IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/105580.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The use of contracts for difference (‘CFD’) spread bets and binary options (‘forbin’) to trade foreign exchange (‘forex’) commodities, and stocks and shares in volatile financial markets

Author

Listed:
  • Barnes, Paul

Abstract

This paper examines the popularity of forex and derivatives - contracts for difference (‘CFD’) spread bets and binary options - at a time when the markets are turbulent and speculating by trading is popular. The paper provides theoretical calculations of the probability of success of trading in this way together with empirical evidence. These show that it is not possible for the trader to trade profitably over the medium- to long-term as these markets are efficient and that the broker, who is the counterparty, will win just like a casino or bookie. It is also shown that these markets have become susceptible to scams and fraud but argues such actions are unnecessary for the broker as it will win as long as the trader continues to bet. Finally, it is argued that whilst forex is the most popular asset traded, its price movements are more difficult to predict and are much smaller compared with stocks and shares and commodities, making it even more difficult for traders to trade them successfully.

Suggested Citation

  • Barnes, Paul, 2021. "The use of contracts for difference (‘CFD’) spread bets and binary options (‘forbin’) to trade foreign exchange (‘forex’) commodities, and stocks and shares in volatile financial markets," MPRA Paper 105580, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Jan 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:105580
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/105580/1/MPRA_paper_105580.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/105743/1/MPRA_paper_105580.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Barnes, 2010. "Stock market efficiency, insider dealing and market abuse: the UK experience," International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(1/2), pages 38-50.
    2. Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1997. "The Stochastic Behavior of Commodity Prices: Implications for Valuation and Hedging," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 923-973, July.
    3. Barnes, Paul, 2018. "Recent developments in investment fraud and scams: Contracts for Difference (‘CFD’) spread betting and binary options and foreign exchange (‘Forex’) sometimes collectively known as ‘forbin’ – the UK e," MPRA Paper 85061, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chiarella, Carl & Kang, Boda & Nikitopoulos, Christina Sklibosios & Tô, Thuy-Duong, 2013. "Humps in the volatility structure of the crude oil futures market: New evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 989-1000.
    2. Chuong Luong & Nikolai Dokuchaev, 2016. "Modeling Dependency Of Volatility On Sampling Frequency Via Delay Equations," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(02), pages 1-21, June.
    3. Alain Monfort & Olivier Féron, 2012. "Joint econometric modeling of spot electricity prices, forwards and options," Review of Derivatives Research, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 217-256, October.
    4. Luis M. Abadie, 2009. "Valuation of Long-Term Investments in Energy Assets under Uncertainty," Energies, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-31, September.
    5. Guedes, José & Santos, Pedro, 2016. "Valuing an offshore oil exploration and production project through real options analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 377-386.
    6. Bühler, Wolfgang & Korn, Olaf, 1998. "Hedging langfristiger Lieferverpflichtungen mit kurzfristigen Futures: möglich oder unmöglich?," ZEW Discussion Papers 98-20, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Bai, Yizhou & Xue, Cheng, 2021. "An empirical study on the regulated Chinese agricultural commodity futures market based on skew Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    8. Moreno, Manuel & Novales, Alfonso & Platania, Federico, 2019. "Long-term swings and seasonality in energy markets," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 279(3), pages 1011-1023.
    9. Nguyen, Duc Binh Benno & Prokopczuk, Marcel, 2019. "Jumps in commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 55-70.
    10. Marcelo G. Figueroa, 2006. "Pricing Multiple Interruptible-Swing Contracts," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 0606, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    11. Abdullah Almansour and Margaret Insley, 2016. "The Impact of Stochastic Extraction Cost on the Value of an Exhaustible Resource: An Application to the Alberta Oil Sands," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    12. Abadie, Luis M. & Chamorro, José M., 2008. "Valuing flexibility: The case of an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 1850-1881, July.
    13. Noori, Mohammad & Hitaj, Asmerilda, 2023. "Dissecting hedge funds' strategies," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    14. Dai, R., 2010. "Essays on pension finance and dynamic asset allocation," Other publications TiSEM 72fdbf1a-5a77-410d-bb4e-9, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    15. Chen, Shan & Insley, Margaret, 2012. "Regime switching in stochastic models of commodity prices: An application to an optimal tree harvesting problem," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 201-219.
    16. Andreea Nicoleta Donici & Alexandra Diaconu, 2010. "The Economic – Financial Crisis 2007 – 2009," CES Working Papers, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 2(3), pages 17-26, September.
    17. Mount, Timothy D. & Ning, Yumei & Cai, Xiaobin, 2006. "Predicting price spikes in electricity markets using a regime-switching model with time-varying parameters," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 62-80, January.
    18. Seiji Harikae & James S. Dyer & Tianyang Wang, 2021. "Valuing Real Options in the Volatile Real World," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(1), pages 171-189, January.
    19. Björn Lutz, 2010. "Pricing of Derivatives on Mean-Reverting Assets," Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, Springer, number 978-3-642-02909-7, December.
    20. Christian Gouriéroux & Joann Jasiak & Peng Xu, 2013. "Non-tradable S&P 500 Index and the Pricing of Its Traded Derivatives," Working Papers 2013-05, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stocks; shares; securities; contracts for difference; CFD; spread betting; binary options; forex; forbin; scam; fraud; boiler room; bucket shop.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G2 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • G28 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law
    • K22 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Business and Securities Law
    • K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:105580. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.