Paddy sees trades in shares increase as ISEQ drops below 2,000 to pre Celtic Tiger levels

Paddy Power’s financial spread betting venture, Paddy Power Trader has been following the movement of its client base trading Irish shares for the past number of days. Despite considerable volatility in the international markets, paddypowertrader says that retail investors are piling into Irish equities.

‘We are watching more and more customers putting their money into Irish equities as the Irish index hits the headlines. With the market dropping to a significant low today to 1981.40 * down 3.3% on opening, we have seen short bets as the most popular with savvy spread bettors.’ said Davin McAnaney, Commercial Manager of Paddy Power Trader.

‘Retail investors have been taking heed of volatile international markets and delving into financial spread betting. Since January we have seen an upsurge in subscriptions to our paddypowertrader.com. We can see further expansion into Irish equities as market uncertainty continues. With the ISEQ back below 2,000 it’s like the Celtic Tiger never happened. The ISEQ index hit an all time high in May 2007 of 10,364* points so it’s been a long fall.’ he continued.

‘The last time that the ISEQ index was below 2,000, on July 3rd 1995*, the Celtic Tiger was still a cub. Now it looks like he is dead and buried. It seems he was wiped out by the bears. However our clients are still able to realise gains by making short bets on a bearish market,’ concluded McAnaney.

Financial Spread Betting allows you to bet on the performance of a share or index therefore it is possible to make a sell or short bet on the underlying instrument as well as to make a buy or long bet. Going short therefore permits traders to make money even in volatile or falling markets. Being short in Financial Spread Betting can be a winning strategy.

Paddy Power Trader launched in the summer of 2007 enabling clients to take advantage of the many benefits of financial spread betting, including being a tax-free alternative to trading shares and financial markets. The product continues to grow in popularity in the UK and Ireland, amongst not only financial industry professionals, but also amongst those with an interest in the stock market.

• ISEQ Level at 10.30am on 24 February 2009 – 1981.40
• ISEQ Level at close 3 July 1995 – 1998.82
• ISEQ Level at close 22 May 2007 – 10,364

And here’s an update on the trader report (see PDF) from Paddy to help you understand how markets around the world are faring.

On the markets front there is no let up as indices continue to fall below key support levels. On Friday the Netherlands AEX fell to 198.22, its lowest since July 1995. It is now down 71.8% from its all time high of 703 of September 1995. Londons FTSE 100 was down to 3492 on Friday, its lowest since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 and down 48.3% since its all time high of July 2007. Germanys DAX fell to 3638 on Friday, a loss of 55.4% from its all time high of 8151, also in July 2007. Swiss SMI fell to 4311 on Friday, its lowest level since April 2003 and down 54.8% from its all time high of 9548 in June 2007. The Dow has now fallen to its lowest level since April 1997 and it is now down 54% since its all time high of 14,198 of October 2007.

Thoughts: Paddy are a clever bunch and have made educating clients about spread betting a central function in their marketing efforts.

Tags: financial spread betting, Ireland, ISEQ

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.