.
There are a number of useful tools for the serious investor just as market charts and analysis and the latest fiscal news. Cantor's website even features a 'chill out' room where stressed investors can take time out and gaze serenely at the various relaxing images of seascapes, landscapes & skies, listen to laid back synch music and let all their troubles drift away. Sports fanatics can also indulge in a quick game of clay pigeon shooting or golf online ;)
CantorIndex's 'Tear-off' grid functionality allows clients to open a window in a new web browser and drag the grid for the instrument they want to trade from the trading platform. This can then be viewed anywhere on screen - allowing clients to keep an eye on prices while using other applications. When the price is right, clients can then trade directly from the grid, placing stop or limit orders, without the need to reopen the trading platform.
Most bookmakers run daily or quarterly bets but Cantor Index accepts bets on 'weekly shares' as well.
Trading with CantorIndex.com is available 24 hours a day (Sunday 11.30pm to Friday 9.15pm).
Cantor do not currently charge negative interest on short positions (even if the LIBOR rate may be less than the -2.5%).
Cantor will quote for small companies (AIM or whatever) as low as around £20m cap if asked (though they don't advertise it). .
Cantor Index has recently launched a market for stocks that you can't even trade! Not quite as daft as it sounds, the latest offering provides a market for shares that have been suspended (i.e. grey market) so that those who like a gamble can speculate on what they think the price will be when they are reinstated. Note that if a company's shares don't make it back to the market Cantor will take the price as zero.
Cantor Academy programmes offers a number of free seminars focused the intricacies of spread betting and stock market trading to introduce their offering to new clients.

Bad Points

Not the best spreads around. Wide spreads for forex trading although it has a few offers from time-to-time. For instance Daily Rolling Spot FX - June/July Specials have EUR/GBP and EUR/USD at 1 tick and GBP/USD at 2 ticks.
Recently increased clients' margin payments from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, this meant investors who put up €10,000 in cash could only take an interest in shares to the value of €50,000 - down from €100,000 as at last August. In a note circulated to investors, Cantor blamed 'current instability in the global credit markets and the potential knock-on effect that such instability may have on global markets' for the revised rules. The company believes this is a temporary measure and rates will return to usual levels when Cantor Fitzgerald believes that the markets have sufficiently stabilized.
Cantor won't allow their standard non-guaranteed stop loss to be positioned closer than 20pts on the FTSE and 16pts on the Dow (same problem with IG but Capital Spreads allow you to put it very close).
The P&L is based on the mid-point of the spread. It would be better if their screen valuations of open positions were calculated at the current exit price - like they are at IG - and not at an irrelevant mid-price. As a trader commented with IG he can quickly close a bet knowing that the figure in the valuation column is the same figure that will transfer to the balance column. 'With Cantor the latter will always be worse than the former and if I want to know how much worse I have to do a mental calculation based on glancing at a current quote. This is a tiresome nuisance.'
None of the panels are resizable which could be annoying especially if I'm running with more than one company.
It takes significantly longer to log onto Cantor and its platform than onto IG Index (more keystrokes involved and more cursor actions) - this can be a problem if one is in a hurry to get into a trade.

Regulation

Cantor Index Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Market Information Sheets

Cantor Index Market Information Sheet - Sep 16 2009

(224 Kb)

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