And it is impressive. It does give extra insight into the markets that spread bettors would find useful.

One thing that annoys me though is the Reuters news feed. Why, do so many spread betting companies insist on delivering this newsfeed?

This news is all available off the Reuters website and on the hundreds of sites that syndicate Reuters news.

The problem with market moving news is that by the time it reaches us off Reuters the markets have already jolted and us retail investors only require the news feed to allow us to conduct an autopsy into our just-failed trades.

These two feeds met me when I logged on this afternoon and inspired today’s thought:

The post is here, but what Edison say is:

Spread betting customers, “move rapidly between providers driven by price, sentiment and ease. WS advises that the average active period for a client is only nine to 12 months during which period the typical profit for World Sreads is c £3.5k (range typically £2.7-4.0k) and monthly trades c 90-100 (somewhat higher in some overseas markets).”

What puzzles me is an article at Comparing Spread Betting, published today, that shows the vast majority of spread betting clients are happy with their providers…

So why are us spread bettors so fickle?

The simple fact is I would be uncomfortable with the idea that I was potentially obliterating someone else’s trading account!!

More confidence is needed on my behalf, but there are professionals who do offer this service.

So, it is with this in mind that I would point those looking for professional trade alert systems / spread betting strategy providers to the following two providers:

1) LS Trader - I follow their trade advice every week. Trading time is on weekly basis. The team at LS Trader are running some good profits. I don’t follow their trades as yet because I am intent to remain on my own learning curve. That said, should this change they are my first port of call. (

Importantly, a great deal of emphasis is placed on account management – ie. risk levels, % margin etc. A crucial element of successful spread betting.

2) FTSE 100 Club – these guys give trade signals for the most popular and indeed, volatile, market open to spread bettors. I have used them in the past and I was impressed by the returns. They have since expanded into offering signals on foreign exchange. I like the idea of specialists (I prefer trading oil, these guys trade the FTSE 100).

There are a lot of alert services out there, all requiring differing levels of engagement. The above two I would argue are perfect for those looking to get started in spread betting, once you learn a few tricks from these guys I believe it would be possible to carry out your own trades.

There is nothing like relaxing on an exotic coastline while your spread betting account locks in money. I like to imagine this is the life of the full-time retail trader. We have all seen those forex trading adverts of those morons sitting on the beach shoreline with their laptops (this is surely a bad idea?). Needless to say I have a long way to go before reaching this quality of life.

Brent crude hit 115 – triggering the profit level while WTI expired on its monthly contract. The level still came in at a good level – north of $99 a barrel.

I let my trades expire after a month as experience has shown this to be a safe bet. In the past it has cut losses on losing positions, indeed, it has locked in profits this time around – as we can see WTI has pulled back again in line with market conditions.

No new trades are on the cards for now. I will only enter the market on convincing cases so I will continue to read the research reports from my trusty sources. That said the current pull back is opening things up again for a long trade from a technical angle. I will update once I get stuck in once more.

If we get a half decent result from the Euro summit tonight we should see this target being realised.

Lets look at some of the reasons for taking a long spread betting position on WTI crude though. This is the interesting one.

Firstly, the bulls at Barclays Capital are practically besides themselves with joy now that WTI crude has decided to close the gap on brent.

Having followed Amrita Sen’s (Assistant Vice-President, Commodities Research) daily oil reports for a long while now I can tell you that her and the team have been stumped as to the reasons why WTI has lagged so far behind brent.

Recent moves in brent have prompted the following comments:

“What the narrowing of the spread does tell us is that, finally, after over a year, WTI is perhaps moving closer to being aligned with the world market and with other US crude grades, a move that was long warranted, with all those perceptions surrounding Cushing ultimately proving to be a red herring.”

The insight that did however convince me fully to get involved with WTI came from Bank of America Merrill Lynch who have today argued that the “stars are in alignment for a rally.”

The BofA commodities team writes:

“As stocks draw, we see scope for a WTI rally to $105/bbl In short, with WTI moving into backwardation, we believe the fundamentals are aligned for a WTI crude oil rally in the next weeks. This near-term rally, however, could end as rail transport cost parity is reached and trucking capacity is forced out of the market.

“As risk appetite returns on the back of a positive outcome in Europe, Brent crude oil could sustain gains towards $115/bbl.

“In turn, a stronger Brent market could further pave the way for a fundamental move in WTI crude oil prices to $105/bbl. Technical analysis provides a similar target for WTI crude oil over the next few weeks: $104.75/bbl. The stars, it seems, are aligned for a rally.”

Of course, all the above will be undone should the European leaders make a shambles of rescuing the euro.

But, nothing risked, nothing gained.

Because if they don’t these clients will just move on.

Why can’t this be the case for all markets? Imagine if the energy market was like this!

Edison say:

“Customer life cycle Spread betters are a fickle crowd. Many become active when particular news flow or markets are grabbing attention (eg gold in 2010) and they lose interest thereafter.

“Others move rapidly between providers driven by price, sentiment and ease. WS advises that the average active period for a client is only nine to 12 months during which period the typical profit for World Sreads is c £3.5k (range typically £2.7-4.0k) and monthly trades c 90-100 (somewhat higher in some overseas markets).

“Given the high marketing spend to gain customers, profitability can be materially improved if this life cycle can be extended, even just for a few months. WS has an active retention programme involving extensive customer contact as soon as activity levels falls. WS believes that every month it retains over a hundred clients on active status as a consequence of these actions.”

The Spread Betting Blog – I tend to favour spread betting oil prices, BP and the Australian dollar.

Here is some interesting news that could help form the basis of future trading ideas.

Firstly on BP – The Economy News reports that there could be some good news coming from the Gulf of Mexico. If this is to materialise it would consolidate the positive news that emerged earlier this week concerning Anadarko.

On the oil price front this is what Bank of America Merrill Lynch have to say:

“With demand showing signs of weakness and additional barrels coming from Saudi Arabia and key non-OPEC countries, we see lower crude oil prices in 4H11, averaging $102/bbl and $88/bbl for Brent and WTI, respectively.

“Still, a pullback in prices driven by recession concerns could be short-lived as policymakers respond with monetary policy.

“For 2012, we remain bullish as global oil markets remain heavily undersupplied relative to the expected pace in economic growth. We forecast average Brent crude oil prices of $114/bbl in 2012, and $102/bbl for WTI.

“We expect 1.5 mn b/d oil demand growth on 4.2% GDP growth in 2012, and oil demand would contract at GDP growth <2%.

“Libya production is slowly coming back online though full ramp up is still a long way off. The political situation in Libya remains unstable and the risk is that key Libyan factions fail to agree on how to develop the country and the oil industry going forward.

“We believe Brent prices will stay firm relative to WTI given higher foreign fuel dependence.”

And today, looking at the ‘sea of red’ on my spread betting screen there is but one speck of blue this morning – BP.

I missed the massive advance yesterday morning that came in the wake of the Anadarko settlement – had I been on the ball I would have been in BP anyway but a bit of complacency saw me miss much of the rally leading up to the event.

The key issue here is that yesterday’s events represent a notable shift for BP, and I believe we could now enter a new trading range for the stock, I’m betting above 400, as opposed to the region between 350 and 400.

So I was happy to take a long spread bet on BP when yesterday’s share price spike pulled back.

The problem now is picking the profit level.

Ideally I will let it run and draw the stop loss in closer as the BP story is certainly an evolving one.

Just read these conflicting broker views on the BP share price here.

It will help the inquisitive reader but will also importantly aid me in condensing my spread betting technique into something that resembles a strategy. I have been quite successful as of late and need to really analyse and formalise this success.

Secondly, I will look to expand the spread betting strategies I deploy by using trading alerts.

I have the FTSE 100 Club and LS Trader in my sights.

Obviously this form of trading is extremely beneficial for those who are looking to trade part time.

However it would also be good for me as it would actually prompt me to trade more often and could speed up the learning progress.

My current strategy is a successful one but because my trading frequency is low I am not yet a spread betting millionaire. Clearly this is my aim though, and I will need to trade more often.

So, stick around.

Yes, my latest trade on the Australian dollar closed out at a great profit. My only regret is that I didn’t draw my stop loss closer and extend my profit levels. But markets are on the move and they are moving fast!

That said I will see how today progresses, I could yet get back in there, but only after a long hard look at the charts.

The trade went well – when I was well into the green I dragged my stop loss up into profit, automatically eliminating risk at the first chance, something that eliminates any emotional anxiety which is an important element of trading on  a personal level.

Elsewhere, following on from yesterday’s post, I note that as I was writing it a flash crash took place on the FX markets.

Computers aren’t supposed to make mistakes. And they certainly aren’t supposed to have fat fingers.

But on Monday currency traders were gossiping about a fat-fingered algorithm that caused the pound to crash by almost a cent after a computer mistakenly pushed through a large sell order.

Sympathies go out to any of the small guys  who were stopped out by this stuff up.