Spread Betting Strategies: The 7 Setups We Use in 2026

Which Spread Betting Strategy Should You Use?

Pick the setup that fits the time you can give the screen, not the one with the best-looking chart. Three starting points cover most people.

Every worked example below uses one of two quotes. Index examples take the FTSE 100 around its close of 10,854 on 24 August 2026, with a 2-point spread. Currency examples take the pair’s level from our rate snapshot of 21 August 2026 and its spread from our monthly broker data, last updated 1 Aug 2026. Nothing here predicts what a market will do, only what the arithmetic does when it moves. If you are new to the mechanics, our spread betting guide covers stake per point, margin and the spread first.

1. Trend Following

Trend following buys a market that is already rising and sells one that is already falling. It works when a market moves in one direction for weeks, and it fails in a range, where the same signal fires in both directions and both are wrong.

• Entry. Buy a pullback into the 20-day moving average while the 50-day average is rising.
• Exit. Close on the first daily close back below the 20-day average.
• Stop. 10 points below the last swing low, and set when the bet opens.

GBP/USD sat at 1.3629 on 21 August 2026. You buy at £2 per point with the stop 40 points away, so £80 is the money at risk. The pair runs to 1.3749 and the 20-day average catches up behind it; you close there. That is 120 points at £2, or £240.

Across the brokers in our spread data, last updated 1 Aug 2026, GBP/USD averages 1.3 points. At £2 per point the bet opens £2.60 down, which is 3% of the £80 at risk.

2. Breakout Trading

A breakout bet is placed at a price level rather than at a moment. You mark the high of a range, leave a buy stop above it, and the market decides whether the bet happens.

• Entry. A buy stop 5 points above the range high. No manual entry, because the level is the signal.
• Exit. First target at the height of the range added to the breakout level.
• Stop. 15 points below the level, back inside the range the market just left.

Say the FTSE 100 has spent three sessions between 10,780 and its 24 August 2026 close of 10,854. You leave a buy stop at 10,859 with a £3 stake and a stop at 10,844. The order fills, the index trades to 10,866, turns, and the stop closes the bet at 10,844. That is 15 points at £3, a £45 loss. False breaks like this one are the routine cost of the setup, and the reason the stop goes in with the order rather than after it.

The 2-point spread costs £6 at a £3 stake, charged the moment the buy stop fills. A guaranteed stop-loss closes at your level even when the market gaps past it, for a premium charged per bet; our stop-loss order guide covers both order types.

3. Swing Trading

A swing bet holds for two to ten days and takes one leg of a move rather than the whole trend. The entry is a support or resistance level that has already held, and the exit is a fixed target, not a trailing rule.

• Entry. Buy at a support level that has held twice in the last month, on the first daily close back above it.
• Exit. The prior high, as a limit order left in the market.
• Stop. 30 points below the support level.

Take EUR/USD at its 21 August 2026 level of 1.1678, and say it sells back to 1.1610, a level it has already held twice. You buy at £5 per point with the stop at 1.1580, 30 points away, so £150 is at risk. The pair recovers to the prior high at 1.1710 and the limit fills. That is 100 points at £5, or £500.

EUR/USD averages 1 point across the brokers in our spread data (1 Aug 2026), so a £5 stake opens £5 down. That is one thirtieth of the money at risk, and it is why the cheapest pair on the board suits the setup that trades most often.

4. Momentum

A momentum bet buys the strongest market in a group and holds it while it stays strongest. The signal is relative: the market has to be outrunning its peers, not merely rising.

• Entry. Of the five indices you follow, buy the one with the highest 12-week gain, on the first day it makes a new 12-week high.
• Exit. Close when it drops out of the top two on the same 12-week measure.
• Stop. Twice the 14-day average daily range below the entry, which is 120 points in the example below.

You buy the FTSE 100 at 10,854 with £2 per point and the stop at 10,734, so £240 is at risk. The index holds its place at the top of the group for six weeks. It slips to third and you close at 11,120, which is 266 points at £2, or £532. Six weeks of overnight funding comes out of that figure, which is the cost momentum carries and the reason the setup does not suit small stakes.

The 2-point index spread costs £4 at that stake, once. Overnight funding is charged for every night the bet is held, and our overnight funding page has the daily arithmetic.

5. News Events

A news bet is a position taken around a scheduled release: a Bank of England rate decision, a US payrolls print, a company’s results. The rule that matters most is the one about when not to be in.

• Entry. Only after the release, once the first five-minute candle has closed. Never before it.
• Exit. The same session, whatever the result.
• Stop. Guaranteed, because an ordinary stop can fill well past its level when a market gaps.

GBP/USD is at 1.3629 before a rate decision. You sell at £2 per point with an ordinary stop 40 points away at 1.3669, sizing the bet at £80. The decision surprises, the pair gaps to 1.3702, and the stop fills there. That is 73 points at £2, a £146 loss on a bet you had sized at £80. A guaranteed stop would have closed it at 1.3669 for the £80 you intended, plus its premium.

GBP/USD averages 1.3 points in our spread data (1 Aug 2026). Spreads widen around a release, so that average is a floor rather than what you will pay in the minute after the print.

6. Paired Bets

A paired bet is two positions at once: long the market you expect to do better, short the one you expect to do worse. What is left after the two legs cancel is a bet on the gap between them rather than on either direction.

• Entry. Both legs at the same stake per point, opened together, on markets that move in comparable point sizes.
• Exit. Both legs together, when the gap has closed or the reason for it has gone.
• Stop. On the combined result, not on either leg, because one leg is supposed to lose.

On 21 August 2026 EUR/USD was 1.1678 and GBP/USD was 1.3629. You go long EUR/USD at £2 per point and short GBP/USD at £2 per point, which leaves a bet that the euro outruns the pound. Two weeks later EUR/USD is 1.1750, up 72 points and worth £144, while GBP/USD is 1.3680, up 51 points and worth −£102. The pair of bets returns £42 before costs.

You cross two spreads instead of one. Our spread data (1 Aug 2026) puts EUR/USD at 1 point and GBP/USD at 1.3 points, which is £4.60 at £2 per point on each leg. That £4.60 is 11% of the £42, and it is why a paired bet has to be worth taking twice over.

The same-stake rule only holds where both markets move in similar numbers of points. Pair the FTSE 100 near 10,854 against an index quoted near 24,000 at equal stakes and the second leg carries more than twice the exposure of the first. That is a short position with a partial hedge, not a paired bet.

7. Hedging A Holding

A hedge is a spread bet placed against something you already own, so you can hold a position through a fall without selling it. The purpose is to buy time, not to make money on the bet.

• Entry. Short the index your holdings track, at the stake that matches their exposure to it.
• Exit. Close the short when the reason for it has passed, not when it happens to be in profit.
• Stop. None on the hedge itself. The holding is the other side of it.

Take a £30,000 UK equity holding that tracks the FTSE 100 at 10,854. One per cent of the index is 108.5 points and one per cent of the holding is £300, so a stake of £2.76 per point offsets it; call it £2.75. The index falls 300 points, the holding loses about £830, and the short makes 300 points at £2.75, or £825. The hedge held the loss to roughly £5 while you decided what to do.

The 2-point spread costs £5.50 at that stake, and overnight funding is applied every night the short is held. A hedge cannot create a tax deduction. A losing spread bet cannot be set against a gain on the shares, because the treatment that keeps spread betting profits out of Capital Gains Tax keeps the losses out too. Our spread betting tax guide sets out that position.

How Do You Size A Spread Betting Position?

Divide the money you are willing to lose on the bet by the distance in points to your stop. The answer is your stake per point, and it is the only part of the setup you control completely.

Stake per point = risk in £ ÷ stop distance in points. At 1% of the account per bet, the table runs like this; the last three columns are stakes in pounds per point. Spread betting leverage sets the margin a position ties up, not the money at risk; it changes what you can open, not what you can lose.

The £1,000 row is the one that bites, and not because the stakes are unavailable: OANDA’s minimum is £0.01 per point. It bites because £0.08 a point turns a 40-point day into £3.20, so the account is a sizing problem before it is a strategy problem. Widening the stop to fit a stake you like reverses the arithmetic and is the mistake in the list below.

The sizer below runs the same sum on your own balance, risk and stop, and shows the stop against the market’s measured daily range. Volatility, measured from our daily-bar dataset over the 20 trading days to 28 Aug 2026, shows GBP/USD’s average daily range at 57.9 points and EUR/USD at 44.7 points; your stop has to survive that range. Cost, margin and the broker comparison live on our spread betting calculator page.

Spread Betting Tips That Actually Matter

These are execution habits rather than strategies. They decide whether a setup that works on a chart survives contact with a live account.

• Set the stop when the bet opens, in the same ticket, not once the position has moved.
• Write the exit before the entry. A bet with no exit rule closes on feeling, usually at the wrong end.
• Size from the stop, not from the stake you fancy. The sum above takes ten seconds.
• Trade one market until you know its normal day. A stop set inside a market’s ordinary daily range is noise, and one market watched for a month is how you learn what that range is.
• Record every bet with its entry, stop, exit and the reason you took it. Thirty rows tell you which setup is paying for the others.
• Close the platform between setups. Screen time creates bets the plan never asked for.
• Never add to a losing position to lower the average. It doubles the stake on the view that is already wrong.
• Check the overnight funding before holding past the close. A six-week momentum bet pays it 42 times.

Holding periods shorter than a session are their own discipline, and our day trading page covers what changes at that speed.

What Are The Most Common Spread Betting Mistakes?

Each one below is the inverse of a rule stated above, which is what makes them worth listing.

1. Moving the stop. A stop moved once no longer sets the money at risk. The £80 bet in the news example becomes a £146 loss the moment the level is treated as negotiable.
2. Sizing from the stake instead of the stop. Picking £5 per point first and then finding somewhere for the stop is how a 1% rule turns into a 6% bet.
3. Trading the release rather than what follows it. A position held into a scheduled announcement is exposed to a gap, and no ordinary stop protects against one.
4. Adding to a loser. Averaging down improves the entry price on paper and doubles the exposure in fact.
5. Running four setups at once. Thirty bets spread across four rules is seven or eight each, which is not enough to tell you which of them works.

Bear in mind that there is always a risk involved with spread betting, and only capital you can afford to lose belongs in the account. This page is information rather than financial advice. Which provider you place these bets with is a separate decision, and our ranking of the best spread betting platforms covers spreads, markets and risk tools across the brokers we rank. OANDA and every other provider named on this site has a full write-up in our spread betting broker reviews directory.