Trading online can be very lucrative as the transaction fees tend to be significantly lower than what you might expect trading over the phone. Trading accounts are not dissimilar to a traditional bank account except a trading account can hold securities, stocks, shares as well as cash and foreign currency. A trading account will also be administered by an investment dealer who overlooks the account and implements a trading strategy on your behalf.

Trading can be confused with spread betting as both are used to make money on stocks, commodities etc by predicting market movements. The main difference between trading and spread betting is that trading involves a broker and securities are actually purchased and sold; as opposed to spread betting where price movements are bet upon but no actual transaction takes place. For many firms, trading and spread betting go hand in hand as both appeal to two different types of people.

Trading Accounts go Online

In recent years, trading online has become overwhelmingly popular and stock market trading now reaches a broad audience where before it was primarily city-based. Trading online has also led to the creation of trading applications and this has been especially key in spread betting where some companies see upwards of 30% of trades made from these mobile applications.

The popularity has largely been driven by lower transaction fees. Take share dealing for example, a phone call transaction can cost anywhere between £25.00 and £75.00 depending on the size of the trade. Transactions over £100,000.00 can also lead to a small percentage being taken as a fee which creates some heavy overheads. If you open an online trading account you can expect the costs to start from around £5.00 and not reach any more than £15.00 even on huge transactions in excess of the £100,000.00 mark.

Trading Account Bonuses

While there are very few bonuses or offers for share dealing, forex and spread betting platforms have many. Trading bonuses on these platforms can reach as high as £1,000.00. Find out more and apply for trading account offers.

Demo Trading Accounts

Demo accounts are more popular in the forex and spread betting markets. This is simply because trading accounts tend to be for the more serious individual and setting up can be a longer and more daunting process. If you are new to trading then signing up to a spread betting demo account makes a lot of sense. You will be betting on real time and real world markets but without any risk – the process or buying and selling is also similar to what you might expect from a trading account.

City Index’ demo account has been highly recommended as a great place to start.