Just opened an account, have a stoploss and tradesense thign going however I'm a bit baffled as to what a point it in their terms.

i.e. Gold at 905.55

is a point 0.01 or 1.00

Thanks!

Hi Gel, I've just opened an account with them today as well, and have been trying to make sense of what constitutes a point. They don't exactly go out of their way to make it clear do they? I thought it was something to do with the two digit they highlight in bold on the ticket window prices, but I see that some of the gold prices don't use this system. As far as I can tell by placing a few bets it appears that points always map to units in their quotes, i.e. anything after the decimal point are tenth and hundredths of a point etc.

Let us know how you get on!

these spread betting companies are surfire ways to lose money. they charge you in many many ways.

I have opened up a tradefair account, but am having 2nd thoughts after reviewing the risk.

For shares at £900, a £10 bet would be the equivalent risk of buying £9000 worth of shares.

Might keep it open in case for a couple of £1 bets if i have a really, really strong opinion.

Do you really think the decimals count? That would mean £1 bet would be the equivalent of £90,000 worth of real money invested in gold.

I would suggest checking the minimum IMR to get an idea of your exposure.

A point is 1.00

Buying Gold at £1 a point at 940, will result in a £1 move for every dollar the gold price moves. If the gold price goes up to 960, you will be £20 up.

With some of their quotes they have added decimals. The real silver price, for example, is around $18 - but you ignore this. IG will quote 1800. Once again, a point is 1.00, so buying £1 a point will net you £50 profit if the price goes up to 1850.

Highly recommend limited risk accounts, such as IG do. You pay a bit more in the spread, but if you hold your position for any length of time then this isn't too big a deal. You have peace of mind knowing you will never get a margin call, and you're protected incase of a sudden fall in the market (For instance if you're buying the FTSE and a major terrorist attack happens, you're guaranteed to get your stop loss price - with a normal stop loss you'd get closed out well below the price you'd set in this scenario.) With these accounts it's impossible to go into debt.