Grown up gambling

[Tel]

Thanks for all the info guys, there's a lot there to take in & look into. Appreciate it

[AmeliesDad]

Did any of you see Million Dollar Traders last night? Quite a nice little reality TV series brewing I think. I loved it, and loved how you could shout at them for being idiots even though a lot of it might be because we have the hindsight of what happened to stocks this year!

The ex IBM guy (I'm ex IBM too) was a tool. He's not got a clue. And they were all sooo scared to have positions it was unreal.

[munk]

Yeah I saw that on iplayer ... was quite interesting to me what they were trying to do with that programme, (probably cynically) I saw it as an attempt to soften the image city traders have and to show that whilst they do get a lot of money, they do have a lot of work to do to get the bonuses etc and it's not plain sailing...

Really is quite shocking though the level of gambling that goes on with our money, trading is certainly a lot more risky than the kind of thing I do, yet if I told people I'm a gambler they would think I take more risk than a city trader! The closest they get to making their trades less risky is the traded short/long pairs that they use to counterbalance each other in case one trade goes bad... but as you saw on the program that eco guy managed to mess up the hbos/allianz trade pair very easily!

[lazza_w]

Andy was saying about bagging bonuses from spreadbetting companies and it's definately worthwhile even if you don't want to actually gamble 'properly'. I've certainly had >£1000 from bonusbagging alone.

Paddypowertrader have a offer of a refund up to £300 on losses at the moment and Worldspreads used to do the same up to £250. I think Worldspreads (or maybe Finspreads, can't really remember) also have no-spread on some markets at the moment (ie you can sell and buy at the same price with no margin)

[Tel]

I got this offer from Betfair ("Offer only applies to username above")

Tradefair is Betfair's home for financial betting. Register for a Tradefair spread betting account today and we'll give you £75 free to try out on a range of markets including Brent Crude, Gold and the FTSE 100*.

Spread betting is a tax-free** alternative to traditional share trading – with no broker commission or fees. Financial markets move quickly and you could make money whether they move up or down.

Spread bets carry a high level of risk so you should only speculate with money you can afford to lose. You can lose more than your initial deposit and stake. Before you open an account, please ensure that spread betting matches your investment objectives, familiarise yourself with the risks involved and if necessary seek independent advice.

If you're looking for excitement, financial betting can be a wild ride. Don't forget to fasten your seatbelt!

Whats the score with this? I don't really get it...

[Andy]

By the sounds of it, you just register and get £75 to play with, which is a great offer, so do that. Just trade small £s for fun would probably be the way I would. You can garuntee some profits by joining other spread accounts also with offers, there is a big list somewhere I will try to get a list, VCFinancials at the moment is one. If you were going to do "Grown up" gambling anyway and find it fun, i would just use it for that purpose.

At the moment I think AV. is cheap ;-) (BUT I have lost thousands and thousands on buying shares so you dont really want to copy me)

[srh1984]

Hi Just a quick one relating to Tels post with the tradefair offer of £75. Although never actually doing any trading I have always been interested in giving this a try and this seems like a good offer without making too much loss if you put stops on and just trade a couple of pounds at a time. I believe I am correct in saying you can select if it drops by a certain amount you can put a stop on and sell them back before they can drop any further?

*Customer Terms & Conditions

1. Your spread betting account must be funded and two opening trades (not on shares) placed in order to qualify for the "Credit" offer. Tradefair Spreads will match your first initial deposit up to a maximum of £75. The "Credit" has to be claimed within 30 days of the initial deposit.

2. Offer is valid for accounts opened and funded before 31st March 2009.

3. This offer is limited to one account per applicant and can not be used in conjunction with any other offer. Current holders of a Tradefair Spreads account will not be allowed to participate.

4. Accounts are subject to status. Once you have fulfilled the criteria to qualify for the promotional offer please contact our customer service team via email on spreads@tradefair.com to get the bonus applied.

5. The £75 is for trading purposes and cannot be taken out of the account as cash for three months from the date credited to the account.

6. In the event that you incur losses of greater than £75, the £75 deposited into your account may be used to offset your debt to us.

7. We will not be liable for any losses of more than £75 that you may incur as a result of trading with the £75.

8. The £75 "Credit" is non transferable to other Tradefair products.

9. This offer is subject to fair use policy and abuse of this offer may result in the credit being withheld. Tradefair Spreads reserves the right to withdraw this promotion at any time.


Looking at these terms and conditions I was just hoping if anyone could help out. Term 1 states that 2 opening trades must be made. Does this mean I can do a couple of trades with a few pounds, sell them back, withdraw whatever I have left of my £75 and then just play around with the free £75 I have??

Sorry for the long post and hope Im not totally off the mark here

Thanks

[chriso]

Tel originally asked about dividends. I have bought a few shares recently on the basis of dividend yield and some can look quite attractive if you have some free cash at the moment, bearing in mind how paltry savings interest rates are. However, the key issue is not what dividend yield is showing up right now - which can look pretty impressive - but how sustainable the dividend is.

You need to take into account dividend cover (that is the extent to which dividend payments are covered by profits), how sustainable profits are likely to be (particularly important in the current climate as many companies are going to be experiencing much tougher trading conditions and slashing dividends) and how much cash they have in the bank (the more cash they have the less likely they are to cut the dividend).

There are various financial websites where you can "screen" stocks on the basis of criteria that you choose but I'm not entirely sure which the best are at the moment as I am an Investors Chronicle subscriber and tend to stick to that. I have a reasonable idea what I'm doing but have only found three or four stocks that meet my criteria in the last few months. They are all paying me a dividend of more than 6% per annum and, as long as they are not likely to go bust, I'm not really bothered about short/medium term price movements provided the dividend is maintained

If you do want to get involved in execution-only share dealing, Hoodless Brennan have the lowest dealing costs for most investors at the moment, and have done for quite a while. They also have a £100 offer for CFD/spread betting (it is a skin of CMC Markets) but I haven't really got in to that sort of thing myself so haven't looked at it too closely. Some CFD operators will give you the benefit of any dividend that would be payable while you hold a position in shares with them, but policies on this vary and you would need to look at the terms & conditions closely.

[Andy]

I agree about the dividends being maintainable, that is the BIG question, what they gave away last year doesnt mean they will this year. Aviva is a share i follow and try to trade, they have a huge % return "IF" they maintain it, they have said they will, the market thinks otherwise, we will find out in a few months.

As a side note GVC which owns CasinoClub and Betaland and a few other sites has a dividend yeild of nearly 30%, and has done for pretty much two/three years now because they operate mainly in Germany who said online gambling is illegal then never enforced it, its a bit of a black cloud over them and any minute "If" its enforced the shares are pretty worthless, but thats why you are getting 30%! I have a few, not many, but a few.

[Andy]

Looking at these terms and conditions I was just hoping if anyone could help out. Term 1 states that 2 opening trades must be made. Does this mean I can do a couple of trades with a few pounds, sell them back, withdraw whatever I have left of my £75 and then just play around with the free £75 I have??

By the letter of the law it looks like it but they process this manually and so i should imagine they will see what you have done and so when they pay your £s back they would take back the bonus £75 at the same time. They might not but if it was me in the accounts department i would do.

You wont know for sure unless you try (or ask them), i would say ask them before you try the worst is they say "No" in which case trade it out instead. Easy :-)