Spread Betting Traders Diary
Betting the foreign exchange
2/7/2007
Research & Setup As a newcomer to Spread Betting, I was a sceptic, especially because of the term ‘betting.' I began my
research to understand exactly what spread betting means. The most thorough web site I used was
http://www.thespreadbetcentre.com. I used their
beginner's guide and read my way through the explanations. This guide was comprehensive and fairly short.
Shortly after my research I downloaded a free demo program from GFT- Global Markets, called DealBook 360. At first glance the program looked more confusing than a balance sheet to an artist and I thought I was never going to understand it. Within ten minutes of starting the spread betting demo program I received a phone call from GFT offering a free training tutorial over the phone. This walk through took thirty to forty-five minutes, which was slightly long but extremely helpful.
Day 1
After the quick tutorial I realized that the only thing I could bet on was foreign exchange. To start out my spread betting venture, I chose currency that I was familiar with, the United States Dollar (USD) and the Great British Pound (GBP). Keep in mind the second you make your bet you will be loosing money, do not worry this will change soon. Within ten minutes I was up by £5.05. Once I saw the green bar, I closed and made it out with a positive. The next bet made was with the Euro (EUR) and GBP, once again sticking with currencies I was comfortable with. In a short period of time I had made a couple more bets, on the first day I had a maximum of seven at one time. There was one instance where I tried to hedge my bets, but it cancelled the other out and I ended up closing on my original bet. There were several instances where all seven of my bets were in the red and I was slightly concerned I did not know how to gamble well or I did not understand the program. As it turned out the day went smoothly and I lost a little money but I was able to learn how to use the program.
