Spread Betting, Risky Business and CMC Market’s New iPhone App

Posted by Bogdan Lazar

CMC Market spread betting App Review.

UK:

If you're like me (ie. a tech-savvy guy with no knowledge of the stock market), then you'd probably disregard CMC Market's newly launched spread betting app bearing the same name as the company itself. But that would be to your loss, because spread betting is not the same as stock exchange. Spread betting is a simple and cheap way to make tax-free profits quickly, but at a high risk.

How spread betting works

Spread betting simply allows you to speculate on whether the price of something will rise or fall by the end of the day. It's a risky gamble to bet on whether the euro will rise or if Google's share prices will fall. Take the risk and you stand to make a profit. You don't need to buy the actual asset you want to trade, but rather bet on the prices offered by the spread betting provider. CMC Markets is one such provider. To read more on the concept, go here: CMC Markets spread betting.

CMC Markets iPhone App

CMC Markets started as foreign exchange broker and launched early on in '96 the first online forex trading platform. They didn't stop there and they have launched the mobile platform to accompany their web platform for spread betting. You can read their press release here:CMC Markets in the news.

To get started with spread betting, you need to register for an account on CMC Markets. After registering for an account, which you can do from within the iPhone app itself, you'll have access to a ton of information to help you move along the path of making some profits.

The first thing that will grab your attention is the Library. This lists all the products that you can bet on. You can either search for a product, filter to browse or go straight to their Top Products to see which are getting traded heavily right now. Betting is really easy. Anywhere you see a price, tap to trade and set the desired price.

A wealth of information on each product

Before you rush into betting for any particular asset, you might want to check out their Fact Sheet, an area where CMC Markets really stands out. For each and every asset offered for trading, the app will provide you with details as to their trading hours, margin rates and even insights on how the market might influence your product's prices.

You might think this area of the iPhone app is also perhaps the most complex one to read, with all the charts, graphs and numbers. You couldn't be more wrong. As with the entire CMC Markets iPhone app, the design is friendly and intuitive. There are no cluttered screens, despite the wealth of information the app provides you with at any given point in your trading experience.

Set up a watchlist

If you see an asset you'd like to bet on later, it's easy as pie to add it to a watchlist. These lists can be created on the go, and there is no limit to their number. To create a watchlist, you can just tap the watchlist icon in the menu bar, and hit "Create a new list." To add products to the list, you just tap the edit icon from the Library and select the products you want to add to your watchlist.

Watchlists are a great way to keep track of future bets, but what has disappointed me was that they're not synchronized with the web account. So even if all your transactions are available on the web and the iPhone, your watchlists are only visible on your iPhone app. This is not a huge problem, because you don't really need to visit the website for anything really. The product list together with the information, trading, even payments, are all available right on your iPhone.

Disclaimer: Please note that spread betting may not be for everyone and that CMC Markets and their iPhone app does not in any way guarantee a profit, but merely provides a medium for spread betting.

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