spread bets not allowed by ig?

[Guest icarous]

I am only using the demo account and just for fun I tried to place the following type

of bet: I bought 100 options call eur/gbp 9200 (using the fictional money provided in the demo account) and tried to sell

100 options call eur/gbp 9300 (both for the same date). But I was not allowed to do so. As far as I can see my risk was covered by

the eur/gbp 9200 call so I don't see why ig does not allow this trade. Have you faced this problem? And is there a way to deal with it?

(apart from covering the option to sell by huge amounts of cash).

 

Would any other online trading platform allow this if ig does not?

[dmedin]

47 minutes ago, icarous said:

covering the option to sell by huge amounts of cash

 

Sorry if this is too obvious an answer but yes you have to have enough cash to cover the margin requirement.

[Guest icarous]

1 hour ago, dmedin said:

 

Sorry if this is too obvious an answer but yes you have to have enough cash to cover the margin requirement.

Thanks but my point is that this trade is risk free as the call 9300 will always have a lower price than the call 9200.

Since there is no risk there should be no requirement for extra cash.

[dmedin]

11 minutes ago, icarous said:

Thanks but my point is that this trade is risk free as the call 9300 will always have a lower price than the call 9200.

Since there is no risk there should be no requirement for extra cash.

 

Options spread betting is counterintuitive and doesn't work the way you expect normal options to work.

[JamesIG]

Unfortunately as a UK listed leveraged provider there are regulations which means 'margin offsetting' is no possible, even for fully funded positions. 

[Guest icarous]

Thanks JamesIG, I see now,it is because of regulations so probably hard to avoid.