Spread betting allows you to take a position on whether you think a market will rise or fall, without having to buy the underlying asset.

• Importantly, spread betting is a leveraged product. This means you only have to put down a small deposit for a much larger market exposure.
• Betting using leverage means there are significant benefits and risks: your investment capital can go further, but you can also lose more than your initial deposit.

Spread betting is flexible as it’s possible to take short positions and deal on over 10,000 markets. However, it is important to understand the risks involved and have suitable risk management strategies in place.

• No capital gains tax or stamp duty
• Forex, indices, shares, commodities and more
• No commission, just dealing spreads
• Manage risk with a range of stops
• Gain full exposure by just putting down a deposit

Contracts for difference (CFDs) allow you to open a contract for the difference in price of an asset, from the point of opening to when you close.

• Importantly, CFDs are a leveraged product. This means you only have to put down a small deposit for a much larger market exposure.
• Leverage comes with significant benefits and risks: your investment capital can go further, but you can also lose more than your initial deposit.

CFD trading allows you to take a position on the future value of an asset whether you think it will go up or down. While this means the product is very flexible, it also requires a high level of risk management.

It’s important to remember you’re trading contracts with IG, not physically trading in the underlying market. This means you don’t actually own any assets.

• Superior service and support
• Over 10,000 markets
• FX from 0.8 pips, indices from 0.4 points, shares from 0.1% commission
• Extensive range of stops, limits and alerts
• Mobile trading app
• Free research tools – become a better-informed trader

We go to great lengths to seek the best available price on every trade.

‘At quote’

Most traditional stockbrokers only use a ‘request for quote’ or ‘at quote’ process. At IG we offer ‘at quote’ alongside ‘on exchange’, which means you have more options when looking for the best execution.

‘On exchange’

We also offer execution ‘on exchange’ via our smart order router (SOR), allowing traders to interact directly with various lit and dark order books.

Searching for liquidity

IG’s SOR searches for liquidity across multiple venues, starting with ‘dark pools’ that offer mid-point matching – the best possible chance of getting price improvements.

After this, our SOR goes to two market makers, again looking for size or price improvements. Finally it sends orders to ‘lit’ venues to search for any last possible advantages.

What this all really means

Essentially, we’re ‘shopping around’ for the best possible price for you. And we’re looking in a lot of shops.

• Flexible execution – ‘at quote’ and ‘on exchange’ trading
• Over 5000 shares internationally in local denominations
• Access additional liquidity and price improvements
• Collateral – use shareholdings as margin to cover spread bets or CFDs
• Just 0.3% currency conversion fee on international shares
• One platform, one login, all your trades