BetOnMarkets - The Smarter Way To Trade

How To Make Your Fortune From Fixed Odds Financial Trading

cordieliea — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:54:35 +0000

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A successful BetOnMarkets trader has written an E-book called, ‘Making a fortune from fixed odds financial trading’

Please click the link below to receive a FREE copy.

www.fortunefromfixedodds.com

BetOnMarkets is the world’s leading Fixed Odds Financial Trading website. Fully licensed and regulated, BetOnMarkets handles around 250,000 trades per month from over 100,000 clients. Over 21 million trades have been processed since inception in 2000. The multi-award winning BetOnMarkets allows traders to speculate on the movement of the worlds’ major financial markets, up, down or sideways. Tax free (always check with a qualified professional). Trades can be bought from 1-25,000 pounds/dollars/euros.

Morning Report (8th Jan 09)

cordieliea — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:56:35 +0000

Please find below the Morning Report from David Evans, market analyst at BetOnMarkets.com

The FTSE is currently indicating a lower opening, as traders await for the Bank of England interest rate decision. While traders expect the BOE to cut 50 basis points, there are some who are hoping for a larger cut. Any cut will send the interest rate to its lowest levels since the creation of the bank. The FTSE could greatly benefit from a bigger then expected rate cut.

Oil prices took a hit yesterday, after the inventory numbers reviled that falling consumption led to a bigger-than-expected gains in supplies of crude, gasoline and distillate fuel. The price of oil is likely to trend back down towards the 40 dollars per barrel level.

Predicted opens as of 06:00 GMT

FTSE:4666.2(-28.6) CAC40:3316.20(-19.10)
DAX30 4916.6 (-15.2)
DOW:8787(+7) SP500:908.78(+1.00) Gold:844.95(+6.30) Oil: 42.44 (-0.20)

Contacts:

Dave Evans: 0208 977 8381/Dave@regentmarkets.com
MichaelWright: 00356 21316105/Michael@regentmarkets.com

BetOnMarkets.com is the worlds leading fixed odds financial trading website. Since inception in 2000 it has processed over 15 million trades on financial indices, UK and US equities, gold and currencies. Over 130,000 clients have the ability to place trades from GBP1 to GBP25,000.

Markets suffer their worst run for generations

cordieliea — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:50:25 +0000

The final week of 2008 passed with many markets recording their worst annual performance for generations. Equities finished above their lows, but still finished down by at least 30%. The S&P 500 closed 2008 down 38%, while the Nikkei closed down over 40%. The ‘lost decade’ rolls on ever more for the Japanese stock market. Perhaps the most remarkable performance came from commodities; at one stage, oil and copper were up 47% and 23% respectively, only to finish the year down 46% and 48%. Despite being at the epicentre of the financial crisis and approaching zero interest rates, the dollar had a good year against the Euro and an exceptional year against the pound. Sterling collapsed against most currencies, nearing parity with Euro and earning the nickname “The British Krona” as a reference to the doomed Icelandic currency.

Stocks started 2009 on the right foot, with a broad based rally that took the Dow Jones within above the psychologically important 9000 level. The Dow hasn’t managed to successfully hold this level since the first few days of November. Commodities looked to be willing to make good some of the losses generated throughout 2008, with oil continuing to move above the $40 a barrel level.

The coming week is dominated by the UK interest rate decision, which comes on the back of Halifax’s announcement that house prices dropped 16.2% last year. This was the worst annual fall on record, bringing prices back to 2004 levels. The Bank of England also warned that the impact of the credit crunch was likely to intensify in the next few months. The MPC is expected to cut yet again to 1.5%, bringing UK rates closer to near zero US levels, and widening the gap between Sterling and the Euro. Friday also brings the all important US Non Farm Payroll figures which are expected to show another drop in the region of 500,000 jobs.

Jason Goepfert of the SentimenTrader.com, points out that the latest AAII (American Association of Individual Investors) Sentiment Survey puts US investors as having the lowest allocation of stocks in their portfolios since 1991. The level of cash hoarding has reached record levels. According to Goepfert, the only two times when cash allocations and stock allocations reached similar levels (around 40%) was 1991 and 2002. Both occasions were good contrarian indicators.

While it is unlikely to be a smooth ride, there are indications that markets are moving past the bad news to what lies beyond. A Bull trade predicting that the Dow Jones (Wall Street) will be above 9500 in 2 months time could return 103% over the next 60 days at BetOnMarkets.com.

Automaker Bailout Fails, Stock Market Short Lived Optimism Evaporates

cordieliea — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 04:40:32 +0000

After an opening surge on Monday, markets had a mixed time of it for the remainder of the week. President elect Barack Obama’s announcement of a huge public works program helped virtually every market rally against the main trends of the last few weeks. Equities and commodities were higher, while the dollar, bonds, and CDS levels all eased. Unfortunately the optimism didn’t last, with the refusal of congress to ratify the Automaker bailout becoming the catalyst for the selling seen at the end of the week.

US pending home sales fell less than expected, and this provided good cheer to markets as it may indicate that the US housing decline is slowing. With so many mortgage backed securities still out there, a steadying of the US housing market could help alleviate some of the pressure on global financial institutions. The UK economy is still showing few signs of improvement though with October production figures falling more aggressively than expected.
There was increasing chatter about a ‘Treasuries’ bubble last week. The yield and 5 and 10 year notes plumbed to new depths, as traders continued their flight to quality. The yield on 3 month US Treasuries turned negative, meaning that investors were literally willing to pay to put their money somewhere that is perceived to be safe. Another unusual act to add to the ever growing pile of ‘once in a generation’ events, were reports that the Federal reserve is considering selling bonds under its own name.

The Pound held its ground against the Dollar, but was well and truly smashed by the Euro, which today set yet another record high against Sterling. The Euro even kissed the underside of its synthetic high of 0.9000 based on the old Deutsche Mark from 1996. Friday’s, news of HBOS’s dreadful £8bn write-down hit the general banking sector hard. Many economists predict that the UK economy won’t recover until the back of 2009 at least, which means that lending conditions could get even worse for the UK banks.

Until recently, the ‘independence’ premium hadn’t worked its way through in the banking sector. However, there are signs today that independence from the UK Treasury could start to become a significant advantage. On Friday, Lloyds, HBOS and RBS closed down 18%, 23% and 15% respectively. The remaining two major UK banks not to seek government assistance; Barclays and HSBC finished down just 8% and 2% respectively.

The banks have an almost impossible task of providing shareholder (and taxpayer) value, whist at the same time being seen to re-start lending to home owners and small businesses. Northern Rock shows precisely why these two competing aims are difficult to align. Northern Rock’s management team has been hell bent on repaying the government’s loan as quickly as possible, and it is making good progress in this regard. The problem is that to do this, it has reversed its lending policy, and is now lending out less than is being paid in. This is good news for taxpayers, but bad news for consumers.

The economic landscape will be dominated by the US interest rate statement due on Tuesday. Analysts are expecting a fresh round of cuts from the Fed. Fed fund futures are currently implying a 60% probability of cut down to 0.25%, with a 30% probability of a cut down to 0.5%. On the same theme, UK rates are expected to push lower soon, and Wednesday’s MPC meeting minutes will help traders determinate the size of the likely cut.

Last week, Sterling took a beating against the Euro, but the European economy isn’t exactly a bed of roses outside of Germany and France. Arguably interest rates in Europe have further to fall than those from the UK. EUR/ GBP have moved incredibly quickly over the last month, but there could be a period of congestion to come. A no touch trade predicting that the EUR/ GBP won’t touch 0.9200 at any time during the next 60 days could return 121%.

Flash Bets on Cash FX

cordieliea — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:27:37 +0000

Fancy a punt on the direction of a cash currency in the next five minutes? The latest innovation in the BetOnMarkets.com portfolio of binary bet types is the one to five minute flash bet on more than a dozen cash currencies, as well as crude oil. It’s basically a double or nothing bet starting when you click and ending to the second the number of minutes later you have chosen to run the bet. Larry Levy takes a look at the mechanics of this new retail instrument.

To add to the thrill the tick prices can be played out on the Flash application as the bet progresses (see Fig 1). The site accepts bets in Euro’s, US$, or Sterling on increments from a return of a pound, dollar or euro in steady increments up to 2500 units in those three currencies.

Instruments include AUDJPY, AUDUSD, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURSEK, EURUSD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPNOK, GBPJPY, GBPSEK, GBPUSD, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDJPY, USDNOK, USDSEK and Crude Oil.

Account funding is possible with credit card or a variety of other methods.

The concept of Binary Bets (also known as binary or box options) on markets was once the domain of the institutional quant set, and has now been popularized by half a dozen companies in the retail sector. The father of this retail financial betting revolution, Jean Yves Sireau, heads up BetOnMarkets.com, (and its sister operation Betonmarkets.co.uk for the UK customer base.) BetOnMarkets.com also provides a range of bets on a wide range of cash currencies — something most other binary companies do not concentrate on.

Tightly run, and backed by Regent Markets Group in Hong Kong, the html and Java based binary betting website company has offices in Malaysia, Malta and the Isle of Man, with the main operation in Cyberjaya, a tech hub near to Kuala Lumpur.

Placing a “Flash Bet” takes less than a minute. This is via a simple interactive drop down HTML menu, where one chooses the amount of the bet, the currency of the bet, the instrument of the bet and the time period between one and five minutes for the bet to run.

Having filled out the “order ticket”, as it were, the bet is priced from the BetOnMarkets server and is “ready to go”. Its very important to do this entry work before time as often the market will only reach an optimal entry point for a second and it can take up to 30 seconds or more to fill out the bet order ticket.

A Java Tick Chart can also be placed at the bottom powered by the BetOnMarkets quote engine, allowing the trader to initiate the bet when the price reaches the target area. Since a single pip makes the difference between winning and losing the bet, precise bet start time is critical. Bets that end on the same price as the start price are “Lose” bets. This makes for the so called “house edge”.

Latency
Having clicked to place the bet there is a break of some seconds before the interactive Flash (or non Flash) display of the running position is loaded. As first one worries that this latency gives time for the price to move against one. However, the latency is a slight illusion (albeit a worrying one) as in tests we found that the fill received was generally at the point where the market was at that second, rather than a few seconds later when the display appears. So the delay is essentially in the loading of the display rather than in the execution of the bet itself, though of course the market could move for or against ones price even in the transmit time to the BetOnMarkets.com engine, so exact an exact execution price cannot be assured.

Trading
The real obstacle to winning though is not necessarily the house edge. It is perhaps made up of the usual greed, impatience, lack of trading skill and lack of discipline. Even more than in conventional trading, precision is absolutely critical if one is to have any chance of winning consistently. For many this bet will constitute a challenge or a punt rather than a serious attempt at trading. However, this is technically possible though the level of consistency and accuracy needs to be high in order to win over a period of time.

With normal FX position trading a one pip difference on entry often does not matter very much — as one knows that one wants to be either long or short but in the case of the binary bet the entire amount wagered depends on the bet being just one tick in ones favor.

A virtual account with 10,000 US$, EUR and GBP of play money is available to practice. We tested the system with accounts containing both real and play money and found the interactive pricing to be the same. The BetOnMarkets.com system uses an aggregate average of different forex pools to run its real time forex quotes engine. Sometimes the engine gets just a little out of sync for a second with other general pools and it becomes possible to place the trade at a better price by one or more ticks.

BetOnMarkets.com’s quote engine which can be played in real time on their Flash charting engine, so that traders can try to enter at a price they feel happy with.

Flash Bets are available most of the day. They start from 00:15GMT through the trading day, with a two hour break between 10h and 12h GMT (around lunchtime in Europe) for the EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CHF. Bets then close at 21h to 0:00 GMT for the last 180 minutes of the trading day, when the market is relatively quiet anyway. Also, bets are also “unavailable” at various other times during the day when the market is volatile or for other (unexplained) reasons, but on the whole the system is up and reliable.

Other Bets
For those who wishing to place other kinds of binary bets, a wide variety of these are available. These include Run Bets (guess the next few ticks up or down for a win or lose your stake), to Intraday Double Up or Down Bets as well as One Touch Bets (whereby the payout is made if the market touches a level just once). The opposite No Touch Bet. Barrier range binary bets specify that the market must stay within certain levels and Double Touch that prices must touch both a high and a low point within a specified period to win.

Reliability
I have personally held an account at BetOnMarkets.com for the last five years. During this time the system has worked reliably, and payouts have been made promptly and without fuss. One does have to satisfy a number of address and identity checks in order to easily withdraw money, but this is as much for the safety of one’s own account as for the fidelity of BetOnMarkets.com.

Regulatory Issues
A BetOnMarkets account can be opened by customers in most places. At the moment, for legal reasons BetOnMarkets cannot accept accounts from the United States and Hong Kong. The website is regulated in the UK and Isle of Man by the Gambling Control Commissioners in the Isle of Man and elsewhere by the Lotteries and Gaming Authority in Malta.

Conclusion
Sometimes the bets are unique and ideally suited to the market situation. At other times normal options, straight long / short trading or other vehicles are preferable to these binary bets. Each situation has to be individually quantified. However BetOnMarkets.com represents an innovative, reliable, unique and easy to use platform from which to place binary bets.