Finding our range of shares
We offer bets on the following Markets:
UK – we will offer bets on all shares down to companies with a £5 million market cap.
US – we offer bets on companies listed on both NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges.
European – Belgian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swiss.
All other countries worldwide we will try and accommodate your request where possible.
The list of shares available on our website is not exhaustive. Should you not see a stock that you are interested in trading then please call us on 08000 526 570 or email fins@spreadex.com and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
Comparing A SPREAD BET with trading the underlying market
Spread betting example:
With spread betting you do not own any stock as you would when buying a share, you simply have a financial interest in the price movement of that stock. For UK shares you trade in pounds per penny movement. Therefore, if you bought £10 a penny of a stock priced at 100p and then sold it at 110p you would make £100 (£10 x (110 – 100).
Buying actual shares:
When buying shares in the market an equivalent sized trade to a £10 spread bet buy of a stock at 100p would be to buy 1000 shares at 100p, which would cost you £1000*. If the price of the stock moved up to 110p and you sold your shares you would receive £1.10 for every share you held and therefore make £1100 from the sale of 1000 shares. Your profit from this trade would be £1100 - £1000 = £100. This is the same amount as the £10 Spread Bet.
*Remember, with spread betting you only need to place a percentage of the amount required to cover the cost of the deal - this is called leverage. For example, if the above trade was a FTSE 100 stock we would require 20%^ of this amount in order to place the bet (£1000 x 20% = £200). This is not the total amount that can be lost on the trade but the minimum amount you need to set aside to place a specific trade.
With spread betting you can also profit from stocks falling in value as well as rising, unlike traditional share trading.
^NTR rates are subject to change. To see our latest NTR rates on shares, search for your chosen stock here.
UNDERSTANDING NTR/MARGIN
Margin is the amount of money you need to provide to open your spread bet. As spread betting is a leveraged product, you only need to provide a percentage of the total value of the position.
The NTR/Margin requirement is specified as a percentage of the share’s current bid if you are long or ask if you are short.
Risk Categories
An instrument’s risk category is simply a collection of similar instruments e.g. Apple Inc. Rolling and Apple Inc. Jun. All trades in the same direction across the instruments contained within a risk category are taken into account when working out how much NTR is required for trades within that category. When calculating NTR across a risk category the trades within the category are ordered so that when the tiered NTR is calculated you should get the lowest possible NTR.
NTR Tiers
An instrument may have a collection of associated NTR tiers, the NTR tiers determine what the NTR requirement for a single unit of stake will be, dependent on how much total stake is wagered in that direction across the instrument's risk category. For instance the first 100 units of stake, in a given direction, across a risk category may have an NTR requirement of 20% and the rest of the stake may have a requirement of 40%.
Offsetting
If you have an open buy position on one instrument in a risk category and have an open sell position in another instrument in the same risk category you will only be charged NTR on the trade with the larger stake. This is because the risk on the two trades offset each other.
Average NTR
As your stake is tiered across all the trades on instruments within a risk category in a given direction the total NTR for the risk category is calculated. This is then used to work out the NTR per stake unit for the risk category. Therefore the NTR displayed in the open position list for a single trade is: Risk Category NTR (buy or sell) / Risk Category Total Stake (buy or sell) * Trade Stake.
NTR When Placing a Trade
When placing a trade the NTR requirement will be the difference between your NTR across the risk category before placing a trade and the NTR across the risk category after placing a trade. If the difference is negative (you have reduced your risk by taking an opposing position) then the NTR requirement will be zero.
Some examples follow for single trades with no existing open positions in the same risk category and stakes that are large enough to be affected by the tiering process.
A trade with no stop:
First the stake is split into the margin tiers, then for each tier the following calculation is applied.
Bet size per point x NTR/Margin Tier Requirement.
For example a £30 trade on BP, Rolling, which is trading at 550 and has two NTR tiers: £0 – £10: NTR 20%, £10+ NTR 40%
Tier 1 Stake: £10
Tier 2 Stake: £20
So the total NTR required equals (£10 x 550 x 20%) + (£20 x 550 x 40%) = £1100 + £4400 = £5500.
A trade with a Stop attached:
For professional clients, the NTR required can sometimes be reduced by using a guaranteed or non-guaranteed stop. For details of how this works, please contact a member of our trading desk.
Stops cannot be used to reduce NTR if you have a Retail Account.
rolling a quarterly tradE
Click the following link to find out information on setting your Trading Preferences.
Quarterly trades will be automatically rolled by us during the final trading day of the existing contract, if you have indicated to us you wish for this to happen via your roll preferences. Should you wish to roll your position before this date then you may do so by contacting our dealers.
When being rolled, your closing price on the expiring contract will be the previous night’s closing bid if you are long or offer if you are short. The opening price in the next quarterly contract will be the previous night’s bid if you are short or the offer if you are long.
If you wish to be rolled into the far futures contract or at a price other than the previous night’s close* then please call our financial traders on 08000 526 570.
*Any closing price must be a price that has traded during the last day of the contract.
funding charges for a daily rolling bet
If you hold a Daily Rolling bet through the close of the relevant exchange (16:30 for UK Shares) for the position to roll, your bet will be kept open for the following day's trading less a funding adjustment levied on your account.
Funding is charged to reflect the cost of financing a position that you hold having only put down a fraction of the value as a deposit.
The funding charge is based on the Adjusted ARR + a Spreadex Charge per annum. For FTSE 350 stocks the charge is 3%. Therefore if the Adjusted ARR was 0.5%, the total daily funding charge to a long position would be (0.5% + 3%) / 365 = 0.0096% of the total position value.
For Example: You hold a long (buy) position in Barclays of £50 and it closes the day at 200p, your funding charge for the night would be (50x200) x 0.0096% = £0.96.
If you are short, the 3% charge is subtracted from the Adjusted ARR rate. Unlike long positions, the total funding adjustment on short positions can result in either a positive or negative funding adjustment, so your account can be credited or debited funding. If the Adjusted ARR is greater than the 3% charge, the funding adjustment will be positive and credited to your account. If the Adjusted ARR is less than the 3% charge, the funding adjustment will be negative and debited from your account.
For Example: If the Adjusted ARR was 0.5% and you hold a short position in Barclays of £50 and it closes the day at 200p, your funding charge for the night would be (50 x 200) x((0.5% - 3%) / 365) = -£0.68
For Example: if the Adjusted ARR was 5% and you hold a short position in Barclays of £50 and it closes the day at 200p, you would be credited funding for the night of (50 x 200) x ((5% - 3%) / 365) = £0.55
The funding is trebled on a Friday afternoon to account for holding a bet over the weekend and bank holidays will be similarly charged.
ADJUSTED ALTERNATIVE REFERENCE RATES
Following the phasing out of IBOR rates, 1 month Alternative Reference Rates (ARRs) are used in funding calculations. ARRs are based on actual overnight interest rates in liquid wholesale cash and derivative markets.
The applicable ARR will be based on the currency in which the underlying market trades:
|
Currency |
ARR |
|
GBP |
SONIA |
|
EUR |
ESTR |
|
USD |
SOFR |
|
CHF |
SARON |
|
JPY |
TONA |
Unlike IBOR rates, ARRs do not incorporate credit risk. To compensate for this, we adjust the ARRs based on the one-month spread adjustment proposed by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA).
Funding charges for a quarterly bet
As with a daily rolling bet funding is charged as a percentage over the Adjusted ARR. There are three quarterly contracts available to trade at any one time and they are priced off 3 month, 6 month and 9 month Adjusted ARR respectively from opening.
To work out the funding charge for a quarterly contract you take the days left in the contract and divide by 365 and multiply that by the interest rate.
For Example: You are looking at a Barclays contract which expires on 20th March. The date today is the 24th January. The days remaining in the contract are 57. The contract is now being priced off three-month Adjusted ARR which is at 0.8890%. As Barclays is in the FTSE 100, it is priced at 2% over Adjusted ARR,* so the total interest charge is 2.8890%. Barclays is trading at 215p.
Therefore the funding payable on the position is 57/365 x 2.8890% x 215 = 0.97.
When added to the cash price (ie. 215.97) this is often referred to as the Fair Futures Price.
*This charge is reflective of Spreadex charges and may not represent the actual charge. For up to date charges please contact our trading desk on 08000 526 570.
WHY SPREADS VARY FROM SHARE TO SHARE
Our share spreads are calculated as a percentage of the current price of the share and are added to either side of the underlying market cash spread. Therefore as the spread in the underlying market varies so too does our spread.
placing a Guaranteed Stop
You can generally use a Guaranteed Stop on all FTSE 350 shares, however, there may be restrictions if the stock is currently in a bid situation.
There is a premium charge payable on the opening spread when placing a Guaranteed Stop and all Stops must be placed at a specified distance away. Premium charges vary per stock, for details of each individual charges and minimum stop distances please refer to the market info pages.
In periods of extreme volatility we may remove the ability to place Guaranteed Stops on certain stocks.
To place a Guaranteed Stop click on the trade button next to the desired stock and bring up the dealing ticket. Click on the ‘Guarantee Stop’ button under 'Stops & Limits' and the premium will be automatically added to your dealing price.
The minimum stop distance allowed will be displayed to the right-hand side of the 'Stop' box. Enter your desired level into the box and then hit either 'Sell' or 'Buy'.
dividend adjustments
All things being equal, when a company pays a dividend to its shareholders, the value of the share price should fall by the same amount as the dividend paid.
If you hold a position in a stock through the close of the underlying cash market on the day before the ex-date, a cash adjustment will be made on your account that evening to reflect the dividend being paid.
If you are long (have bought) a stock, the dividend adjustment will be credited to your account.
If you are short (have sold) a stock, the dividend adjustment will be debited from your account.
In some circumstances we will pay the dividend the day after the ex-date (typically this occurs with small cap stocks). This will be done via an appropriate cash adjustment on the account.
Dividends can be subject to withholding tax. This is simply a charge passed on and not levied by us. Withholding tax rates do vary from country to country. If you would like to know the withholding rate for a dividend please call one of our financial traders on 08000 526 570.
Please be aware that all of the above details are for guidance only. Subject to the details of any Corporate Action your position may be treated and adjusted in a different manner and we will inform clients as soon as is reasonably practical.
closing only markets
When a share contract is displayed as closing only, in the majority of cases this will be due to our company’s limit being reached or a client’s individual risk limit being breached.
If you see this message then please call our financial traders on 08000 526 570 as it may be possible to offer an opening trade in the stock, albeit most likely in a smaller size and a higher NTR/margin rate.
buy only markets
You will see this message when you are unable to go short (sell) a share. This would occur if there is no available borrow in the underlying cash market or if there is a short selling ban implemented by the relevant country.
If you already hold a long (buy) position in the stock you would be able to sell to close.
Stock AFFECTED BY A Corporate Action
Although you do not own shares when taking out a spread bet, we will, whenever possible, replicate what occurs in the market should you hold the physical stock, so that your exposure remains the same as it was before the Corporate Action.
Open Offer
An open offer is where a shareholder is given the opportunity to purchase stock at a price that is lower than the current market price. The purpose of such an offer is to raise cash for the company.
At a point on or just after the ex-date we will inform you of the terms of the offer and advise you of any deadline with regards making a decision as to whether you would like to take up the offer. If you let the offer lapse there will be no change to your position. If you take up the offer, a separate position will be booked as per the terms of the offer in the same contract as you hold the original position. This will be booked at the fair futures premium of the subscription price with no additional spread charged by us.
If you are short (sell) a stock that is subject to an open offer, you will not have any option and risk being taken up against if all the long (buy) holders take up their offer. You will again find a separate short (sell) position booked on your account as per the terms of the offer in the same contract as you hold the original position. Again, this will be booked at the fair futures premium of the subscription price with no additional spread charged by us.
Rights Issue
These are the issue of rights to a company’s existing shareholders to buy a proportional number of additional shares at a given price (usually a discount) with a set period. Rights are often transferable, enabling a holder to sell them on the open market
On the ex-date, the rights will get booked to your account as a separate position under a new line (if you have a position in Barclays, the rights will be booked under Barclays NP) at an opening level of zero. We will contact you to advise you of this and of the timetable and deadline involved with the rights issue.*
If you are long (buy) you will have the option to take up the rights, trade out of them (if they are tradable) or let the rights lapse.
If you are short (sell) you risk being taken up against, or you may buy the rights back (if they are tradable).
If you take up the rights, or have them taken up against you, on the pay date of the rights issue, your rights position will expire at zero and a new position will be booked on your account in the underlying share, in the same contract period as your original position. Your opening level will reflect the fair futures premium of the subscription price of the rights issue.
Stock Split
This is where a company’s existing shares are divided into multiple shares and as a result the share price falls by the same ratio. The total value of the shares therefore, remains the same. A common reason for stock splits is that a company’s share price has grown so high that many investors find it too expensive to buy in.
By the same token a Reverse Stock Split reduces the number of shares in circulation but increases the share price. If you have a position in a company that enters a stock split, your original position will be closed at entry level to ensure no profit or loss is realised. A new position will then be opened in the same contract to reflect the ration of the split.
Tender Offer
This is an offer to purchase some or all of the shareholders’ shares in a company. The price offered is generally at a premium to the market price.
We will contact you with the terms of the tender offer and the timetable for it. At or close to the deadline we will again endeavour to contact you to receive your instructions.* If you accept the tender offer, we will close your position at the fair futures premium of the tender price. If you choose not to take up the offer and where the offer has not become conditional, your position will remain unchanged.
*We will always endeavour to contact you with regard to receiving your instructions on any Corporate Action. However, it is always your responsibility to inform us of your intentions. Failure to do so will result in the default action being applied to your account.
This is not an exhaustive list of potential Corporate Actions. We will always inform of any other actions that your position may be subject to and will, where necessary, take guidance from our brokers to reflect in your position what would occur should you actually hold the physical stock.
Please be aware that all of the above details are for guidance only. Subject to the details of any Corporate Action your position may be treated and adjusted in a different manner and we will inform clients as soon as is reasonably practical.
Our financial traders are available to answer any questions you may have relating to Corporate Actions on 08000 526 570.
SETS and MM shares
SETS is an electronic order book system which allows all market participants to place bids (orders to buy) and offers (orders to sell) for the stock themselves. SETS displays the best ‘bid’ and ‘offer’ prices thus making the market price. The SETS stocks tend to be the larger companies, in particular those that have at any time been a member of the FTSE 350 index. This system usually provides greater liquidity in the market. This generally translates to near-instant execution when submitting a bet request and the ability to place larger stake trades. On occasions the trader may have to refer to the order book to confirm the ‘size’ of bids and offers are comparable to your bet size or even work the order before being able to accept it in its entirety.
Market Maker (MM) stocks are those not traded on the electronic SETS exchange. Instead, professional bodies, called Market Makers, quote a bid and an offer for the stock in question in a fixed number of shares. The bids and offers of all the participating Market Makers are displayed with the best bid and the best offer becoming the market spread of the stock. It is important to note that the prices displayed by market makers are not absolutely guaranteed for trading. Due to the smaller number of market participants and the fixed number of shares on the bid or offer at any one time, Market Maker Stocks are illiquid by nature and often extremely so. As such, some market maker stocks may only be traded over the phone and we will frequently have to check whether the size requested can be traded at that price and/or work orders of a larger size before accepting your bet. Due to their nature we are unable to offer a stop with MM stocks.
settleMENT OF A quarterly share trade
If you have chosen not to roll your expiring quarterly contract into a new quarter all SETS traded stocks will be closed at the official closing price on the last day of trading +/- the Spreadex spread depending on whether you hold a long or a short position.
Due to the intrinsic illiquidity of market maker stocks and subsequent often wide market spread, all MM stocks will be settled at the previous night’s closing bid if you are long or offer if you are short. The opening price in the next quarterly contract will be the previous night’s bid if you are short or the offer if you are long. Please note that due to the lack of liquidity in MM stocks, when a bet is of sufficient size that an equivalent transaction on the exchange would be in excess of 4 x NMS (or where any number of bets are together in excess of 4 x NMS) then bets not already closed by the client by the last time for dealing may be automatically rolled over, regardless of trading preferences set.
SHARes IN A MARKET AUCTION
Market auctions occur if the price of a share moves significantly from the previous night’s closing price or from a previous auction price intraday. When the share goes into auction it is not possible to buy or sell a share. Generally you can tell if a share is in auction if the bid price is greater than the offer price although this is not always the case. If you try and place a bet online when a share is in auction, your request will be rejected.
Auctions also occur at the start and close of each trading day (07.50 – 08.00 and 16.30 – 16.35) and at midday (12:00). There is no online trading during this period, however, you may phone in to place an order during the auction period.
phone trade only shares
Some Market Maker stocks are displayed as phone only due to the lack of liquidity typical in these shares and our need to often check with the market as to the actual price being bid or offered. Where we do not have a live feed in some of our non-UK stocks you will find these displayed as phone only. To trade these, simply call our financial traders on 08000 526 570 and we will be able to provide you with a live quote.
From time to time we may place other shares temporarily on phone only. If you are looking to place a bet on them then just call our financial traders on 08000 526 570.
trading non-UK stockS
All bets you place are denominated in the currency of your account - not in the currency of the stock's respective country. We will use the prevailing FX rate on opening the bet to convert your stake from the stock denomination to your account denomination and you will not have any currency risk attached to the position.
For example you buy 2000 shares of Goldman Sachs @ 113.50. This equates to a $20 a cent movement. The current price of spot GBP/USD is 1.5820. Therefore, your bet would be a stake size of £12.64.
No matter how the price of GBP/USD fluctuates between opening and closing the bet, your stake will remain at £12.64.
shorting: borrowing charges
When shorting (selling a stock that you do not hold a long position on) you may incur a ‘borrowing charge’. For stocks that can be shorted in the underlying market, this borrowing charge will be the applicable rate in the underlying market plus a reasonable charge. If there is no underlying borrow available in the stock, we may still allow you to place a down Bet against our overall long book exposure if we judge that we have sufficient customers who are long. In such a case, the cost of borrowing will be higher to reflect the lack of availability in the underlying market and typically the charge will be 10% of the value of the stock per annum, but could be higher and we will be entitled to charge any rate that is not commercially unreasonable. Please note however, that borrowing charges relating to open bets may vary with little or no notice as the underlying market rate changes and/or our overall book changes. To determine whether a Borrowing Charge applies, call our traders in advance of placing the Spread Bet and we will advise on the applicable rate. The borrowing charge (if applicable) will be accounted for in a daily cash adjustment applied to your account. Where shares are called back (ie. the ability to borrow no longer exists) we will close your position at the prevailing market price. The borrowing charge and the ability to go short, can change at short or no notice. Borrowing charges can also be levied at any point during the life of your open bet and not just on opening.
CLOSE OUT LEVELs ON SHARE TRADES
We operate an automatic close out policy which means that some or all of your positions may be closed without notice to you if your account reaches the Close Out Level. Please see our Customer Agreement.
The Close Out Level is reached if your aggregate Available Balance is a negative figure.
You can reduce the risk of your account reaching the Close Out Level by ensuring you have sufficient cash in your account, or by reducing some of your positions – this is particularly important in volatile markets or if you are travelling.
PRE AND POST MARKET SESSIONS
For a selection of US Stocks we offer clients the ability to trade these online during the pre and post market sessions offered by the underlying exchanges (outside of normal market hours). You can identify which stocks this is available on by checking if they have the text (All Sessions) after their name, e.g. Apple (All Sessions). Although the ability to trade on longer exchange times offers many benefits, such as being able to react to stock specific and broader market news quicker, or being able to trade during earnings announcements, trading outside of the main exchange times can also cause bid/offer quotes to widen in times of less liquidity in the underlying product. This could affect the spread quoted by Spreadex or cause any stop or limit you may have working to trigger.
uk 100 shares
UK 100 Shares are the 100 most highly capitalised firms listed on the London Stock Exchange and include the likes of Barclays, Marks & Spencer, J Sainsbury and Rio Tinto.
These stocks collectively make up the FTSE 100 index. Because of the nature of the these companies you will often find more favourable margin rates and spread widths when placing a financial spread bet on a UK 100 share.
UK 250 Shares
UK 250 shares are 250 mid capitalised markets listed on the London Stock Exchange and include the likes of Cineworld, Debenhams, and Thomas Cook.
These stocks collectively make up the FTSE 250 index and, in addition to the FTSE 100 stocks, form the FTSE 350 index. UK 250 stocks are liquid stocks and while not offering as favourable margin rates or spread widths as UK 100 stocks, can still provide good value in terms of financial spread betting.
uk non-350 shares
UK non-350 Shares are small cap stocks listed outside the 350 companies in the UK 350 index. Most are listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and include the likes of Sound Energy, Sirius Minerals and ASOS.
Small cap or AIM stock listed shares are typically far less liquid than UK 350 companies and can often be more expensive to trade on in relation to financial spread betting. However, Spreadex is known for its specialist small cap coverage and has some of the lowest margin rates in the industry for AIM stock spread betting.
shares with less than £10m market cap
Shares with a market capitalisation of less than £10m are stocks which tend to be fairly illiquid and are generally companies on which it is difficult to obtain detailed information.
It can often be expensive to spread bet on these types of companies. Indeed most spread betting companies will not offer spreads on stocks with a market capitalisation of less than £10m – sometimes even higher.
Spreadex is known for its specialist small cap provision and you can spread bet on shares with a market capitalisation as low as £1m.
us shares
At Spreadex you can spread bet on all major US shares, including those listed in the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100 and the DOW Jones. Some of the familiar names listed among our US shares include Alphabet (Google), Apple, Boeing, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase.
If you want to bet on a share that is not listed on our website, please call our financial room on 08000 526 570 and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
euro shares
At Spreadex you can spread bet on all major European shares, including those listed on the DAX, CAC, Swiss Index and Euro Stoxx 50. Some of the familiar names listed among our European stocks include Banco Santander, Nokia, Philips and Unilever.
If you want to bet on a share that is not listed on our website, please call our financial room on 08000 526 570 and we will do our best to accommodate your request.
