For people who consider the stock market no more than legalized gambling, several enterprising firms have made it official and cashed in on "spread betting."
Much like sports, punters bet on a point spread for moves in stock indices around the world, leaving more serious investors to agonize over individual companies and their health.
For example, at 9:35am London time on Friday, Financial Spreads was taking bets that Britain's FTSE 100 index would close at between 4,068 and 4,072 points on the day. At the time, the FTSE was trading at 4,074.
Spread betting can turn winners into big money makers -- and vice versa -- all depending on fluctuations in the market. It was introduced in Britain in the mid-1970s but has exploded in recent months as markets have plunged.
Eight British companies, including IG Index, Cantor Index, a division of brokerage Cantor Fitzgerald, and Financial Spreads, dominate the budding market. Several times each day they set "spreads," or a performance range, on thousands of financial instruments.
A more straightforward bet on, say, the Dow Jones industrial average, would be to wager one pound per point it will rise or fall from the set spread.
For example, if the Dow falls 150 points below the spread, the pay-off on a one pound bet that correctly guessed the direction would be 150 pounds. A losing bet would have the opposite effect.
Industry groups say there are roughly 100,000 spread betters, 80,000 of whom are active. At US$100 million, annual revenues for the spread betting market is considerably smaller than that for traditional online trading.
Spread trading has brought back memories of the day trading craze during the booming markets of the late 1990s, when a legion of investors bought and sold shares in companies within hours, hoping to make money on the rapid rise and fall of the markets.
Like its cousin day trading, spread betting is primarily conducted on the Internet with punters placing bets on the performance of equities, stock indices, bonds, commodities and foreign currency.
To the faint of heart, this may sound ominously familiar. In the go-go days of the Internet boom, countless souls quit their jobs to become day traders in the hope a making a quick buck -- a ruinous career move for many once the markets fell in 2000.
Spread betting is still small, confined largely to Britain and Australia, the biggest markets regulating such activities. Since it is considered a form of gambling, many countries, including the US, outlaw spread betting.
Spread betting firms report trading volume has perked up significantly over the past six months, and in particular over the past six weeks as the markets swooned to new multi-year lows.
"Our clients love volatility," said Paul Austin, a spokesman for IG Index, considered the granddaddy of spread betting operations. "A raging bear market is good for us. However, a raging bull market would be better."
IG Index launched in Australia last month. Further expansion is planned for Africa, Austin said. Financial Spreads, the spread betting subsidiary of British gaming group Zetters, said it will branch into new Asian and European markets by year-end.
"If you look at the potential market you get into the dot-com dream world of how many people own a computer. Let's not get carried away," said Freddie Tulloch, marketing manager of Financial Spreads. "But the potential is pretty unbelievable."
The popularity of spread betting has caught on beyond financial markets. Sports spread betting is an even bigger racket, gaining popularity during the soccer World Cup this summer. And Cantor Index has adapted it to Hollywood, taking bets on which movies will score best at the box office.
But neither the punters nor the firms are suggesting spread betting could become a repeat of the day-trading craze.
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