CMC Markets has today announced the launch of its financial spread betting iPhone application. The spread betting application allows iPhone users access to live prices and the capacity to trade on price movements of thousands of financial instruments including shares, indices, forex pairs and commodities.

Executive Chairman and founder of CMC Markets, Peter Cruddas, stated:

‘We are not the first spread betting company in the industry to launch an iPhone application but without doubt, I believe ours has the highest level of functionality and usability of all the spread betting apps available. Unlike other providers, we haven’t just re-tuned our existing platform and website and put in an application. We’ve taken a different approach. We’ve built it from the ground up as a fully functional trading platform designed specifically for the iPhone.’

The iPhone delivers streaming prices, real-time news, live charts and up-to-the second information so spread betters can trade or check on their positions wherever they happen to be. The new iPhone spread betting app also features interactive, multi-touch chart navigation, customisable watch lists and advanced orders including transactional based-stop losses. Fact sheets on each instrument provide users with streaming news, trading information such as market opening hours, margin rates and spreads as well as insights on how market forces may influence the price of that instrument.

Kerem Ozelli, Head of Product Development at CMC Markets commented further:

‘We don’t just offer our market data and live prices information to our customers; anybody can get access to our information through the unlimited-use free demo available via our app. The UK has always had sophisticated investors and we want to allow more people to take control of their investment decisions by making financial markets as accessible and transparent as possible through our user-friendly design and innovative technology.’

The CMC Markets spread betting app is available to download now from the App Store for both the demo and live account.

CMC Markets iPhone app

City Index, one of the leading providers of spread betting, CFDs and forex margin trading has just announced the launch of its new website today.

The revamped site offers even better navigation, a refreshed design and plenty of educational content. Special features include a new Range of Markets guide, which offers extensive information about CityIndex’s range of products and services, and a Market Analysis section, which covers financial news and market commentaries as well as a useful economic calendar.

The financial spread betting and CFD trading sections are now filled with educational content, starting with the basics of trading the stock markets, through to creating an account with City Index. Investors can progress the learning experience in the Learn to Trade section or attend one of the available seminars or webinars on offer.

Keith Goldson, Director and Head of Marketing at City Index, said: ‘We are dedicated to offering the best service possible to our clients, which starts with the website. The brand new design and additional features reflect City Index’s position as the market leader in terms of products and services innovation. We are also very proud to be able to offer some of the most extensive educational content through the website, which is an area we are fully committed to.’.

GFT UK have announced that they have introduced sector trading for CFD and spread bet UK cash index markets. The new markets are officially recognised indices based on groups of shares within the UK top 350 companies. GFT UK will be offering more than 25 sectors to trade.

Sector Trading Benefits

# Can be an excellent way to discover trends within a larger index, such as the UK350.
# Can attempt to take advantage of the cycles of certain industries such as banking, transportation, mining, pharmaceuticals or real estate, which may perform quite differently than the index as a whole.
# The ability to capture specific industry trends and cycles of potentially less volatile sectors of a larger index.

GFT Benefits

# More than 25 UK sectors without commission so all you pay is the dealing spread.
# Spreads are typically only 0.45 percent of sector market value.
# Risk management features, including price alerts and real-time trailing stops.

The following sectors will be available to trade, after 25 July 2010 -:

Comments: So GFT have introduced new spread betting instruments for UK top 350 sectors. Looks quite interesting for pairing such as long beverages/short real estate or long Electronics/short General retailers.

Spreadex has expanded its range of financial spread betting prices with the launch of new Daily Futures markets. The new markets cover indices and commodity trading and mean reduced spreads for investors on Gold, Brent Crude and Light Crude.

Spokesman Andy MacKenzie said: ‘Following the extension of our sports service to include fixed odds betting as well as spread betting, we have been working hard to also increase the range of financial markets available to our customers.’

‘We launched a selection of Exchange Traded Funds in March which have been very well received and are now pleased to offer a series of Daily Futures markets.’

‘These markets cover indices and commodities and basically mean a reduction in the spread widths on some key markets.’

‘Our clients can now trade Gold, Daily Futures with a 0.7 spread and Light Crude and Brent Crude, Daily Futures with a 6 point spread.’

Spreadex is now working on a similar project to expand the range of markets available on its ShortsandLongs financial spread betting platform.

Spread betting providers Capital Spreads have just announced that they have cut their Wall Street Rolling Daily spread to just 2 points. The reduced spread is available throughout the trading day from 23:00-21:15, Sunday to Friday.

Angus Campbell, Head of Sales said that the tighter the spreads the cheaper it is to trade. ‘Whenever we survey our clients they always say that the spread is the most important thing.’

Capital Spreads continues to charge very competitive spreads on most other markets with just one point on the rolling daily FTSE, four points on the rolling daily Wall Street, 0.1% on FTSE 100 shares and five points on Brent crude and gold.

1 point FTSE (08:00 – 21:00)
1 point DAX (07:00 – 21:00)
1 point EUR/USD (24 hours)
2 points GBP/USD (24 hours)
5 points Gold (24 hours)

A company spokesman has pointed out that Capital Spreads runs a spread of just 1 point on the FTSE 100 Rolling Daily market from 8am until 9pm (UK time); despite the underlying market closing at 4.30pm. In contrast, he said many of their competitors increase their spreads at 4.30pm or offer ‘variable’ spreads which means you may not be getting the best value possible.

FXCM has circulated a letter to ODL’s customers notifying them that their financial spread betting account will be migrated to FXCM’s own proprietory Trading Station II platform.

Letter announcement follows below -:

No Re–Quote Spread Betting with Trading Station II

Your ODL Spread Betting account is scheduled to be transitioned to the award-winning Trading Station II (TS2) trading platform on 4 June, 2010. To prepare, we suggest that you watch the video below to learn about the TS2 and practice placing some spread bets using a demo practice account.

Trading Station II offers No Dealing Desk execution on forex instruments and No Re-Quote spread betting on Stock Indices, Oil, and Precious Metals. You will need to download and install the TS2 software from our website. Upon transition to the TS2, we will email you a new username. You will fund your account and withdraw by logging into www.myfxcm.com with this new username. The website will be accessible via the TS2.

With the TS2, there will be a few changes to your trading experience.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES:

Download the Trading Station II software: You can quickly and easily download and install the software at this link: Click Here to Download.

Close your Bets: Due to quoting and sizing differences, we cannot directly carry over spread bets from one platform to another. Therefore, you must settle all open spread bets prior to your account’s transition. All Spread Betting accounts are scheduled to be transitioned during the weekend of June 4. We will be halting trading early on June 4, at 4:30 PM BST. Any positions open at that time will be automatically closed.

Different Spread Bet Sizes: Instead of a “stake-per-point” bet size, the FX Trading Station uses a lot system based on the underlying product. Your stake can vary according to what you are betting on. Profit and loss for FX markets will be denominated in units of the second currency in the FX pair. For example, for GBP v USD bets, profits and losses are in US Dollars. For AUD v JPY, profits and losses are in Japanese yen, and so on. In FX, going long one 10,000 unit lot (the smallest bet size) in EUR v USD is much like taking a 1 US dollar-per-point stake. Going long 1 lot of EUR/GBP would be like taking a 1 pound-per-point stake, and so on. For Commodity and Stock Index markets, profits and losses are denominated in the currency of the underlying market. So going long 1 contract in the UK 100 is like taking a 1 pound-per-point stake. Going long 1 contract of the US30 (or ‘Wall Street’) is like taking a 1-US dollar-per-point stake. All profits and losses are credited to or debited from your account in Sterling, so you do not need to do any conversions.

New Margin Requirements†: In many cases, you will have access to more generous margin after the update. For example, trading a 1 lot position (the smallest bet size), the margin requirement for EUR/USD is £50, GBP/USD is £50 and USD/JPY is £40. Additionally, 1 contract of the SPX500 is £75, the UK100 is £60 and USOil (WTI) is £125.

Margin Call Policy Changing: In contrast to you your current policy—where the largest losing trades are closed first-after the upgrade, if Usable Margin (“Usbl Margin” in the Accounts window) drops below zero, an order will trigger to close all open positions automatically. With this policy, your risk is always limited to the balance of your account, since you will never be required to pay a debit balance due to losses from trading.

Please Note: It is important to monitor your Usable Margin closely, making sure it does not fall below zero.

New Products: Explore Accounts will gain access to nearly forty new currency pairs and five new Stock Indices after the transition. Discover and Frontier accounts will gain access to over twenty new currency pairs and five Indices.

UK spread betting provider Spreadex has expanded their betting service to include sports fixed odds betting. Clients will now be able to bet on both fractional and decimal sports fixed odds prices as well as their existing sports and financial spread betting price, all from the same account.

The platform includes a race card to compare prices over different markets, horse racing statistics and a facility to take winnings in-play. Accumulator and multiple bet options will be added ‘very soon’, the company said.

Spokesman Andy MacKenzie said: ‘Since re-launching our website at the end of last year, we’ve continued to work exceptionally hard to enhance the range and quality of services on offer to Spreadex clients.’

‘We feel the latest development now makes us the ultimate one-stop-shop for those who love their sports betting and financial trading.’

‘Feedback from our customers revealed they were frustrated at having to jump between accounts to access spread or fixed odds prices or to carry out financial market trading or place political bets with different firms.’

‘Now our clients can access the markets, prices and style of betting that suits them, all with the convenience of using just one account with no need to remember multiple logins or passwords.’

With the World Cup just around the corner, Spreadex has gone to great lengths to ensure its fixed odds offering caters for the needs of even the most choosy of customers.

The platform offers prices in fractional and decimal format, coupons to compare prices over a number of markets at any one time, horse racing statistics on every runner including form, jockey, draw number, weight, trainer and more and a facility to take winnings in-play. Accumulators and multiples are to be added very soon.

Prices have also been competitively pitched; for example the firm currently quotes a market-leading 7/1 for England to win the World Cup.

The new launch comes on the back of a busy time for Spreadex, which this month passed its 10 millionth bet and also recorded its highest ever monthly bet figures -- including trades placed at sister company ShortsandLongs -- during April.

MacKenzie added: ‘We’ve added more spread markets than ever before, including in-play betting on all Premier League games plus AIM stocks and Exchange Traded Funds for the financial spread traders.’

‘We’ve added more spread markets than ever before, including in-play betting on all Premier League games plus AIM stocks and Exchange Traded Funds for the financial spread traders,’ continued MacKenzie. ‘Our Private Jetmiles reward scheme has also attracted plenty of interest. We have a number of other improvements planned to follow, so our customers can expect the level of service to keep getting better and better.’

Spread betting provider IG Index have announced that they’ve cut their spreads on some of their most popular indices by half with the Daily FTSE 100 and Daily Germany 30 just 1 point and Daily Wall Street down to 2 points. An IG Index spokesman commented:

‘This latest spread cut is available from 29 March 2010, and continues our commitment to provide outstanding value for money alongside quality service. The tighter spreads are available throughout the trading day when the relevant underlying stock indices are open.’

IG Index took the opportunity to remind clients that they will never re-quote any prices and their award-winning PureDeal platform handles around four million orders per month with around 99% of all orders executed automatically.

As well as their indices spread cuts, IG have recently reduced their forex spreads, with EUR/USD and USD/JPY from just 1 pip and GBP/USD and EUR/GBP from just 2 pips.

Comments: IG Index keep getting better and better, the IG Index’s platform was already one of the best out there in terms of execution, reliability and their charting package with Prorealtime made it as good as any. Now they are busy closing the gap on other providers and putting up a wall on new potential rivals looking into taking a piece of the action. And to put the icing on the cake IG are now also offering a free forex spread betting book written by their Chief Market Strategist (David Jones) to any new clients who sign up from my site.

InterTrader are currently running a Fantasy spread betting competition offering traders the possibility to participate in a trading tournament and earn up to $5,000 in trading funds. The total prize pool is $10k with the winner being awarded a first prize of $5k. The tournament runs till the 1st April 2010 and includes a leaderboard table so that participants know exactly how they’re faring in relation to other contestants.

Comments: Good chance to try out an aggressive trading system without risking real money!

Spread betting specialists Spreadex have recently expanded their coverage of AIM stocks by quoting an extra 300 small caps on their Spreadex website.

Spreadex will now effectively be trading small caps starting from a market capitalisation as low as £1 million with margin rates starting from 20%.

The St Albans-based company has made the move to support traders who like to speculate on share price movements of companies outside the FTSE 350 index.

Spokesman Andy MacKenzie was quoted saying: ‘Traditionally these types of companies have been very difficult for spread bettors to trade on as many firms do not offer spreads due to the illiquid nature of some of the stocks.’

‘When spreads can be obtained, often the amount of cash that an individual is required to pay upfront to place a trade can be prohibitive. We are trying to improve this situation for those who have an interest in the performance of these smaller firms.’

‘A long list of spreads on these smaller companies has been added to our existing share prices. However, if there are firms not listed who people wish to trade, we urge them to call our financial room on 08000 526 570 and we will do our best to accommodate their requests.’

Just to name some of the new companies now available to trade at Spreadex include: Timestrip, Angel Mining, Motive Television, Carlton Resources, Serabi Mining, Ariana Resources, Formjet and Beowulf Mining.