RE: Good morning all9 Oct 2024 09:58
Share dealing vs spread betting in practice?
We’ve covered some essential differences between spread betting and share dealing. Now, let’s take a look at share dealing and spread betting in practice. We will examine four key aspects: margin, cost, shorting, and what you can trade.
Margin
When you use margin to spread bet shares, you won’t need to invest the entire value of a share upfront. This is due to leverage, where you only need to deposit a small amount of capital to open a position at full value.
Let’s say you are looking to open a trade on Vodafone worth £2000, and your broker has a margin requirement of 20%. Now, because of the margin, you won’t need the full £2000 in your account; you’ll only need £400 in your account to open the position.
Now, with share dealing, if you want to open the same position on Vodafone, you’d need the full amount of £2000, plus commission and other costs, as you are taking ownership of the stock.
In both cases, the profits or losses that can occur will be calculated based on the total value of £2000.
As you can see, with spread betting, your potential profits can be magnified with margin, but so can your losses.