WorldSpreads Celebrates One Year of Zero Point Spread Betting

LONDON, September 26, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

It has been twelve months since the London based spread betting provider, WorldSpreads, reduced its trading costs to zero for Platinum clients with a minimum of £5,000 in their accounts. In that time, the number of spread-free trades have reached over 12,500 a day. That's more than 600,000 zero spread trades in total, saving clients more than £5 per trade on average.

One in three of WorldSpreads' clients now trade with zero spreads, with the monthly number of clients having increased seven-fold since its introduction. With the recent market volatility, spread-free trading has increased even more and, perhaps unsurprisingly the Eurodollar, DAX and the FTSE have been the most actively traded instruments.

Says WorldSpreads CEO Conor Foley; "Zero spreads have found the mood of the trader. WorldSpreads' Platinum account is the right product at the right time - by withdrawing the trade barrier we knew our active clients would interact more frequently with volatile markets, but we did not know just how volatile those markets would become, and how attractive."

"Zero Spreads have enabled traders to focus exclusively on unearthing opportunity among fallers and risers without having to factor in a trading spread.  It has also underlined the extraordinary value offered by spread betting against a stockbroking industry backdrop notorious for opaque fees, high charges and commissions."

WorldSpreads' Market Analyst Alastair McCaig adds; "The volatility index has more than doubled from 20 in September 2010 to over 40 in September 2011¹. Traders need to be fleet of foot and the ability to utilise a platform with zero spreads gives them an edge in these turbulent times."

The 'point' is the cost of the dealing spread, the difference in the price at which the broker buys and sells the asset. From an average of 8 points in the early years of spread betting, WorldSpreads was the first to reduce the spread to one 'point' and is still the only provider to offer zero spreads.

¹ Source: CBOE Volatility Index

About WorldSpreads Group plc:

• WorldSpreads Group plc (AIM: WSPR) is a fast growing financial services group offering online and telephone trading. The Group's core activity is the provision of spread betting products on the financial markets to retail clients from its website http://www.worldspreads.com/.   
• WorldSpreads Limited, a wholly-owned trading subsidiary of WSPR, is regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Authority and is authorised to offer its products throughout Europe. It offers a full range of spread betting prices on all the major financial markets, including stock indices, individual shares, currencies, commodities and interest rates.   
• The Group floated on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market in August 2007 and gained a dual listing by joining the Irish Stock Exchange's ESM market in May 2008.