Financial Spread Betting Words: F-I

Fill or filled - A completed order as in 'that order is filled, Sir'. More information on spread bet orders Click here

Fixed Income - Bond market spread bets. Click here for further details on Bond spread bets

Flat - Having no position (short or long).

Front Month - The nearest month to the expiry date. More information on the different spread bet months Click Here

FX - Foreign Exchange. For further information on foreign Exchange spread betting click here

Gearing - If a trader buys £1000 of Barclays stock in the cash market and it rises by 10%, his profit will be £100. But if he buys the same position using a spread bet he may only have to put up a deposit of £100, if the stock moves 10% higher his profit on capital invested will be £100 or 100%, this is gearing.

Gilt - UK bonds are called Gilt Edged Securities, or Gilts for short. More on Bond bets Click Here

GTC - An order to buy or sell a spread bet that remains operative until the order is executed or cancelled. More details on GTC spread bet orders click here

Guaranteed Stop Loss - With a traditional stop loss a spread betting client may suffer from slippage, but a guaranteed stop is always filled at the price the order was given at, and for this privilege there is a small charge to pay. More on guaranteed stop losses Click Here

Hedging - Minimising risk by being simultaneously long and short. Perhaps someone is long £50,000 of stock in the cash market and wants to protect this from potential downside risk. To hedge he would sell £50,000 of futures or spread bets, and if the market did go lower any loss on the stock positions would be offset by profits on the short position. Click Here for further information on using spread bets to hedge

Illiquid - A market that doesn't have much volume, usually characterised by a wide bid-offer spreads. They are therefore usually expensive to trade

Indication price - A quote that is not a firm dealing price. Perhaps a client has a spread bet position in the FTSE but only wants to check a price without dealing.

Initial margin - Also called Notional Trading Amount or Deposit Factor. The amount of cash money or credit that is needed to trade a spread bet. For example if the initial margin was 300 on the FTSE 100 and a spread betting client wanted to buy the bet risking £1 a point, the trader would have to have £300 in his account or access to credit. More on betting margin Click Here