Spread Co

Spreadco.com briefly

Spread Co is a spread betting and contracts for difference (CFD) provider based in the UK. It was founded in 2006 and is one of not so many companies that offers fixed spreads trading. Spread betting is a type of online trading in the UK where clients speculate on the future price movement of financial assets such as currency pairs, indices, commodities, or shares. Like the CFDs trading, spread betting is a leveraged product. The major difference is that UK citizens do not pay taxes on profits made on spread betting.

Spread Co is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK and manages client’s funds in accordance with the FCA rules.

Customers can trade forex, indices, commodities, and shares through the company’s own web-based platform called SaturnTrader. The company claims its spreads are tight and fixed and it does not adjust them when markets are volatile. Spread Co pays 2% annual interest on any account with a balance from GBP10,000 to GBP20,000, which is not used as a margin.

Regulation

One of the important things about every brokerage company is to know where it is authorized and regulated. Spread Co Limited is registered in England and Wales and is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under register number 446677. The FCA regulation obliges brokerage companies to comply with strict rules and meet a set of requirements, such as maintaining net cash assets of at least GBP750,000, keeping clients’ money in segregated accounts, and more. Therefore, Spread Co only uses its own funds for hedging and does not pass segregated client money to hedging counterparties.

Account Types

There are two types of real accounts that traders open with Spread Co:

Spread Betting and CFDs account. Both accounts can be opened in GBP, USD, and EUR. 

The minimum initial deposit for spread betting accounts is GBP200. The minimum initial deposit for CFD accounts is GBP250.

Spreads are fixed and the one for the EUR/USD pair is 0.8 pips, for the UK100 index it is 0.8 points (during the UK market hours) and 7.8 points (outside the UK market hours). Spreads depend on the trading amount and above GBP50 per point they increase proportionally.

Please note that the Spread Betting account is only available to UK residents.

Market Maker or STP Broker?

The Order Execution Policy document shows that Spread Co is a market maker in Contracts for Differences (CFDs) and Spread Betting. This means that when dealing with you, Spread Co acts as principal and is the execution venue for your trades, which are not executed on a regulated exchange, multilateral trading facility or organized trading facility. Market makers take greater risk because they do not hedge each of the client’s orders. They benefit when clients lose and in general this leads to a conflict of interest.

In addition to the standard stop loss orders, the company also offers guaranteed stop loss orders. For the standard stop loss orders, the price attained may be worse than the level at which you set it, or at which it is triggered, especially if the price continues to move against you. So, you should be careful what kind of stop loss order you will place. Standard stop loss orders are not guaranteed.

The Risk Disclosure document reveals that If you are a retail client trading CFDs and/or Spread Bets then you will be provided with automatic negative balance protection, meaning that you will not lose more than the amount of funds in your account.

Fees

There are no additional fees in addition to the spread and swap.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Clients can transfer funds into their accounts using several deposit methods such as credit/debit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Visa-Electron and Visa-Delta), bank transfer and Skrill. Please note that there is a minimum deposit amount of GBP10 when you deposit via Skrill.

All Spread betting account holders both professional and retail will earn interest up to 2% on funds deposited.

There are no costs to fund your account via credit or debit card (However, your credit card issuer may treat the transaction as a cash purchase – please contact them for further information). Furthermore, there are no additional fees to withdraw funds to your credit or debit card. When you deposit funds to us via bank transfer, you may be liable to local bank charges. International payments are subject to a GBP15 fee. Payments back to Skrill accounts will incur a 1% fee of the transaction value. This will be deducted from the requested amount.

The minimum withdrawal amount is GBP50.

Trading Platforms

The company has developed its own trading terminal called SaturnTrader, which runs on each contemporary browser. It is easy to use and lets you personalize your trading experience and helps you make the most of the trades offering expert financial analysis. You can trade directly from the chart, manage the risk with different types of pending orders and hedge your trades by placing long and short positions on the same instrument. You can create your own watchlists and receive price alerts. The platform is powered by Trading View, so you can customize your charts with the most useful features. The terminal is also available as a mobile app, and as an optimized app for iPad.

Assets

Forex – You can spread betting 40 of the most popular major, minor, and exotic currency pairs. The spread for the EUR/USD pair is fixed at 0.8 pips.

Indices – You can trade the world’s major indices, such as UK100, US30, etc. The minimum spread for the UK100 and US30 indices starts at 0.8 points during the market hours but jumps to 7.8 points outside market hours. The spread for the DAX30 index starts from 2 points during the market hours and jumps to 6 points outside them.

Commodities – Spot Gold, Spot Silver and US Crude Oil future. The spread for the Spot Gold is within USD0.30-0.45 and for the US Crude Oil it is within USD0.03-0.04.

Shares – You can trade various shares that are included in the US30, NASDAQ 100, US500 and UK100 indices. Spreads are variable and the markups are within 0.05-0.075% per side in addition to the underlying market.

Education

There is a dedicated educational section called Guides. You can find here different articles intended for all types of traders. They include ‘Trading psychology’, ‘How to make money trading forex’, ‘Forex trading fundamentals’, etc. There is a section for the economic calendar, but it is broken.

Summary

Spread Co is a UK based financial company offering spread betting and CFDs trading. It is well regulated by the FCA and acts as a market maker. You can trade a wide range of trading instruments with fixed spreads via the company’s own web terminal. The minimum initial deposit is GBP200 and the minimum withdrawal amount is GBP50. All retail clients are covered by the negative balance protection and guaranteed stop loss orders are available for placing.