Learning how to spread bet

I was introduced to Spread Betting over the summer this year by a colleague of mine. They claimed to make more than their salary by placing Spread Bets, so I was naturally curious.

Before I continue, I just want to point out that if you start spread betting there are risks involved and you can lose more money than you put in.

I opened an account with IG index and began placing bets. The concept is pretty simple. You pick a financial product and bet whether the price will go up or down. Every point (pip) it moves in your favour, you win and vice versa.

For example, you £2 bet on the FTSE 100 going down in price. The price now is 5100 and reaches 5070 over the next hour. You close your trade and are 30 pips better off (30 x 2 = £60).

Seems easy, right? I wish. After a couple bets, I fast realised I had no idea what I was doing and began losing money. I didn’t lose a lot of money but decided to take a break and learn.

Fast forward a few months to today. I’ve had a little bit of training and done a bit of reading. I also follow the blogs of a couple other “newbies”, who are far more dedicated in their learning and have read countless books. I didn’t want to get overly consumed by spread betting (I’d still like to have a life!) so haven’t touched any books yet.

They say it’s 80% psychology, 20% knowing when and what to trade.

There’s so much I want to share about what I learnt during my first round of spread betting over the summer, compared to what I’m now doing, but I’m in a bit of a hurry this morning.

I’ll leave it at this: if you’re new to spread betting or any kind of trading, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from Foreign Exchange (FX) and anything else you may not understand entirely. I’ve found FX to be overly volatile and difficult to predict. Try your hand at something like the FTSE 100 or other indices.

I’ll do my best to post my daily stats and keep track of any new strategies I learn.

Keep learning!

CD