Spread Betting. Can somebody explain?

Say the FTSE is quoted at 5046-5047. If you think it's going up you buy at 5047, using a sell stop somewhere below to protect the account. If it goes the right way you make a profit for every point, to the value of the trade. Selling is the opposite.

So if you buy £10 per point and it goes 20 points you are up £200. You close the trade by selling for the same value you bought at.

Firms should have a one point spread for FTSE, and allow a minimum of a pound a point. I have an account with Tradefair that I don't use except to sometimes look at index charts. The platform is good and I think they are indeed 'fairer' than most. I've used CMC and made some money but didn't like it much.

Bigger traders seem to like IG Index. Their charts have more 'stuff' than Tradefair, if that's what you want.

Thank you very much Ghostdog, very helpful.

Is Tradefair part of Betfair?  I think I remember seeing it on here but it seems to have disappeared.

Betfair own it, but it's an offshoot of Capital Spreads.

Spread betting gets a bad rep from short term losers, but I've traded the actual FTSE futures and the advertised 0.5 spread usually doesn't exist and they are choppy as hell.

Spread betting is a much better method than direct access for most people.

I'm a 'bigger trader' I guess as I like IG.  That's mostly for the complexity of derivatives (one-touch, tunnels, daily option etc).  They have the widest selection.  If you're a beginner, it doesn't matter and it's worth going for the companies offering the opening deals (like a free £100 etc).

I have done a lot of spread betting in the past, with mixed results but generally lost money.

What I would like to know is what is actually driving the candlesticks on the chart up or down?
Do Tradefair in any way control the movement? I definitely got the impression that during out of hours trading they are just hoovering up the stop losses of the little players like myself.

Most of my theories on the way major markets were moving were actually correct but somehow
I still seemed to lose money. The only one I got right and they could do nothing about was shorting the BP share price after the blow out.

If you re a newby in spreadbetting,I would recommend Finspreads-- you can start for as little as 10p per trade for 8 weeks to build up your confidence & also attend regular seminars plus you recieve a handbook explaining how to trade & charting systems

They're generally pretty honest about making a spread about the traded market price to be honest.  In fifteen years or so of betting, I've only had two complaints where I thought they obviously took me out and booked it a few minutes late.  To be fair, I've also had several (at least five) occasions where they've left me in despite it having traded through me - probably a loyalty bonus, who knows.