In this article I'm going to review PaddyPower's financial spread betting offering which I believe to be part of the London Capital Group's spread betting network - although they use own front-end. Both groups presumably offer the same products / spreads but I trust that Irish people prefer to go with PaddyPower.
The spreadbetting offering was originally launched in 2007 although PaddyPower have recently also launched a CFDs product which is based on the same trading platform as the spread betting one. This means that you can now access both the CFD platform and spread betting platform from one account with just a click of a mouse.
The spreads offered on index pairs and shares are highly competitive. However, I've noticed that some of the other non-major aren't so good when compared to Oanda though. AUD/USD and EUR/JPY are a pip or so lower on Oanda. Some others are a couple of pips lower with Oanda e.g. USD/CAD, NZD/USD, USD/CHF. I tend to stick to the majors though so I'm not too bothered by a pip difference here and there and long term the tax benefits are almost too good to be true.
There are some good tutorials on Paddy Power Trader which will give you a basic understanding of spread betting. In fact, it would appear that Paddy Power Trader is primarily targeted at new investors and traders. There is a wealth of information and trading tools that can be accessed before you start betting including trading guides, jargon busters, a technical analysis service provided by Trading Central and even a trading academy. Paddy have embraced blogging, tweeting and online tutorials help investors in their research. There is also trading blogs you can access with diaries of other traders and a community to post questions to.
To conclude spread betting as a trading product continues to grow in popularity in the United Kingdom and Ireland, amongst not only financial industry professionals, but also amongst those with an interest in the stock market and Paddy Power Trader are as a good a choice as any.