User Manual: Making a Trade

You can find any product from the thousands of markets we cover using the drop-down menu system on the main menu bar. Select a product type, e.g. Indices or Forex, then choose from the sub-categories presented.

Once you have located the appropriate market, you can click the 'star' button to the right of the live quote to save the product to 'My Portfolio'. This information will be stored in the My Portfolio section of your account for the next time you wish to log in.

Click the TRADE button from any live price and our Auto Quote trading 'ticket' will appear:

Now all you need to do is adjust your stake and decide if you wish to go long and buy, or go short and sell. The price will continue to update in real-time with each market move until you make your decision.

You can choose your stake by either using the '+' and '–' buttons or typing in the stake manually. Once you've chosen your stake, click either BUY or SELL. You will get a confirmation of your deal on screen once your trade has been accepted, plus a further confirmation via email.

At the same time as placing your trade you can set the level at which you wish your mandatory stop loss and limit order (if you want one) to be.

Remember, stop losses* are automatically allocated to every open trade, but you can specify the level yourself at the time of opening a trade.

* Stops are subject to slippage, but we do offer the ability to place Guaranteed Stop Orders on some markets. See the Market Information for more information.

If you notice any discrepancies, please contact us immediately, preferably by telephone.

You can open multiple trading tickets at the same time, if for instance you want to monitor a series of markets closely. With one trading ticket open, simply click TRADE next to another market in order to launch another trading ticket. The new ticket will be launched on the right-hand side of the screen below your other open tickets.

You can open as many trading tickets as you want, but it is not possible to open more than one ticket for the same market. You can also detach, or 'tear off', a ticket from the main platform, to keep it running while the platform is minimised.

To close your trading position you need to make an equal trade in the opposite direction to your opening trade. For example, if you made a £5 buy to open, you will need to make a £5 sell to close the position.

You can do this by finding the original product that you traded, ensuring that the stake size is equal to your original open position and then making a trade in the opposite direction. There is, however, a quicker way to do this via your Open Positions window.

The Open Positions window, accessed from the main menu bar, presents a list of all your live positions. If you click the CLOSE button to the right-hand side of the relevant position, a new trading ticket will appear pre-populated with the trade required to close that position. You will only be given one option, either a buy or a sell, depending on your original trade. Click the button and wait for your confirmation.

If you have opened more than one individual trade on the same market, the total stake will be shown in your Open Positions window alongside the average opening price. For example, if you bought £1 per point on the FTSE 100 Rolling Daily at 5050 and then bought another £1 per point at 5100, your open position would show a buy of £2 per point at 5075.

Any aggregated position listed in your Open Positions window will have a '+' symbol next to the market name. Click the sign to reveal each individual trade. This allows you to close the individual trades in any order you choose.

If you do not want to cherry-pick which trade you want to close, the closing trades work on a first in, first out basis. This means that if you initially bought £1 a point in the FTSE 100 Rolling Daily at 6000 and subsequently buy another £1 a point in the same market at 6005 (leaving you long £2 per point) the first sell you make will close out the first position opened, in this case the buy at 6000. So if your first sell is for £1 per point at 6010 you will then realise a profit of £10 on that individual trade (as 6010 – 6000 = 10). If your second sell is at 6007 this will then close out your second buy and you will realise a profit on this trade of £2 (as 6007 – 6005 = 2).

If you decide you want to lower your initial stake and partially close a position you would do this by making a trade in the opposite direction on the same market with a stake size lower than your original stake. A quick way to do this is by clicking CLOSE against your open position and simply adjusting your stake in the pre-populated trading ticket.

For example, if you initially bought £5 per point of Barclays Rolling Daily and then decide you want to reduce your stake size to £2, you would need to sell Barclays for £3 per point to close this part of your existing position. This will leave you with an open position of £2 per point.

Equally, if you decided to sell £7 per point of Barclays your original long position would be closed and you would be left with a short position of £2 per point.

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