Your Automatic Stop-Loss

Every time you make a trade our system automatically generates a mandatory stop-loss. Please note that our stop-losses are not guaranteed. A stop loss should help you limit losses on trades when the market goes against you. You can amend your stop loss to be closer or further away from your entry level. It would be useful for you to review stop-loss terminology before you read on: Max CGSL, Min IMR Your automatic stop loss is placed by the system at 80% of the available margin on your account. If you have sufficient margin on your account, the system will generate a stop loss calculated at 80% of the Max CGSL (Computer Generated Stop Loss). For example:

FTSE Rolling Max CGSL = 150

In Scenario 1, you have £100 on your account and you want to buy £1 on the FTSE Rolling Daily at 6000.0. The CGSL on this product is 150. As the CGSL is more than the funds that you have available as margin, the system will take your entire available margin and place your stop at 80% of your funds. Therefore, in this example your stop would be 80 points away as 80% of 100 is 80. In Scenario 2, you have a much greater cash balance than is required to open this trade, so the automatic stop loss is placed 80% of the Max CGSL.

The Max CGSL can be found on the product information page. If your stop loss is set at the Max CGSL level, you can move it closer in to your entry level to free up your available margin for other trades. For example, in Scenario 1 above you can move you stop loss to 5960, closer to your entry level and therefore freeing up some available margin. Please note however, that your open position will always need funds that amount to the minimum IMR by your stake in your account to ensure that you can keep that particular trade open.

As a general note, please be aware that all orders placed or executed on the Dealing Desk trading system are done so on “our quote” (not the underlying) and are not guaranteed.

Amending a Stop-Loss

You can amend your stop-loss in two ways. Once you have made your trade and you have the confirmation ticket, click on ORDERS to see you’re the automated stop-loss. If you are not happy with this level, you can enter a new level in the box provided and click ‘OK’ at the bottom right hand side of the box.

If would like to amend your stop-loss after you have closed the confirmation ticket, click on Order Book and select Working Orders, which can be found on the top row of tabs at the top of the trading page.

You can see this Order type is a Stop. Stop-losses cannot be cancelled and therefore will remain active for the duration of the trade.

Account Details

ACCOUNT SUMMARY:

This is where you can see all the details of your account. It can be found on the top row of tabs of the trading screen.

Cash Balance- This is the amount of money you have on your account.

Open Positions P/L- Once you have opened a trade you will automatically be able to see your total “open” profit and loss at the bottom of the screen. The details of your open profit/loss will update every time the market moves so you can keep track of how much you are making or losing on your overall position(s).

Used Margin- This is the amount of money on your account currently being used as margin for the open trades you have.

Available Margin- This is the amount of money you have on your account left to open new trades. Your available margin can be found on the bottom left hand side of the trading screen.

Please note that if you would like a refund, the available margin balance is the amount that you can transfer out of your account.

Account Valuation- This is your cash balance plus or minus your total open profit and loss i.e. what would your cash balance be if you closed your open positions. This will adjust with the market movement.

Account Currency- This is the currency in which your account is held. Please note that you do not need to hold your account in US dollars to trade in American shares or indices. With spread betting you do not own any of the products you are merely trading on the movements of the markets therefore you can hold your account in the currency of your bank account. We offer a number of different currency options including: Sterling, US Dollars, Euros, Swedish Kroner, Danish Kroner, Norwegian Kroner and South African Rand.

Statement- above all the account details under account summary, you will be able to see your last transactions on the account. This means any money you have credited or money you have requested to be withdrawn from the account. You will also be able to see money you have made or lost on closing positions.

Trade History- This can be found on the top row of tabs. You can download all the trades that you have made on your account into an excel spreadsheet. This includes which market you have made a trade in, your stake size, the direction of your trade (buy or sell), the date and time of the trade and the level at which you made your trade.

New Orders (to open a new trade)

A 'new order' is an order that is not attached to any existing open position and is independent of any other instruction. A new order is used to open a new trade at a level in the market, which has not yet been reached.

A new order is different from a 'Limit' order because a limit order is cancelled when the relevant position to which it applies is closed.

The new order functionality is useful for placing orders at critical market points so that you do not have to be watching the markets every moment of every day to ensure that you do not miss an opportunity.

Creating a new order

To create new orders go to the product of your choice and click on the ORDER button.

Once you’ve clicked on the order button, this ticket will appear:

On the left at the top of the ticket you will be able to select whether you would like to place a buy or sell order. In the amount section you can use the arrows on the left to adjust your stake size or you can type in the amount you would like to trade per point.

In the Level box you need to enter the price at which you would like to enter the position if the market reaches your specified level.

You will see below the level box there is a “Not between” range in which you cannot place your order.

When you click on the If Done button, this ticket will appear:

Use this ticket to add a stop loss level of your choice and a limit order, if you wish. Remember to populate the small box to the left of the stop loss or limit profit level to assign these levels to your primary order. Click on the OK button on the right hand side of the screen to confirm your levels and this will take you back to the main order screen. If you are happy with everything on this screen you can click the confirm button on the right hand side of the screen and the system will ask you to check your specified levels.

When your order has been confirmed you will receive an email to say it has been setup and it will appear in your order book. To amend your entry-level click on the amend button and follow the steps above.

One Cancels Other Orders (OCO)

If you have a new order instruction in place, you can add an OCO (One Cancels Other) instruction. This means you can leave two independent instructions in the same product and if one is executed, the other will be cancelled.

For example, if your new order is for a Buy position of £10 in the FTSE Rolling Daily @ 6051.5, you could also leave an OCO order to sell £10 @ 6000.0. If the sell order is filled/executed first, the buy order will be cancelled and vice versa, hence the phrase, One Cancels Other.

You can also set a stop loss and limit order to both your new order and OCO order by clicking on the If Done button.

You will not be able to put a level in the OCO level box until you tick the small box to the left of the OCO order.

Click on confirm on this page for your order to be entered into the system and to view details of the instruction you have made. You will also receive an email to confirm the details.

You may amend any of these instructions by going to your Order Book and clicking the amend button.

Multiple Trade/Deal Tickets

If you would like to have more than one trade ticket open at one time, our 'tear off' facility allows you to do this. On the right hand side of the deal ticket there is a tear off button.

Click on the tear-off button and the trade ticket will open into a new window that you can move around the trading screen. To open a new trade ticket, select a new product from any of the markets open and click the trade button. This will populate the trade ticket to the right of the markets.

You can open as many trade tickets as you like, but you can only trade in one market at a time. If you have more than one trade ticket open and you click Buy/Sell on one of the trade tickets, the other deal tickets will be disabled and grey out.

Please be aware that the greater number of tear off windows open on your screen increases the percentage of CPU resource required. This could affect the performance of your PC depending the specification of your computer.

Tear-off a window for multiple products

If you would like to see more than one set of products at the same time you can tear off any of the windows by hitting the tear off button.

This will open another separate window with your chosen selection within it. This leaves you free to select any of the other tabs to fill the window left behind on the trading screen. You can close the tear off by selecting the small cross in the top right hand corner like you would any other window.

Using My Portfolio

The portfolio manager in Portfolio allows you to create and name your own portfolios. This is a folder where you input your favourite markets or groups of favourite markets. The portfolios you create in this section do not represent any open positions you may have.

When you click on Portfolio you will see two options. If you click on 'Add portfolio' this screen will appear in the window you currently have selected.

As you can see, the system has setup a default for you. To add your own personal portfolio you can enter a name into the appropriate box at the centre of the page (as shown) and input a description if you think necessary.

For example, if you want to add a portfolio for your most popular shares you may enter a name of 'Favourite Shares' and in the description write 'UK and US rolling daily shares'. When you have filled in the two boxes at the bottom of the screen click on the ADD PORTFOLIO button and this will store the portfolio in the main frame of the page.

To add markets to your specified portfolio click on the symbol (circled on screenshot below) next to the appropriate product/market.

When you click the portfolio button it will bring up the names of all your saved portfolios. If you would like to add your specified market to your named portfolio then select this from the list and this product will be saved to your chosen portfolio.

To view the products within your portfolio click on the 'My Portfolio' tab again at the top of the page and then select your chosen name from the list. This will then show you all the products within this folder. To delete any of your markets click on the subtract portfolio icon (see below) to the right of the product.

If you would like to delete a whole portfolio click on the main Portfolio tab and then add portfolio, which will list all your named portfolios. Click the remove button next to your chosen folder.