Why Spread Bet with FXCM?

UK Residents ONLY: FXCM UK LTD offers Spread Betting solely on trading Gold, Oil, Stock Indices and Forex. An FXCM Spread Bet account is the same as an FXCM Gold, Oil, Stock Indices and Forex account with the added tax benefits. The minimum to open a live account is 300 GBP.

  • No Re-quotes
  • No Capital Gains Taxes for UK Residents*
  • Competitive Pricing: Competitive spreads enables you to gain exposure to global markets.
  • Never Pay Debit Balance as a Result of Trading

Every time you trade a spread bet with FXCM, we will trade in an underlying market to hedge your bet on a one-to-one basis. If you open a long spread bet in EUR/USD, for instance, FXCM will take a corresponding long position in the same currency pair. Therefore, from the time of the trade confirmation, the outcome of your trading has no effect on FXCM's profit or loss.

SPREAD BET PRODUCT GUIDE

No Re-quotes from FXCM

Some Brokers trade against their clients and re-quote in order to make money on your trades. That is a conflict of interest. FXCM will not interfere in your trading by re-quoting your trades. After you send FXCM an order, your position is executed as soon as our hedge is established. This means that the order you placed is filled without re-quotes during most market conditions.

Many market makers issue re-quotes, and sometimes for legitimate reasons. But re-quoting carries the potential for conflict of interest between the market maker and the client. If a market-making firm finds it cannot make money on your trades, it may provide you with an aggressive re-quote, regardless of the true market price.

To avoid any conflict, FXCM will never re-quote you another price. Our dealers simply ensure that every client order we receive is hedged. Since all spread bets are hedged real-time in their various underlying markets, FXCM's spread can vary.

Tax-Free Trading & Generous Leverage

Spread betting is only available for individual investors, and is free of stamp duty and UK capital gains tax. In addition, spread betting is a way to make efficient use of trading capital for UK residents. Whichever way the markets move, you can take a position to benefit from the movement—and for only a fraction of the capital outlay that would be required to trade the market directly.

Financial spread betting is a leveraged product, which means that you only have to put up a percentage of the total value of the position. (Typical spread bet margins with FXCM vary between 1% and 10%.) Margin trading is not necessarily for everyone because leverage can magnify losses as well as gains. Please consult an investment adviser to enquire about your own personal circumstances.

No Debit Balances

Some spread betting brokers profit when a client is liquidated. If the broker has not hedged your position and you have lost all your money, theoretically the broker can keep that money even when your trades have not even left their trading platform. However, when you trade with FXCM, we hedge your position with a bank, a broker dealer or on an exchange. If you are liquidated, we simultaneously liquidate our hedge position.

FXCM will liquidate your trades only when your usable margin/free equity falls to zero. Therefore, we liquidate all your open positions in an orderly fashion, but still ensure that you have your initial margin intact for trading. Other spread betting providers will liquidate your positions when you have the equivalent of USD$100 left in the account, even though you may have thousands of dollars of open positions. In that case, although you were liquidated, you could end up with deficit balances, owing money to the provider.

Easy-to-Use Trade Platform

The FXCM trading platform is the result of over ten years of constant development and improvement. The trading platforms offered by FXCM are tested in all market conditions, routinely handling about 300,000 trades per day with clients in more than 150 countries around the world.

One-click execution is standard on all FXCM products. For cost transparency we display all finance charges in the same price window as our dealing price. Therefore, for each trade you know exactly what you will pay or receive overnight to carry any open spread bet position.

Rolling procedure

Spread bets are "rolled" each day. Each position is automatically reopened, as long as funds in your account are sufficient to continue to support the position. A financing charge is made when the forex spread bet position is rolled. Financing for non-forex positions are subject to a daily financing charge or credit associated with any rolling bet position which is open at our market close.

* Profits derived from spread betting are free of all UK capital gains taxes. Applicability of tax benefits is subject to status and nation of residency. Tax law can change and may differ according to your personal circumstances.

Important Information
FXCM UK offers spread betting exclusively to UK Residents. Residents of other countries are NOT eligible. Spread betting is not intended for distribution to, or use by any person in any country and jurisdiction where such distribution or use would be contrary to local law or regulation.