[froggy]

I've been spread betting for the last 15 months and one thing I've learned is not to use too much margin. For quite a while I kept my net "Trading resources" balance ( (cash) minus (open profit or loss) minus (margin requirement) ) to around 10 to 20 percent of my net overall balance ((cash) minus (open profit or loss) ). I found that when markets went against me, I was ending some stock trades at time I'd rather not, in order to free up the margin.

Currently I'm aiming for keeping a 30 to 40% ratio of "Trading resources" to "net overall balance ".

If trading stocks, especially in the current markets, you may want to aim for an equal(ish) ratio of up bets to down bets too.

Hope this makes sense and helps.