I’ve noticed that the Open/High/Low/Close prices quoted by spread bet firms differ from other market sources…
For example for today, 21st Feb, Hargreaves & Yahoo show OHLC for RRS.L as
7160,7175,7041,7135
but IG Index show for RRS.L DFB
7135,7180,7080,7135
I’m aware that spread betting providers set their own prices and it’s our choice whether to take them or not, but I am surprised that they differ so markedly (in this case for the day’s low) from the “real” market. Any comments/thoughts/explanation would be greatly appreciated.
Checking the London Stock Exchange trade data for RRS.L for the 21st there was a single trade at 7041 classified as a “negotiated trade” i.e. it would have likely been transacted between two private parties and done away from the London stock exchange and simply reported to the LSE later.
Disregarding that trade the next lowest trade on the 21st was an AT (normal) type trade at the level of 70.85 at 12.19. IG Index‘s prices would include their spread of approx 0.08% (8 basis points) which would account for about 5-6 pence, making their lowest quoted bid price on the day as 70.85-0.05 = 70.80 which is correctly what they report.
The thing to realise is that often the high or low of the day reported for a share on the London Stock Echange is a single trade/print and would not have been a price you could have expected to obtain even if you had direct market access.
If you need to understand the intraday trades /prices/bid and ask prices etc quotes for a share to aid your spreadbetting, than I suggest a program such as Sharescope with intraday data (even if you only pay for the delayed data version) would be useful to you..