Iron Condor

The advantage of spread betting, as opposed to buying shares, is that it offers one of the simplest ways to bet on markets moving downwards, as they have in recent months. Moreover, bets are free of stamp duty, while any gains are not subject to capital gains tax (CGT).
Most regular readers will be fully aware that the best way to enhance their trading account is to trade with leverage. In days gone by, the only way to leverage an equity position in the UK market was to buy or sell individual share futures or take on a call or put position with options. These days it would seem that the undisputed heavyweight for the trading community are the fantastic derivatives like spread betting and cfds. That is all well and good for short-term traders and spread betting is certainly an instrument that most of us can use to great success with the speculative part of our portfolios, but every individual should have a multi-faceted approach to wealth creation – above and beyond solely trading.
Spread betting is a useful vehicle for the occasional down-bet although I have to admit I am not an advocate of short-selling. I feel that the very high profile loudly shouted aggression with which some ’shorters’ hit a completely undeserving share these days is destructive and its effects are sometimes very long-lived, long after the short-sellers have taken their profit and gone. Folk get frightened, and if a stock has just been hit, won’t buy for fear it will happen again. In the medium term, a company can be so severely damaged that it can’t raise funds other than at fire sale prices, and suffers even more because investors have lost confidence in it.
However, there are situations where a stock gets so far ahead of itself that it’s daft. A down-bet can be useful here if you are convinced that the share is about to be re-rated in a downward direction. I have tried it numerous times and in most cases it has worked a treat!
Also, one can use spread bets as a way of adding to an existing long-term holding at a lower cost than buying more shares, rather than betting on short-term stock market movements, let alone ex-divs…
So popular have these products become that they have been estimated to account for more than one third of total trading volumes on the London Stock Exchange. CFDs and spread bets are deals between the client and his or her broker so do not themselves go through the exchange, but the hedge that the dealer puts in place to cover his position does result in an exchange trade.
This shift away from share trading to dealing in derivatives concerns some observers as it takes takes liquidity out of the cash market, particularly for smaller stocks. Gavin Oldham, chief executive of the Share Centre, a retail stockbroker says ‘They say it is backed up by the [hedging] business that goes through the stock market but the volumes are netted off.’
At the retail level spread betting is growing faster than CFDs. Anyone who spread bets thinks they are going to win so they don’t want to pay the tax and in the UK there is no capital gains tax on spread betting gains. Because you do not hold a contract (share) but bet on the outcome makes it a gamble. Otherwise the procedure is very close to trading via a futures broker. All firms are regulated in the UK (unlike Forex). People that fail at spread betting will most likely fail trading via a conventional futures broker. If you live in the UK and are not into scalping for ticks, then spread betting can be a lot more beneficial due to favourable tax laws, which indeed can change tomorrow, next year, after 10 years, etc.
There has been a move among retail investors over to spread betting from CFDs but few go the other way. Among institutions no-one uses spread bets because the corporate pay tax.

THE NATIONAL STOCK EXCHANGE OF INDIA (NSE) Located in India’s financial capital Mumbai, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) is the third largest stock exchange in the world. During 31 December 2005, NSE VSAT terminals, 2799 in total, were spanning across 320 cities of India. The NSE has been a podium for securities exchange for 14 years now! Thousand member strong, NSE provides dealing of different securities, some of them being equity, corporate debt, certificate of deposit, commercial paper, and central and state government securities. National Securities Clearing Corporation, India Index Services and Products, National Securities Depository, and NSE-IT (trading technology) are the associates of NSE. Owner of diverse financial and insurance establishments, NSE can be broadly divided into three segments:

 

GENESIS OF NSEIt all began 16 years back, in November 1992, when the NSE was integrated as a tax-paying company. In April 1993, NSE was given the status of a stock exchange under the Securities Contract (Regulations) Act of 1956. A year later, in June 1994, NSE began operations in the Wholesale Debt Market (WDM), and in November that year, the Capital Market (Equities) Segment of the NSE began operations. Two years hence, in 1996, NSE became the first exchange in India to trade derivatives specifically on an equity index. In the new millennium, NSE began Indian Internet Online trading system. Today the NSE deals in online examinations and award certification. Comprising branches all over India, NSE introduced India’s first clearing corporation (National Securities Clearing Corporation Ltd.) and India’s first depository (National Securities Depository Ltd.). NSE is India’s earliest national, anonymous, electronic limit order book (LOB) exchange that deals with securities.

MARKET INDICESNSE established an index services firm called IISL – India Index Services and products Ltd. – and opened numerous stock indices, including:

 

The other NSE Indices are:

 

MARKET CAPITALISATIONCurrently, NSE has four important capital market segments:

 

MAJOR COMPANIES OF NSEThe major companies listed with the NSE are:

 

The top investors of NSE are:

 

LOCATION OF NSENational Stock Exchange of India Ltd.Exchange PlazaPlot No. C/1, G BlockBandra-Kurla ComplexBandra (E)Mumbai 400051

BOMBAY STOCK EXCHANGE (BSE)

Having its headquarters in Mumbai, the BSE SENSEX is the stock index or SENSitive indEX of the BSE. The oldest stock exchange of Asia, the BSE SENSEX, also known as BSE 30, is the focal stock index of India. There are 4800 companies listed with the BSE. As of July 2007, the total equity market capitalization of the Bombay Stock Exchange was US$ 1.005 trillion. The Singapore Exchange has become an alliance of BSE by acquiring a strategic investment in the BSE.

GENESIS OF BSE

Way back in 1986, the BSE introduced the stock index that eventually became the most important stock index of the country. The SENSEX was based on market-capitalisation-weighted method and included stocks of some of the top financial houses. Noted financial analyst and columnist, Mr. Deepak Mohoni in the year 1990, introduced the term “BSE SENSEX” which is an acronym for Bombay Stock Exchange SENSitive indEX. Since September 2003, the SENSEX is measured on the method of free-float capitalisation.

MARKET INDICES

Apart from maintaining the BSE SENSEX, the Bombay Stock Exchange also maintains stock indices like:

 

The BSE gives information on the price, charting, announcements, company contact, shareholding pattern and results of the companies that are enlisted in the exchange. The Board of Directors, encompassing eminent financial professionals, Managing Director of the exchange, and the representatives of the Trading Members, maintain the overall functionality of the exchange.

BSE also gives the Beta value of the SENSEX Scrips, Beta being calculated by the formula: Beta = Co-Variance (SENSEX, Stock)/Variance (SENSEX).

While listing securities that may be from public limited companies, central government, state governments or other financial institutions, there are certain objectives followed by the BSE:

 

BSE SENSEX OVERVIEW

The BSE SENSEX comprises thirty stocks and is a value-weighted index. The stocks listed here are the most active stocks on the BSE. The BSE SENSEX has a base value of 100. The relevant authorities update BSE SENSEX and in the process inspect and change the SENSEX, the underlying idea being that the SENSEX represents the prevailing market condition.

BSE PERFORMANCE

Since June 1990, the BSE Index has been increasing ten-fold. As per the data available, since April 1979, the long run rate of return on the BSE SENSEX has been at almost 0.52% every week, with the rate of standard deviation being almost 3.67%. The returns thus have been 27% per year. However after inflation, the figure has come down to 18% per year.

BSE COMPANIES

Given below is a catalogue of stocks listed in the BSE: