Intraday Dow, Sp500, Nasdaq and Nasdaq100

Good Evening Dan

yes, I did tip my toe in the water today but only on the US indices and at the moment not on Nasdaq (Nasdaq 100 is OK) or the S&P 100. This is because I haven't found a company that offers these 2 markets with a realistic spread.

My results will vary a little from yours due to the spread. As I mentioned before I use 'Spread Bets' for trading. There are various companies offering this service for both the Financial and Sports markets. They will offer their chosen indices or individual stocks for a long or short and they will earn their money from the spread which varies between the different markets. For instance the company I use mostly offers the FTSE on a spread of 2 points, the Dow on 4; S&P 500 on 0.5 etc. This would be with a standard stop loss which would not be guaranteed in the event of any sudden move in the wrong direction. When trading the indices I prefer to use a guaranteeed stop loss which is exactly what it says but this increases the spread FTSE 4; Dow 6/7; S&P 1. The market is bought or sold for whatever amount of ££'s per point and there may be a minimum stop loss or nominal loss limit, normally 3 or 5 times the spread, sometimes higher depending on the market.

All trading is done online electronically and you normally get filled more or less immediately on the liquid markets. All the various market order types are available and any live trades can be edited in the normal way with adjusted stops etc. The various companies operating the service offer different types of trading accounts. It will mainly be either cash deposit or credit and when a trade is entered into then the funds to cover the minimum stop loss X the stake per point will be secured by the company for the duration of the trade. Any positions left overnight will normally be done with a higher margin of stop loss.

The main attractions for people using this type of trading is that it is quick and fairly reliable, plus most companies will give you live prices and graphs; there are no commissions to pay to brokers; there are no stock exchange fees to pay and best of all there are no taxes payable on profits even if you are a full time trader. The downside is the larger spread but this system has still proved very profitable.

Hope this gives some insight to it all. I'm looking forward to next week as I'll be trading the system all week. Again I'll be doing the US markets, still getting to grips with the european ones and it isn't so easy for me time-wise at present to do the locals.

Here's wishing you a good trading week and thanks again for all your help.

Kind regards, dunedin.