GFTUK Spread Betting Platform Reviewed

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Good Points

Offer competitive quotes on UK, European and US stocks. I would rate their dealing software as one of the best around with a quote and chart package to rival that of a paid service. You can apply online for a £50 000 demo account and the prices that you see are real and live (and unlike some other companies the demo account doesn't expire).
GFT has reduced spreads on many of its currency pairs with the EUR/USD, EUR/GBP, USD/JPY and EUR/CHF quoted as low as one-pip wide. The new pricing applies to spot forex as well as forex CFDs and spread bets.
GFT are now offering one point spreads on the FTSE, DAX and CAC. This is on their rolling cash and it doesn't look as though there's any size restriction...
Can deposit by credit card or BACS. Credit card deposits do not incur a fee up till £5000. You can have the account in a number of base currencies -: AUD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, PLN or USD.
The screen layout of the DealBook 360 desktop platform is fully customisable meaning that you can save your favourite templates so you are ready to trade as soon as you access your account and don't have to lose time loading your custom settings.
But the really nice nice thing about the dealing platform is that it offers a wide array of methods to enter your orders. You can use a simple market order which can involve slippage in a fast market - they simply fill you the moment that your order is received. Because fills are more or less instant the slippage doesn't appear that bad. I got slipped 4 ticks on the Dow last week when I tried a quick exit on a pretty sharp move. You can create what is effectively a market limit order by limiting the maximum slippage on your market order (this is a fill or kill type of order where the order is cancelled if the market has moved beyond your specified limit of slippage). After being slipped of the Dow I have set my default slippage to zero - this means that if the screen price is not there then I won't get filled. I am using this account for position trading on UK and US stocks so slippage is rarely a problem anyway.
Another key point is that they offer 'trailing stops' on all their products including stocks. I know this has been asked for lots before by users of other platforms - I've yet to use it because my trading style doesn't demand it but I can imagine that FX users might find such a tool to be of use. Hopefully GFT will be a catalyst for other spread betting providers to implement trailing stops. In fact GFT and IG Index are the only spread betting providers offering trailing stops at the moment stops as far as I am aware
Dealbook is possibly one the better free charting platform out there with more than 80 analysis tools (some of which I have never heard about). Timeframes on charts can be set from anything between a tick to a year and there are 8 different chart types. You can adjust your pending orders straight from the graph, by dragging them up or down. You also get a program called chart studio which allows you to make your own indicators.
GFT offers clients an automated risk-notification system which alerts clients when their account equity reaches 75% of their IM requirement, and again at 50%.
You can place orders by clicking directly on the relevant price chart, quite a handy feature for technical analysts. Just right click and enter an order at the prevailing market price or place a stop or limit order. The positions of these points are then shown by horizontal lines on the chart. You can even move your stop and limit orders by dragging the line to a new price level.