Is spread betting for fools?

[dmedin]

2 hours ago, DSchenk said:

Haha, thanks, but not half as impressive as it sounds. I know a few other programming languages, so this was peanuts to learn.

Impressive is to actually become a profitable trader afterwards utilising those screeners - something I have yet to achieve 😊

 

 

I'm trying to get on with Python.  The syntax in PRT isn't complicated but there's so much to learn.

[DSchenk]

43 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

Even without Pre market data, it's still possible to create a Watchlist (I assume) as soon as the Market opens, but only you can tell me different.

Sure, as soon as market opens, the screeners will work.

I usually added stocks to my watchlist beforehand which I know have news released on the day, like earnings and stuff. Usually a big likelihood for gaps and big moves afterwards.

For UK market I always used HL for that: https://www.hl.co.uk/news/articles/next-week-on-the-stock-market

Gives you a quick overview what's on the table for next week.

Do you know where to get anything similar for US?

 

[nit2wynit]

1 minute ago, DSchenk said:

Do you know where to get anything similar for US?

I don't know ****! lol

Everything I know is in this thread.........:D

[nit2wynit]

WOW! PRT!  Can't believe how fluid it is compared to the Retail

 platform...I also can't believe no-one has pushed me toward it the entire time I've been complaining about how slow it is :O

Let the learning begin.  Though it seems there may be a few issues developing with PRT?

Edited September 16, 2019 by nit2wynit

[DSchenk]

8 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

Though it seems there may be a few issues developing with PRT?

Glad you like it

What issues do you have with developing on PRT?

I'm configuring mine today to work with the US market. Will see if I have time today to look at US market open

[nit2wynit]

1 minute ago, DSchenk said:

What issues do you have with developing on PRT?

I'm configuring mine today to work with the US market. Will see if I have time today to look at US market open

Oh, not me specifically.  I've literally just opened it, but I've noticed a few other posts re; PRT that have gone un-answered recently.  

Maybe I've jumped the gun!


Yes, I'm gearing up for the US open today and hoping to make some progress with PRT, though I think I've got a lot to learn I doubt I'll see any action today.  

Edited September 16, 2019 by nit2wynit

[nit2wynit]

6 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

What issues do you have with developing on PRT?

 

actually, i do seem to be having a problem finding the entire US List of shares?  Looks like I have about 100?  A-I I-Z then another 50 in Wall Street?

Where's the rest of them?

[DSchenk]

Are you looking at these 3 markets?

US (minor)

US (TECH)

US (Wall St)

I get about 23,000 results combined across all 3.

Divided by 4, cause only one of them is the DFB, the other 3 are futures with an expiry date.  Still over 5000 stocks.

[nit2wynit]

1 minute ago, DSchenk said:

Are you looking at these 3 markets?

US (minor)

US (TECH)

US (Wall St)

I get about 23,000 results combined across all 3.

Divided by 4, cause only one of them is the DFB, the other 3 are futures with an expiry date.  Still over 5000 stocks.

Like i say, I've literally just opened it....I also don't know the significance of DFB?


I have the platform open in default state so maybe there's a search I'm missing

[nit2wynit]

oh, hold on.  may have found it.  Search bar at top left?

 

 

Holy Crapola.....73 pages of UK.  Gonna need that screener lol

Edited September 16, 2019 by nit2wynit

[DSchenk]

Just now, nit2wynit said:

oh, hold on.  may have found it.  Search bar at top left?

That's the one

 

[DSchenk]

2 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

.I also don't know the significance of DFB?

https://www.ig.com/uk/glossary-trading-terms/dfb-definition

Daily Funded Bet - that's the regular ticker to trade for day-trading purposes, cause smaller spread, but overnight interest adjustments.
Unless I'm wrong, then someone correct me please

[nit2wynit]

1 minute ago, DSchenk said:

https://www.ig.com/uk/glossary-trading-terms/dfb-definition

Daily Funded Bet - that's the regular ticker to trade for day-trading purposes, cause smaller spread, but overnight interest adjustments.
Unless I'm wrong, then someone correct me please

OK.  I need to go to page one on PRT.  I may be some time lol

Good luck today.

[DSchenk]

Ok, I configured my platform for US open. Real test obviously will be once it opens, but here my findings so far.

 

1) US has a lot more stocks than UK. (Ok that was obvious ). Means I needed to tighten all my screeners, otherwise they pull way too many tickers.
My Momentum screener only looks at ROC of more than 10% on the day
Volatility screener more than 2% in last 10 minutes
Top Gainers at more than 25% in last 3 days
Top Dippers at less than -10% in last 3 days
GAP scanner at more than 5% gap

2) IG seems to restrict a lot of stocks from trading. Some are only restricted on the short side, but a lot are restricted short and long. This is a bit painful when building the watchlist, because you need to check first if there are any restrictions on the ticker.
I assume this is because US stocks are more volatile and IG needs to protect themselves from traders making huge profits.

3) No pre-market data available, except for a handful of selected major stocks (typically not the ones you want to trade). List here: https://www.ig.com/uk/shares/out-of-hours-shares
This means no pre-market scanning possible with IG tools.

4) In order to get Level 2 data, you need to buy 3 data streams individually. One is called AMEX (US), one NASDAQ (US) and one NYSE (US). All 3 together are cheaper than the LSE stream, so that's positive.

5) Haven't found any suitable report which shows me earnings releases in the US for the day/week ahead. Best one I found so far is this one, although not the biggest fan so far. Will keep searching for better ones: https://www.thestreet.com/event-calendar/index.html

 

On my watchlist for today so far:

NTEC (short side restricted)

MNK

CVIA (short side restricted)

AKRX

[nit2wynit]

7 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

I assume this is because US stocks are more volatile and IG needs to protect themselves from traders making huge profits.

I'm clearly still learning, but.....

If I lose I'm assuming IG takes the money, But they make their money on the spread, so where does my actual loss Go? When someone Wins does IG pay out of their own pocket?  Likewise with shares.  Who are we actually Trading with?  Who's keeping the money and paying out if we Sell Shares?

[DSchenk]

Not 100% sure on this, but if I was a spread-bet provider and knowing that 90% of traders lose, I wouldn't just make money on the spread, but actually play the casino bank against the traders.

Meaning if the trader loses, I win. If the trader wins (1 out of 10 times), I need to pay him. But the good thing is, I only need to pay him 'on paper', in his account. So I only really lose, if the trader pulls money out of his account to his personal bank account.

All in all, there seems to be a very low risk of losing liquidity as a spread bet provider.

But as said, not sure how it all works behind the scenes. Just my guessing.

[dmedin]

2 hours ago, nit2wynit said:

WOW! PRT!  Can't believe how fluid it is compared to the Retail

 platform...I also can't believe no-one has pushed me toward it the entire time I've been complaining about how slow it is 😮

Let the learning begin.  Though it seems there may be a few issues developing with PRT?

 

Yes, but it's also clunky (IMHO), overly complicated, very outdated design (from the 1990s) and doesn't provide any tick volume.  I do wish there was a single platform that combined all the best elements of PRT, Web etc.

Edited September 16, 2019 by dmedin

[DSchenk]

14 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

5) Haven't found any suitable report which shows me earnings releases in the US for the day/week ahead. Best one I found so far is this one, although not the biggest fan so far. Will keep searching for better ones: https://www.thestreet.com/event-calendar/index.html

Update. Finviz has earnings in their database.

This looks suitable for my purposes.

https://finviz.com/screener.ashx?v=111&s=n_earningsbefore&ft=4&o=marketcap

 

Shows 5 tickers having earnings today, none of them land on my watchlist though.

2 are too expensive. Can't find one in IG. And the remaining two don't seem to have any volume.

[dmedin]

 

6 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

Not 100% sure on this, but if I was a spread-bet provider and knowing that 90% of traders lose, I wouldn't just make money on the spread, but actually play the casino bank against the traders.

Meaning if the trader loses, I win. If the trader wins (1 out of 10 times), I need to pay him. But the good thing is, I only need to pay him 'on paper', in his account. So I only really lose, if the trader pulls money out of his account to his personal bank account.

I doubt any company could get away with doing that under FCA regulations.  Could be wrong...

[Caseynotes]

6 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

I'm clearly still learning, but.....

If I lose I'm assuming IG takes the money, But they make their money on the spread, so where does my actual loss Go? When someone Wins does IG pay out of their own pocket?  Likewise with shares.  Who are we actually Trading with?  Who's keeping the money and paying out if we Sell Shares?

suspect the FCA would not be too keen to see a broker act in any way other than as a broker. the broker sees your buy order and matches it with another traders sell order and takes the spread off both of you, depending on the subsequent direction of the market one trader is going to profit and the other trader is going to lose.

[nit2wynit]

1 minute ago, Caseynotes said:

suspect the FCA would not be too keen to see a broker act in any way other than as a broker. the broker sees your buy order and matches it with another traders sell order and takes the spread off both of you, depending on the subsequent direction of the market one trader is going to profit and the other trader is going to lose.

Yes, but where does the money go or come from?

If I made 10k today, does it come from IG?

[DSchenk]

You are possibly right.

I usually don't believe anything I haven't seen with my own eyes.
There are a lot of ugly things going on in big corporations, which they don't want normal guys like us to know...

 

1 minute ago, nit2wynit said:

Yes, but where does the money go or come from?

If I made 10k today, does it come from IG?

If it is as Casey and dmedin assume, then IG would have to wait for someone else (an individual) to sell the shares you buy and vice versa. IG only makes the spread. You make 10k, someone else loses 10k.
Not sure that this is how spread betting works after all.

[Caseynotes]

29 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

Casey and dmedin assume, then IG would have to wait for someone else (an individual) to sell the shares you buy and vice versa. IG only makes the spread.

if you have computer software to match buy with sell orders it's easy money taking a commission off both parties, why would you risk an FCA ban. Having said that sometimes a broker will act as a market maker to satisfy client demand but will hedge that to counter the risk.

[nit2wynit]

Struggling with PRT so far.  Can't figure out where my PL is or my Balance.  Manual is all a bit heavy and the vids don't appear to be thorough.  Maybe a pre-requisite knowledge is required.

I'm on the Demo by the way.

[Caseynotes]

27 minutes ago, nit2wynit said:

Struggling with PRT so far.  Can't figure out where my PL is or my Balance.  Manual is all a bit heavy and the vids don't appear to be thorough.  Maybe a pre-requisite knowledge is required.

I'm on the Demo by the way.

that used to be poor on prt, if memory serves you need to go to Options > Trading options > Statistics and order display > and check the boxes for 'display top of chart'.

[nit2wynit]

22 minutes ago, Caseynotes said:

that used to be poor on prt, if memory serves you need to go to Options > Trading options > Statistics and order display > and check the boxes for 'display top of chart'.

Thanks but it doesn't appear to be an option.  Queries going back to 2017 or before.

How are you supposed to trade if you can't see your PL or balance?

[DSchenk]

PRT doesn't show you your balance. But PL shows via Trading -> open positions

Looks something like the below (if you're down £30 on the day  )

 

[nit2wynit]

3 minutes ago, DSchenk said:

PRT doesn't show you your balance. But PL shows via Trading -> open positions

Looks something like the below (if you're down £30 on the day  )

 

WTF!  How the **** can you trade??  I've no idea what margin requirement is until I add a number to the ticket, then what?  get a calculator out and work out my next figure?  Jeeez.  This can't be for real?  Surely the basics are your fecking balance lol.


I can't even load a chart now.    I'm becoming paranoid this is a real conspiracy against me.  I've been getting error messages like this since day one, but the chart usually loads within a few seconds.  Now I can't get anything.

 

 

[DSchenk]

Agree, it's far from ideal.

I went a bit creative and built myself a tool which is hooked in via the API provided by IG for that purpose.

That calculates margin requirements, deal sizes, shows overall balance, PnL, etc.

Would start with the calculator - then go from there  

[nit2wynit]

hmmm.  Now all I have available is this??? No demo platform.....Feel like I'm about to be shown the door.  If you don't hear from me, I've been booted out.