Traders long of pound and silver, no longer short of indices

Many of the spread betting punters who were short of the Dow and the FTSE over the last two months have now been stopped out, but sentiment has still not moved over to the bullish side.

Bookmakers say that traders tend to be long of individual shares, but split on whether the FTSE and the Dow will succeed in breaking any higher.

IG Index said some clients appear to be looking for the FTSE to fail around the 5350 level.

Foreign exchange continues to be the busiest single area of financial spread betting. Capital Spreads said its clients had been long of the dollar for a couple of weeks, but have now changed position.

Capital said punters are now looking for the pound’s recent rally to continue, despite the probable interest rate cut from the Bank of England on Thursday, and they are also slightly long of the euro against the dollar.

Both IG Index and Capital reported that their clients were now slightly short of oil, following crude’s rise on news of the death of King Fahd.

Capital Spreads said its customers were very long of silver, and also long of gold, holding onto positions that have done well since the $420 level.

As far as Thursday’s UK interest rate decision is concerned, Betfair is quoting the equivalent of 9/2 against a no-change decision, and 1/5 on a quarter point reduction to 4.5%.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.