MAKING A TRADE

For guidance on how to make your spread bets using the E*TRADE Spread Betting online trading platform, please use our Beginners Guide.

How much do I need to deposit?

We do not require you to deposit funds into your account until you wish to trade.
To calculate the minimum deposit required to open a bet, you will need to review the Minimum IMR information, which can be found on the Product Information ticket linked to each product. Please look at the Managing Account section of this document for more specific details on how to calculate your minimum deposit, or refer to the Beginners Guide.

How do I place a trade/make a bet?

E*TRADE Spread Betting provides a variety of products to trade on between the hours of 07:00am until 21.15pm (London local time). You can make your bets online or by telephone.

For guidance on how to make your spread bets using the E*TRADE Spread Betting online trading platform, please use our Beginners Guide.

If you wish to trade by telephone, our dealing line is +44 (0) 870 200 0277 . If you have any problems or questions, you can call our Customer Support team on +44 (0) 870 200 0377 . Please refer to our Product Information sheets for specific trading hours of individual products.

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Will I be trading/betting on the prices I see online?

Once you’ve clicked the Trade button you will be offered the option to buy or sell. Once you have made your bet, it will be processed immediately. You should receive confirmation within a couple of seconds, or you will receive a message informing you that you bet has been declined. If the bet is declined, the reason why will also be displayed.

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How do I close my bet?

Your bet is valid until our market expiry time. Please see our Product Information sheets for last dealing times and settlement details of individual markets.

If you decide to close your bet before it expires, you can close your bet manually in one of two ways. The simplest way is to click on the “Open Positions” button to view your open bets. You will see a Close button on the right hand side. If you click this button, you will only be given one option either a buy or a sell i.e. an equal and opposite trade.

Alternatively, you can close your bet by finding the original product that you traded, entering and equal stake size and then making a bet in the opposite direction. For example if you make a £5 buy bet to open, you will need to make a £5 sell bet to close.

Your bet may also be closed if your automatic Stop-Level is hit or Limit Order is executed.

Any profits/losses incurred are realised upon the bet closure. Please refer to the Beginners Guide for guidance on how to manually close a bet.

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Can I partially close my position?

Yes, you can partially close a position. Please refer to the Beginners Guide for further details.

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How can I view my previous trades?

You can see details of the trades that you have made and that have been settled if you click on the Trade History section of your account.

This information will be held on your account for 3 months. If you require further details of all the trades you have made, please contact Customer Support at support@etradespreadbetting.com

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How can I view my Open Positions?

Details of any open bets can be found if you click on Open Positions. If you have more than one trade in the same product, please click the "I" button and this will give you a detailed breakdown of your position in this product.

The automatic Stop-Loss Order that is linked to your open position can be found if you click on the Order Book button. This section also holds details of any New Orders or Limit Orders.

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Can I roll my positions over?

For details of our Daily Rolling bets, please click here.

E*TRADE Spread Betting also offers the facility to rollover futures contracts. If you chose to roll any quarterly or monthly contracts, you will need to contact us shortly before our expiry date to leave a rollover instruction. For equities, E*TRADE Spread Betting will expire the existing bet spread free (at just the market price) and offer the subsequent quarter at half of the spread. For indices, commodities and Forex contracts, E*TRADE Spread Betting will expire the bet at our mid point and offer the subsequent quarter at the corresponding level. Please note that on rollover of futures contracts, the existing bet is closed, realising any profits or losses incurred and a new bet is subsequently opened.

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What is a Rolling Daily Bet?

Rolling Daily Bets provide a cost-effective solution for short-medium term trading. These daily bets do not automatically expire at the end of the day, but will “rollover” into the next trading day. Any orders linked to Rolling Daily Bets will also be rolled. An overnight financing rate will be applied on a daily basis.

You can read more about Rolling Daily bets if you click here

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What happens when a share goes ex-dividend?

The morning after a share goes ex-div the price of the share will drop by the amount of the dividend (approximately). With a quarterly spread bet, the dividend will have already been removed from the price quoted by E*TRADE Spread Betting so there will be no effect on the price quoted between the day before ex-div and the day after it. In the case of Rolling Daily bets E*TRADE Spread Betting will credit clients who have long (buy) bets 80% of the value of the dividend and will debit to clients with short (sell) bets 100% of the dividend.

For example, if Lloyds bank goes ex-div with a declared dividend of 7.5p, a client who was long (buy bet) of £10 a point would receive £10x7.5x80% or £60. A client who was short the same amount (i.e. £10 a point) in Lloyds would be debited with £75 (£10x7.5x100%)

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How are the Daily FTSE and Wall Street prices calculated?

This is a common question for SB companies as it does cause some confusion with clients.

All major indices quoted by E*TRADE Spread Betting have a Futures market related to them (i.e. the FTSE 100 has the LIFFE FTSE Futures market). This Future trades at a price which reflects the underlying market plus some adjustments. These adjustments are calculated from the theoretical value of dividends payable between today and the expiry of the Future AND the cost of carry for the index over the same period.

This Adjustment is called the 'Fair Value'. E*TRADE Spread Betting will adjust the Daily Cash price of each index by it's own Fair Value number each day. E*TRADE Spread Betting links the 'Daily Cash' quote to the relevant future concerned and offsets the quote by the current Fair Value. Therefore the Cash Daily price is moved by the Futures price and not vice versa, this is because the cash price is a lagging market indicator which does not react in a timely manner to market moving news.

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How much margin will the system take when I make my trade or if I move my stop?

When making a trade the system will look for three things.

1) If you only have the minimum funds available then the stop loss will automatically be generated at 80% of the minimum IMR (initial margin requirement). You can find the minimum IMR for all of our products on the product information.

2) If you have more funds than the max CGSL (computer generated stop level) for that market - the system will allocate the stop at 80% of the max CGSL for that product, leaving you with extra funds as available margin.

E.g. for FTSE Rolling Daily, the max CGSL is 150 so if you were trading £1 a point and you had £200 on your account, the system would only use up £150 as margin with your stop loss 120 points away. In this scenario, you would be left with £50 available margin to make other trades.

3) If you had more funds on your account than the minimum IMR but less than the max CGSL, the system will take all the funds on the account as margin and the stop will be calculated at 80% of these funds.

You can of course amend the automatic stop that is generated by clicking on "order book" and then on the "amend" button. Moving your stop in closer will free up your margin but the system will always charge you the min IMR for that trade regardless of how close you place your stop to your entry level. If you move your stop further away you will need enough margin to cover your stop. This can be calculated by multiplying the amount of points your stop loss is away from your entry level by a further 25%. For example if you have your stop 100 points away from your entry level, you will need £125 in your available margin to cover that particular stop.
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