Note: We do not particularly recommend IG at this time. Use Ayondo
First started in 1974 to allow people to speculate on gold, moving to all London commodities by 1976. Like the other big spread betting companies the parent company (IG Group) floated on the London Stock Exchange a few years ago. The spread betting side of the company is pretty innovative (being one of the first to offer ‘binary bets’ on a lot of financial markets), and the dealing platform gets updated quite regularly. This IG index review is independent and based on my own research.
The IG Group now has over 120,000 clients worldwide, making more than four million transactions per month.
WHAT IG INDEX SAY:
– Huge range. UK and international shares, stock indices, FX, gold, oil and more.
– Outstanding online platform, plus full PDA/mobile dealing.
– Competitive and flexible margining policy.
– No. 1 for binary betting: fast-moving bets on a 0-100 index. The extensive range of markets covered includes not only indices, individual shares, commodities, and Forex, but also options, interest rates, house prices, market sectors, and even binary bets.
– Narrow spreads: 1pt Daily FTSE, 2pt Daily Wall Street, 2pt Euro/Dollar, 2pt Cable. The competitive spreads include one point on the FTSE 100 and DAX 30, and two points on Wall Street. These spreads are some of the best in the industry, and it is not likely that you can improve on them with other brokers.
WHAT THE IG INDEX REVIEW SAYS:
– Streaming tick charts available, but these are not interactive (i.e. you can’t draw trend lines or moving averages on them). The only interactive charts are the historical ones.
– News is available about the Dow, along with a small amount of research. I find their monday morning briefing more useful than the equivalent from Finspreads, as it includes a list of all UK and US reporting due out that week. Best of all is that you don’t actually have to be a client to get this news – just go to the IG index page to sign up. This is well worth it and totally free!
– Whilst getting free things from their website, make sure you check out their dealing handbook. This is without a doubt the best information on spread betting that you’ll get from a spread betting company. Normally I wouldn’t care for reading the info on a bookmaker’s site but this 85 page booklet is thoroughly excellent as an intro to the subject and it shows the incredible range of markets offered.
– PDA/mobile dealing available. Trading apps for the iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry are available with each application supporting both spreadbets and CFDs thus removing the need of having to download separate apps. These allow IG clients to trade the same wide range of markets as they can via a conventional PC including a number of risk management tools like the ability to set stops and limits (including guaranteed stops) when setting orders and fully functional charts. The mobile trading apps come with live prices and real-time Reuters news, as well as expert in-house market analysis.
– Reduced margining requirements depending on your stop-loss position and whether is is a guaranteed stop or not. However, in some cases having a guaranteed stop will DOUBLE your spread. If you think your commodity market may go limit up or limit down it’s worth it, but otherwise think carefully.
– They offer binary bets. These are starting to be offered more spread betting firms now, but IG Index still have a very good range. These are basically bets which can either be right or wrong, e.g. FTSE 100 will be up on the day – this either happens, in which case you win a fixed amount of money, or it goes down, in which case you lose your stake. It’s based upon the use of options, but made much more user-friendly. Try it if you want, but it’s more like betting to me than investing. IG Index also offer what they call a Bungee Bet, where they set a floor or a ceiling on a particular market which means your bet can never go any lower than the floor or higher than the ceiling, no matter what the underlying market does. Effectively, it keeps you in the trade in case it turns around when a stop loss order would have taken you out.
IG INDEX REVIEW VERDICT: As the oldest and largest spread betting broker in the UK, IG Index has a lot to live up to. Fortunately, it seems to be up to the task, and in addition to receiving many awards from the industry the reviews from clients are mostly favourable. A very solid company with possibly the best range of markets. Not the best place to start your trading, but it is very easy to use and user friendly. However, this one is really for the big boys and it quite obviously targets the higher stakes players by concentrating on tight spreads, bigger margins to open trades and having a larger minimum stake that many others. Overall very good if you are already a big timer, but try somewhere else first if you have recently started.