IG Index

History

IG Index is one of the largest and most successful spread betting firms in the UK. In fact, it was this company that originally introduced the concept of spread betting to the world with the Investor’s Gold Index. When it became apparent that this idea could be applied to any other financial instrument, the name was shortened to IG Index.

In the 80s and 90s, IG Index began offering spread bets on the FT 30 and then in all publicly traded companies and in 1998, it was the first to launch an online dealing platform. IG Index is now the largest spread betting firm in the world holding an astonishing 33% of all spread betting clients globally.

Features of Platform

PureDeal is the award winning online dealing platform of IG Index. It has many innovative features such as “One-click dealing” where instead of creating a deal ticket, you simply click on the live price when you want to execute the trade.

Another great feature is named “Price improvement” where if a better price is available when the deal is being executed, the system will give it to you at that price. This is great in volatile markets when when prices are constantly changing at a fast rate. Even though PureDeal is an online platform, you can rearrange menus and windows to create your personal layout.

In addition, the Autochartlist functionality uses pattern recognition algorithms to alert you when potential trading opportunities are available across various markets.

Products Covered

IG Index has an extraordinarily wide range of markets on which one can bet. They include Forex, Stock Indices, Shares, Commodities, Binary Bets, Options, Interest Rates, House prices, Bungee Bets and many more.

Bungee bets are unique to IG and is a very useful trade for risk adverse investors. The Bungee has an inherent stop level, called a “Floor” or “Ceiling”, which caps your loss in the event the market goes against you, but the trade remains open until the end of the trading day. This is a very useful strategy particularly in volatile markets, because in the event the market bounces back in your favor later in the day, you can make a significant profit. If the market doesn’t bounce back, the trade will be settled at the Floor/Ceiling level, and your risk is limited.

IG Index is also one of the few firms to offer binary bets where you take a risk on whether a certain condition is going to be met or not.

Pros

IG Index has one of the largest range of markets available. They also don’t need any deposit to open an account and log into their trading platform. This makes it easy for a beginner to get the hang of things before they put real money on the table.

The PureDeal platform is available for online and mobile phone dealing, making for easy dealing no matter where you are. PureDeal also has some of the most awesome charting tools on the Internet with over 70 pre set technical charts as well as the ability to create your own.

Awards

MoneyAM has awarded IG Index the “Best Spread Betting Firm” award and “PureDeal” was also voted the best active trading platform.

Overall Summary

IG Index is probably one of the most reliable spread betting firms operating today. As many others have noted, they continuously strive to improve their processes and keep offering more and more features that will be useful to clients. Their unmatched range of markets as well as innovative features like Price Improvements make it a powerful choice.

Support Hours

IG Index is open 24 hrs a day Mon-Friday. This goes for their help desk as well as their dealing desk.

Countries/Languages

IG Index operates in nine languages including English, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Russian, Swedish and Italian. They operate in 11 countries globally.