Spreadex Review

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Spreadex is an online brokerage firm that are well known for their services in spread betting and trading online. Through the brokers proprietary web-based trading platform and innovative mobile apps, you can get convenient access to the markets for spread betting and trading CFDs on a very impressive selection of financial instruments across a variety of asset classes including forex, crypto, indices, commodities, stocks, ETFs and bonds. Spreadex is currently the only company in the world to offer customers access to financial trading, as well as sportsbook betting and sports spread betting. For the purpose of this Spreadex review, we will be focusing on the trading aspect of the firm.

Summary

Based in London, Spreadex is a UK broker with a financial trading platform that gives investors access to trade on global shares, indices, FX, commodities and much more via spread bets, CFDs or options. The firm which employs hundreds of staff at its St Albans headquarters, has been operating since 1999 and is regulated by both the Gambling Commission and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) due to its unique product offering. As a client of Spreadex, you are provided with many advanced charting and trading tools including candlestick pattern recognition tools to help identify potential opportunities. Despite the positives, I feel that they could improve on their educational resources and add some additional payment methods. Other than these minor annoyances, I feel they can be a great choice specifically for anyone in the UK who is looking to spread bet in a regulated environment with one of the best spread betting brokers in the industry.

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Regulation

When it comes to choosing a broker, regulation is one of the first things that I look for. Spreadex is a U.K. financial spread-betting broker, so they are fully authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the government body that regulates financial service firms in the UK. I consider this to be top tier regulation and would therefore have no problem trusting them. The broker has been around for many years, with a stable and profitable track record serving their ever-growing client base. If regulation is also important to you, Trade.com also provide spread betting to UK clients and are regulated in multiple jurisdictions.

Funds

Funds from retail clients are kept in a segregated account in accordance to the FCA client money rules. This means that the broker should not use clients’ money for their operations. Being a regulated UK broker, Spreadex is a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), an organization that compensates eligible investors should the broker go bankrupt.

Countries

Spreadex offers their services to residents of the UK, Ireland, and other EU member nations that support spread betting, as they are still under the CFD trading rules of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) regarding leverage restrictions, margin closeout, and negative balance protection. The broker states that the information on their website is neither targeted at the general public of any particular country nor intended for distribution to residents in any country where such distribution or use would contravene any law or regulatory requirement. If you are unable to open an account with them for any reason, please feel free to browse our broker ratings for an alternative option.

Platforms

Spreadex Platforms

Spreadex Platform

You can trade on Spreadex’s fully-customisable, fast and reliable proprietary platform available on the web, iPad, iPhone and Android. It is a powerful yet user-friendly platform that comes with reliable advanced charting tools for analysing the markets including pattern recognition and pro trend lines. You don’t need to stare at charts all day long as you can set price alerts via text, push, or email. It supports a good range of advanced orders including force opens. If you are already familiar with the MetaTrader platform or looking for an alternative option, AvaTrade provide a good range of platforms for spread betting. Some of the key features of the Spreadex platform include:

• Trade via Charts
• Automated Pro Trend lines and Pattern Recognition
• A wide range of advanced technical indicators
• Macro-data directly available on our charts
• Sophisticated drawing tools
• Extensive price history of over 10 years
• Templates that you can create, save and edit

The trading app enables you to get convenient access to trade the financial markets on the go. The app also comes with advanced charting tools, price alerts, advanced orders, SSL encryption, and fingerprint login to help keep your data secure. I think both platforms are very good in their own right, I like how you are able to seamlessly manage your account between the platforms deepening on what device you are using. Some of the key features of the Spreadex app include:

• Trade spread bets and CFDs from one account
• A fully customisable screen to organise your trading
• Advanced Charting tools with Pattern Recognition and Pro Trend lines
• Fast and fair, award-winning execution
• Advanced Orders including Force Opens
• Price Alerts by text, push or email

Tools

I found Spreadex to have a great selection of advanced charting tools which are instantly available at your fingertips. There is everything most traders will need in order to conduct in-depth market analysis of all your favourite financial instruments. You can combine the technical, fundamental and price action analysis tool to help spot trade setups and make informed decisions. I would say the tools available can be compared to ActivTrades who are another CFD and spread betting broker to consider.

Candlestick Pattern Recognition

Spreadex has an advanced and automatic candlestick pattern recognition tool on their platform which is available to all customers for free. The tool can be accessed on any desktop chart. To enable the tool, go to the menu at the top corner of the chart and select: Technical -> Pro Trading Tools -> Candle Patterns. After enabling it, you can configure the tool to the specific candlestick pattern you want. This can be a great way to spot potential opportunities that you may have otherwise overlooked.

Technical Analysis: Chart Patterns

The broker provides a guide to recognizing the various chart patterns, such as the ascending, descending, and symmetrical triangles; the bull and bear flags; the double top and bottom; the head and shoulder and the inverse one; and the different types of channels. This can help you when it comes to identifying potential trading opportunities which can be implemented as part of the price action analysis aspect of an overall trading strategy.

Economic Diary

Spreadex provides daily and weekly economic diary on their website. The diary contains the time for all scheduled economic announcements, data releases, and any event of economic importance that can affect the financial markets.

Economic Indicators

The broker has a section where they analyse all of the fundamental data coming to the market — economic indicators like inflation, interest rate announcements, gross domestic product reports, and others. I think this is really helpful when it comes to fundamental analysis and it is good to see the information is frequently updated and very thorough. It can be a great way to help you with your planning and decision-making process.

Market Analysis

You can keep up to date on the latest financial market news and company reporting dates as well as stock analysis from the brokers financial spread betting analysts.

Education

I found Spreadex to have a reasonable amount of educational content scattered throughout their website. I would perhaps have preferred it to be more organised but if you take the time to browse through the materials, I think there is lots you can learn.

Financial Trading Blog

The broker also runs a financial trading blog to shed more light on some of the difficult trading topics. Traders of all experience levels can learn a thing or two from their blog. It is good to see that they keep it up to date and cover a variety of topics.

Video Training Center

There is a page on the broker’s website called video training centre. It has lots of videos that explain how to trade spread betting with the broker, including how to choose the market to trade and how to edit a trade order. I found the videos easy to understand and think they can be very helpful to those of you who are new to trading.

Platform Tutorials

There are many trading guides on the website that teach you how to use the Spreadex platforms and what the possibilities are with the various tools implemented within it. They are easy to follow and can be a good way to get yourself accustomed with the platform.

Markets

Spreadex provides you with spread betting and CFD trading on a wide range of financial markets including indices, shares, forex, commodities, interest rates, bonds, ETFs, options and Speed Markets. I like how you can spread bet and trade CFDs from the same account. Whilst there is a good range of instruments to choose from, Pepperstone are also worth considering if you are looking to spread bet and trade CFDs.

Indices

You can trade indices on daily or futures contracts across a generous global range of indices products with spreads starting from just 0.6 points in width.

Shares

Buy or sell price movements of thousands of stocks around the world with shares trading. They also specialise in small cap trading.

Forex

The Spot and Futures FX pairings cover hundreds of currency pairs for trading forex 24 hours a day Sunday through Friday. If you are primarily a forex trader, FxPro have an excellent forex offering and support spread betting as well.

Commodities

You can trade commodities and spread bet on metals such as gold or copper, energies including Brent Crude or Natural Gas, or softs like cotton or corn.

Bonds & Interest Rates

Speculate on treasuries featuring UK Long Gilt or US T-Bond or interest rates such as Short Sterling or Eurodollar. They are on of a select few UK brokers I have come across that offer bonds trading, City Index being another option.

Exchange Traded Funds

You can trade ETFs which bundle together stocks in an index allowing exposure to the index without having to trade all individual constituents.

Options

They offer a range of options trading with a small number of markets available online and the rest via phone.

Cryptocurrencies

At Spreadex you can place spread bets on the value of Bitcoin.

Accounts

The broker offers only a single account type in GBP, USD or EUR. The good thing about this is that with one account, you can choose to spread bet on the vast selection of over 1000 tradable instruments available on platform or trade CFDs. The different currency options also mean that there will be no currency conversion fees of you are using an account in the same currency as you plan to use for funding.

Spreadex accounts do not have any joining fees, minimum deposit requirements, or any obligation to trade. You can start trading with any amount which is great when you consider some brokers require a minimum deposit of hundreds or even thousands. I like how there are also no dormancy fees that you find with some spread betting providers. The account will be simply there for you to use when you see an opportunity in the markets you wish to take advantage of.

Both spread bets and CFDs are leveraged instruments, so traders can trade on a margin, which can be as low as 0.5 % for stock indices. The broker offers variable spreads from around 0.6pips, with no commissions on some instruments. These are not the lowest spreads that I have come across when compared to many other trading brokers, some of whom offer raw spreads starting from 0 pips, such as XM Group.

Support

Spreadex has a dedicated customer support service that is available Mondays to Fridays from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm London Time, providing traders with the needed assistance all through the trading hours. The customer service team can be reached through so many channels, including Live Chat, email, and phone calls. They can also be reached through their social media handles on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Spreadex is known for its award-winning customer service and financial spread betting platform. I have heard lots of good things about the support and found them to be pretty reliable myself.

Funding

Spreadex accepts payment from a decent variety of options. Spreadex does not accept any third-party payments, and at the moment, they do not accept deposits from digital wallets which I found to be quite limiting. I actually find this is the most convenient way for me to move funds around between my accounts, so think they could improve by supporting some more funding options. If you are looking to spread bet and want a better choice of payment methods, you might want to take a look at OvalX.

Debit/Credit Card

Spreadex accepts credit cards payment that can be made online or over the phone. They may charge £1 on debit card deposits under £50. The minimum withdrawal amount is £50.

Bank Transfer

Both deposits and withdrawals can be made via bank transfer. The broker’s account number and the Sort Code are on their website.

Cheque

It is also possible to deposit with a cheque if you are still using this old school method.

Conclusion

Overall, I think Spreadex is a top choice for anyone based in the UK who is looking to spread bet with the option of trading CFDs as well. They are one of the most popular spread betting brokers in the UK and regulated by the FCA which gives me confidence they will operate in an honest and transparent manner. They offer spread bets and CFDs on an excellent range of more than a thousand instruments spread across forex, commodities, indices, stocks, bonds, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies through their innovative web-based trading platform and sleek mobile trading apps. However, I do feel that Spreadex could increase their payment methods and improve their educational resources. These are minor hiccups and not deal breakers although you may wish consider IG as an alternative broker for spread betting and CFD trading with industry leading conditions.

$1

Spreadex is a UK based online brokerage firm known for their services in spread betting. With their powerful web-based trading platform and intuitive trading apps, you can spread bet and trade CFDs on a variety of asset classes with very competitive conditions.

Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

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