Spread Betting and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 55.5% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading Spread Betting and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how Spread Betting and CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money
Some of the questions we’re asked most often about spread betting, CFDs and trading platforms.
Our FAQs are designed to provide a better understanding of our different account types, account opening information, account deposit and withdrawal information and also technical troubleshooting.
We will process your application within 24 hours, often much sooner (Monday – Friday). You will be notified of the status of your application by email. On occasions, you may need to provide us with additional identification documentation to support your application and we will let you know by email if this is the case.
It is a requirement of UK financial services regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, that we verify your identity. In order for us to do so you will need to provide us with the following documentation:
One of the following:
One of the following, to be dated within last three months:
*Please note that mobile phone and internet statements are not acceptable.
Please do not send original documents.
Copies from non-UK or non-EEA countries must be certified by one of the following:
The photocopied documents have to be certified with the wording: “Certified as a true and complete copy of the original”. The “certifier” has to sign and date the documents, also providing their full name and contact details.
The documents also have to be stamped with the certifier/company’s official stamp.
You can apply online. Our online application is easy to complete and should only take you a few minutes. We will need some personal details and information on your trading experience.
If you have any questions about opening an account, please call +44 (0) 1923 832659.
Alternatively, you can email us here.
We will need to see further documents if we have not been able to verify your identity and/or address at the time of application.
Spread Co are an execution only broker.
There are three different versions of our trading platforms available to Spread Co clients: Web (browser-based), iPad and mobile (Android and iPhone). To log in you will need to select ‘Log In’, which is located on the right hand corner of the website or on the opening page of our iPad and mobile apps. Then you may log in to either a ‘Live’ or ‘Demo’ options (depending on your account) using the username and password provided to you in your account activation email.
If you have not logged in for a while, don’t worry. All you will need to do is log in using the details that were sent in your original activation email. However, if you have forgotten your details you can have them resent to your registered email address. To do so, please click the login link, which is at the top right hand corner of the website, and choose either Demo or Live, this will take you to a logon page. From here you will need to click on the reset password link which is located on the bottom left of the window.
You will need to click on the relevant login button on the top right hand corner of the website. This will then take you to a logon page. From here you will need to click on the reset password link which is located on the bottom left of the window. This will generate an email to your registered email address which will contain a new password.
Please do not copy and paste the password from the email to the password field on the trading platform. It is best that you type it in manually. You will be given the option to amend the new password to something more memorable once you have logged in.
No, you cannot amend or cancel an order if it is already executed except for amending/adding a linked order such as a stop loss or limit profit order.
Yes, you can amend or cancel a contingent order if the market price has not reached the order price.
No. Your order is either entirely filled (executed) or rejected.
Yes, you can go long and short simultaneously on the same market.
On the trading platform, click on the ´Positions´ panel, select the open position in which you wish to place the linked order and click on the ´create/amend order´ icon, which looks like a spanner. You can then add a stop or a limit order to the open position.
Alternatively, you can call our dealing desk at +44 (0) 1923 832 609 to place a linked order.
No, it is not necessary to place a stop loss or limit profit order.
If the market sell price (bid) trades to the price of a sell order (say for example a stop loss order) or lower, the sell order will be executed. If the market buy (offer) price trades to the price of a buy order or higher, the buy order will be executed. Unless the market ‘gaps’ through the order price then all orders will be filled at the limit price.
A contingent order, also known as an ´if done´ order, consists of a primary order, a stop and a limit profit order. You would first need to place a primary order, which can be a stop or limit order. A primary order is used to open a position. After placing the primary order, you can place another stop loss and/or limit profit order which will be linked to this unexecuted primary order. If this primary order is executed, both the stop loss and the limit profit order will be active. If either the stop loss or limit profit order is executed, the position will be closed.
A primary order is an order placed with the intention of opening a new position. A linked order is a limit profit order or a stop loss order placed with the intention of locking in your profits on an existing open position or protecting your position against losses.
An order is placed above or below the current market price. The order will only be filled (executed) when the market price trades to the order price.
A trade is filled (executed) immediately based on current market sell and buy prices.
Good till cancelled (GTC) denotes that as long as the market price does not reach the order price, your order will continue to be active until you decide to cancel it.
Good till end of day denotes that as long as the market price does not reach the order price, your order will continue to be active until the market closes.
Good till date/time denotes that as long as the market price does not reach the order price, your order will continue to be active until the date and time that has been specified by you.
A sell stop loss order is executed at either the stop loss price or lower and a buy stop loss order is executed at either the stop loss price or higher. The reason why we say ‘or lower’ and ‘or higher’ is because a market can ‘gap’ through your stop loss level, and as a result you will be filled at the next traded price. Limit profit orders are executed at the limit profit order price.
Stop loss orders are filled at your stop loss order prices or market prices. If you had initially placed a stop loss order to sell 10,000 GBP/USD at 1.5975 and the market traded through to 1.5975 -1.5977, your stop loss order would be filled at the best market sell (bid) price which is 1.5975. If a market ‘gaps’ through your price you will be filled at the next tradable price which can result in larger losses than you expected.
Limit buy and sell orders, Contingent (if done), stop loss and limit profit orders are available on our trading platform. We also offer Guaranteed Stops (for a small premium) and OCO (One Cancels Other) orders. You can also select the time frame in which you wish to work your orders.
You can trade at any time (24 hours) between 10PM on Sunday evening (London Time) to 10PM on Friday evening (London Time). You will not be able to trade outside of these hours.
You can retrieve your trade, match and order history by logging into the trading platform. Match history is only applicable for clients who hold single positions accounts.
The purpose of an order placing distance is to prevent your orders being triggered while you are in the midst of placing them. This can happen especially when markets move quickly. In order to prevent this from happening, we input order placing distance so as to allow you to safely place your orders at least a few pips away from the market.
Daily statements are sent to you by email every day. Monthly statements are sent to you at the end of each month. You can also retrieve copies of daily and monthly statements from the trading platform.
Unfortunately not. For security reasons you can only be logged into one version of the trading platform at any one time; If you attempt to log in on the iPad app whilst logged into the web platform, you will be logged out (of the web platform).
You do not have to pay to use the trading platform. It is given to you free of charge if you have an account with us.
SATURN has advanced interactive charting included for all account holders.
Powered by TradingView, charts can be customised and charting analysis saved for later. More details on our financial trading platform can be found on our Online Trading Platform page.
Click ‘Login’ on the top right hand corner of the website, choose either Live or Demo and then enter the username and password provided to you. The Web platform will then be launched.
You can download our free mobile trading app from both Apple Store and Google Play.
This may be down to something occurring on your computer which can sometimes affect the software. We recommend that you re-start your computer as a first port of call. However, if this fails please exit the platform and then delete all the contents of the folder ‘My Documents\Saturn Trader’ and then log into the platform again. Please note that this will delete any saved layouts.
Yes. If you placed a trade or order on the web platform, you will be able to see that trade or order if you log into the iPad and mobile apps. All trading activity is attached to your account so will be viewable on all platforms.
We have a whole section our site called ‘trading platforms’. Clients can click here to find out more info.
SATURN trader is no longer available for download. If you have previously downloaded our desktop platform (SATURN Trader) than you should find the equivalent platform experience in our SATURN Web platform.
To get help on our trading platform, please call our Client Services team on +44 (0)1923 832 682 or email us
Yes, your open positions are marked-to-market with real time bid/offer prices.
There are two main ways in which you can profit from spread betting:
The two main ways to lose through spread betting:
You may hold on to your trades for as long as you like (provided your trade is not liquidated). This is subject to a period of three years.
When you are holding a “long” trade on an individual equity, you will receive a credit adjustment in your trading account if a dividend is issued on the physical equity. The adjustment is equivalent to 90% of the dividend payment due on the underlying equities. On the other hand, if you are holding a “short” trade on an individual equity, there will be a debit adjustment which is equivalent to 100% of the dividend. Other corporation actions such as bonuses and stock splits will also be adjusted according to the underlying equities.
No. Spread bets are cash settled.
Financial spread betting allows you, an investor, to trade on the directional movement of the price of a financial instrument. You will have to indicate an amount you want to trade on each point movement. For each point movement that the price of the financial instrument moves in your favour, you make a profit multiple of your stake. If the price of the financial instrument moves against you, you will make a loss equivalent to your stake multiplied by the number of points the instrument moves against you.
When you trade on the price of a financial instrument, you do not actually own the underlying asset. However, you are entitled to some of the benefits, such as dividends, rights issues etc, as if you were an owner of the underlying asset. The main difference is that you will not receive any voting rights on individual equities.
Every night at 10pm London time all positions are Marked to Market against the market closing price. Either a debit or credit will be applied to your account depending on whether you are in a profit or loss. Your daily statement will clearly show whether your positions were marked against the market closing price. Example:
Opening trade – Sell 5 UK100 MAR 17 @ 6497
Market closing price – 6513
6513 – 6497 = 16 points
16 multiplied by stake (£5/point) = £80 Debit
The following business day the short position is held open with a closing price of 6497.
At £5/point a gain of 16 points would mean a credit of £80 would be applied to the account.
No other charges apply for short index positions. In the event this position was a ‘long’ the daily Financing charge would be applied which would show as a separate transaction.
Please be assured that your total PnL will always be calculated from your entry price against your close price multiplied by your stake.
This is to ensure that your daily statement marks and values your account at the most recent daily closing price.
You are able to view the PnL for the business day within your open positions and the total PnL from the original opening price.
When Spread Betting, are your profits tax free?
Tax treatment does however depend on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in the future
The liquidation engine will cut the open position with the largest margin requirement. A liquidation trade will be created to close the open position at the market price.
Liquidation is the forced closure or reduction of your open positions. Liquidation occurs when your resources fall significantly below the level required to maintain your margin requirements.
Your trading account is subject to a liquidation process if your account valuation falls below a percentage of the margin requirement (liquidation level) which is required to support your open positions.
The open trades which require the largest margin requirement will generally be liquidated first
No, there will be no extra charge if you get liquidated.
If you wish to place a trade, you will need to place a ‘deposit’ in respect of each open trade in your account, these ‘deposits’ are also known as ‘margin’. The margin for opening a spread bet for all trades depends on two variables:
Margin Rate
The Margin Rate is calculated by reviewing the risk factor applied to each financial instrument. This factor varies according to the liquidity and the volatility of each financial instrument. Markets which have higher liquidity and lower volatility generally have a lower Margin Rate.
The Margin Rate for equities, indices, forex and commodities is a percentage of the notional value of your trade. Margin Rates can be found on the trading platform and the market information sheet of each individual market.
Stake
When you place your trade, you will need to decide on how much you wish to trade per point. You can start with a minimum of £1 per point on any financial instrument. This amount is known as a stake. You can also choose to trade in USD or EUR.
Your stake is a per unit stake, as opposed to a fixed stake. The size of your stake determines how much you make or lose for one unit movement in the price of a financial instrument. To understand the minimum movement of a particular instrument please refer to market information sheet of each market. The more the price of the financial instrument moves in your favour, the more profit you make and similarly the more the price moves against you, the more you lose. For this reason, it is important you understand that if the price of the financial instrument moves substantially in the opposite direction, your losses can increase considerably.
Margin for Indices, Foreign Exchange, Commodities and Bullion Positions
The margin for Indices, Foreign Exchange, Commodities and Bullion trades is derived by multiplying the trade value by the Margin Rate.
Example
Margin Rate for the UK100 = 5%
UK100 is trading at 7,250
You wish to buy the UK100 with a stake of £2 per point
Margin required will be = (£2 x 7,250) x 5%
= £72.50
Margin for Individual Equities
For equity trades, margin is calculated as follows:
Margin Rate x stake x trade price
Example
Margin Rate = 20%
You wish to buy Barclays with a stake of £3 per point
Barclays is trading at 234.80/235.05
Margin required will be = Trade price x Stake x Margin Rate
= (235.05 x £3) x 20%
= £141.03
You will be emailed every four hours to inform you that you are on margin call. However please note, margin call emails are not sent out of market hours.
For each of your open positions, Spread Co will require you to place a deposit known as ‘margin’. Because you do not have to pay the full amount of your trade size, spread betting allows you to increase the amount of exposure to a financial instrument through leverage. This means you can place a larger trade than if you traded using simply the funds you placed in your account. Leverage has the effect of magnifying the profits or losses on your trading capital. The maximum amount of leverage available to you varies with the instrument you are trading.
If you do not top up your account or reduce your open positions, one or more of your trades will be closed in order to bring the margin level in your account up to the required level for the remaining open trades.
A margin call occurs when there is insufficient funding in your account to cover your open trades with the necessary margin. This happens if your account valuation falls below the margin requirement.
If you are on a margin call, you must top up your account with sufficient funds to keep the position open, or close your open positions to reduce your margin requirement.
The maximum stake size is set at the discretion of the dealing desk for any Share, Index, Commodity or Bullion.
There is no minimum account balance pre-set. However, you must maintain sufficient funds in your account to cover the margin requirement for your open positions, or you will face liquidation of one or more positions.
The minimum stake size is typically £1 for any Share, Index, Currency or Commodity.
“Resources” are the free funds available for entering into additional trades. It is the difference between “Equity”/ “Account Valuation” and “Margin”.
“Cash” is your brought forward cash balance +/- realised P&L.
“Equity”/ “Account valuation” is “Cash” +/- “Open P&L”.
“Open P&L” is the real time value of the profit/loss on open positions.
You can trade at any time (24 hours) between 10pm (London Time) on Sunday evening and 10pm (London Time) on Friday evening. You will not be able to trade outside of these hours.
For consolidated positions accounts, the liquidation engine will cut the open position with the largest margin requirement. A liquidation trade will be created to close the open position at market price. Positions will be automatically matched based on a FIFO basis.
For single positions accounts, the liquidation engine will create a new liquidation trade thereby reducing the open position to zero. The new open position (liquidation trade) is added to the open position list on the open position blotter along with the original trade. Open positions which create zero exposure are not matched. This is left to the discretion of the position holders.
The fundamental purpose of Single Position accounts is to allow the position holders to manually select the open positions he wants to take profits/losses on as opposed to the trading platform automatically matching corresponding open positions in the same instrument.
Your trading account is subjected to a liquidation process if your account valuation falls below a percentage of the margin requirement (liquidation level) which is required to support your open positions.
If you are on a margin call, you must top up your account with sufficient funds to keep the position open, or close your open positions to reduce your margin requirement.
The liquidation process will stop only when your account equity is more than the margin requirement on your remaining positions.
The open positions with the largest margin requirement will be liquidated first.
No you will not be charged extra if you get liquidated.
The margin requirement for a position is calculated by multiplying the relevant CFD position size by the applicable margin rate:
Margin requirement = (position size) x (margin rate)
e.g. If the margin rate for Microsoft (MSFT) is 5% and you buy 1000 MSFT CFDs at $25, then the position size is $25,000 and the margin requirement ($25,000 x 5%) is $1,250.
For each of your open CFD positions (trades), Spread Co will require you to dedicate trading resources equal to a percentage of the position size. This funding is called a margin requirement.
Because you do not have to pay the full amount of your position size, CFDs enable you to increase the amount of exposure to an instrument through leverage. This means you can trade a larger position than if you traded using simply the funds you placed in your account. Leverage has the effect of magnifying the profits or losses on your trading capital. The maximum amount of leverage available to you varies with the instrument you are trading, for example, on equities the margin requirement is typically 20%, so you can trade £20,000 worth of shares with just £4000 in margin.
Please refer to our market information sheet for details.
If you don’t top up your account, one or more of your positions will be closed in order to bring the margin level in your account up to the required level for the remaining open positions.
A margin call occurs when there are insufficient funds in your account to cover your open positions with the necessary margin. This happens if your “Equity”/ “Account Valuation” falls below the “Margin” requirement.
The minimum account maintenance balance is US$200.
‘Account maintenance balance’ is the minimum required amount to hold an open position. This does not mean that you have to have a minimum of $200 in your account at all times, but only when you have open positions.
“Cash” is your brought forward cash balance +/- realised P&L.
For consolidated accounts, “Equity”/ “Account valuation” is “Cash” +/- “Open P&L”.
For single position accounts, “Equity”/ “Account valuation” is “Cash” +/- “Open P&L” +/- “Unmatched P&L”.
“P&L Day” displays the real-time unrealised profit/loss of your open trades based on the “Open” price (The difference between “Current” price and “Open” price multiplied by “Quantity”). The profits or losses are expressed in your account currency.
“P&L Total” displays the real-time unrealised profit/loss of your open trades based on the “Open” price (The difference between “Current” price and “Open” price multiplied by “Quantity”). The profits or losses are expressed in your account currency.
“Unmatched P&L” is only applicable to single position accounts and it is the accumulated marked-to-market profit/loss for unmatched open positions. These unmatched open positions are marked against the previous day´s closing prices.
Matching is only available if you have a single positions account. The fundamental purpose of single position accounts is to allow position holder to manually select the open positions he wants to take profits/losses on as opposed to the trading platform automatically matching corresponding open positions in the same instrument. The act of manually selecting trades to close off against each other is called matching.
The ‘Open’ price is the average price that you entered into the position.
Example of “Open” price calculation on a consolidated CFD account
Customer A conducted 3 USDJPY trades on Day 1:
• Trade 1: Buy 200,000 USDJPY @ 110.50
• Trade 2: Buy 100,000 USDJPY @ 110.40
• Trade 3: Sell 100,000 USDJPY @ 110.60
As your positions are closed on a FIFO basis, Trade 3 would close out 100,000 USDJPY of Trade 1, therefore the “Open” price would be 110.45 [(100,000 x 110.50) + (100,000 x 110.40)]/200,000.
‘Day Open’ price is the previous day’s close price for positions held overnight, and the trade price for positions opened on the current business day. It is the price used to calculate the P&L you are making on the current business day.
Example of “Day Open” price calculation on a consolidated CFD account
Customer B conducted 3 USDJPY trades on Day 1 and market closed at 110.70:
• Trade 1: Buy 200,000 USDJPY @ 110.50
• Trade 2: Buy 100,000 USDJPY @ 110.40
• Trade 3: Sell 100,000 USDJPY @ 110.60
As your positions are closed on a FIFO basis, Trade 3 would close out 100,000 USDJPY of Trade 1, therefore the “Day Open” price would be 110.45 [(100,000 x 110.50) + (100,000 x 110.40)]/200,000.
On Day 2, Customer A will see the open position of USDJPY being rolled over, with the “Day Open” price indicated as 110.70.
No, it is not necessary to disable/allow the pop-up blocker for trading. The software opens in a new browser. However, to access statements or reports on your account through the web based version of the trading platform, you will need to allow pop-ups from our trading websites.
Google tool bar: To allow pop-ups, log on to our trading website and click the Pop-up Blocker button. The button text will change to read ‘Pop-ups OK, indicating that the Pop-up Blocker has been disabled on that site.
You may also select ‘Tools’ from your internet browser, then select ‘Pop-up blocker’ and select ‘Turn off pop-up blocker’.
Connection to our platform is through the same communication method that secure websites use. As most organisations have these firewall ports allowed by default, there should be no need to disable any security.
If you notice anything suspicious or are asked to disable security, please do NOT and contact our Client Services team immediately +44 (0)1923 832 682
The trading platform operates in a secure environment. Connections to our platform are over industry standard encryption TLS 1.2+.
No. All your account history is securely stored on our server allowing you to login from any other location without losing any information
Yes. Any device regardless of operating system will be able to trade using the SATURN Trading platform providing it can run a modern web browser such as Chrome.
Windows XP, Pentium III, 256MB Ram, 100Mb free Hard Disk Space, Microsoft .NET version 3.5 framework and Internet Connection. A broadband connection is highly recommended. Your screen resolution should be set to the highest possible setting, depending on your screen size.
Our preferred browser is Google Chrome which you can download here. If you already use Chrome, try using an alternate browser such as Firefox. This will help determine if the issue is related to your browser. Whichever browser you choose, we always recommend you are using the latest version and updating your browser regularly.
Providing your proxy allows connections to the Internet over ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS), you should have no problems accessing the trading platform
Once the trading platform starts to load, it will automatically check for updates and install any which are required. Once the web based version of the trading platform starts to load, it will automatically install any updates for the platform to start.
In order to eliminate the connection issue being in your local environment, we recommend testing you are able to connect to other secure websites.
You can run a free internet connection speed test using Speedtest by Ookla here
If there are no issue with your internet connection and is with connection to SATURN Trader only, please call our Client Services team on +44 (0)1923 832 682.
With our platforms you can trade wherever you are – at home, in the office, or when you’re out and about.
Some companies will charge you to hold a short index position. At Spread Co we won’t.
Spread Co charts are powered by TradingView Inc.
Sign Up For A Demo Account Create A Live AccountSpread Co Limited is a limited liability company registered in England and Wales with its registered office at 22 Bruton Street, London W1J 6QE. Company No. 05614477. Spread Co Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Register No. 446677.