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Trading News High profile spread trading profits and losses
Trading News High profile spread trading profits and losses
High profile spread trading profits and losses |
| Written by Trader Hideout Editor | |||
| Friday, 05 June 2009 10:53 | |||
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Spread betting, or spread trading as it is often termed by the professionals, has only been around for approximately 25 years, not particularly long. However, the product has certainly made the headlines on a number of occasions during that period thanks to its high profile profits and losses. Indeed, in its short 25 year history, a number of people have made millions of pounds in profit and similarly in losses and when someone wins or loses money at that sort of level it soon makes the news.Probably the largest ever profit from spread trading came back in 1997 in foreign currency trading. The spread trader in question made an enormous £5 million with a large spread trade on the foreign exchange rate between the then French currency; the franc, and the British sterling pound. How the Euro has robbed us of such great foreign exchange trading, although the Euro and the pound could have made similar figures for those with the money and the foresight over the last year or two. During the dotcom bubble meltdown, another trader made a nice seven figure sum of around £1 million with a number of spread trades on technology stocks of the likes of Riversoft and Marconi. Probably the only ones making money at that time on this sort of stocks would have been the spread traders. Large individual losses do tend to be for smaller amounts, partly because spread betting companies will step in and close a spread trade if they feel they will not recoup their money from the individual. One of the high profile losses was ironically in the same year as the largest every profit in 1997, when a Tory supporter lose £120,000 in the General Election on an ‘up-bet’ on the number of Conservative seats. I wonder if he changed his loyalty after that one.
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