Free Level 2

As a First Spreads client you will gain the edge over many other spread betting traders by having this information provided to you free of charge** (worth £220 per annum)

Serious investors are already harnessing the advantages that Level 2 market data provides and now you can too by becoming a First Spreads client. That's because Level 2 market data is the perfect way to benefit from enhanced levels of in-depth market knowledge.

Level 2 can provide a valuable insight into a stock's price action. It can tell you what type of traders are buying or selling a stock, where the stock is likely to head in the near term, what market makers are doing and much more.

Level 2 is essentially the order book for larger caps stocks showing you what buy and sell orders are in the market waiting to be filled electronically. For the small cap stocks you can see the individual market makers quotes and where they are moving their prices.

**As a client of First Spreads you will receive free access to UK Level 2 for your first month. To continue to receive Level 2 for free, you must open 10 new trades in a calendar month thereafter. Please note that the free access is based on your trading in the previous month, e.g. if you placed 10 or more opening trades in December, you would receive free Level 2 access in January

What is Level 2

Level 2 Sets

SETS is the London Stock Exchange's flagship electronic order book, trading FTSE100, FTSE250 and the FTSE Small Cap Index constituents as well as other liquid securities. The SETS order book matches buy and sell orders on a price/time priority.

The basis of SETS is that it directly matches willing buyers and sellers, creating efficiency in the markets by doing away with the intermediary or the market maker. This efficiency is true while the SETS system is populated by the most liquid and heavily traded stocks, but if matched bargains operate on less liquid stocks, waiting for a buyer to match with a seller could take hours, days or weeks. Because of the efficiency of the SETS system stocks traded tend to have narrow spreads so the cost of entry and exit from a position is much smaller.

Level 2 SEAQ

Level 2 SEAQ provides real-time access to the quotations of individual market makers registered in every LSE SEAQ stock as well as the offering or bidding sizes that they will trade up to. This level of access gives the name of the market makers looking to trade the stock, and allows traders to see which ones are showing the most interest in a stock and identify the patterns for each one.

Market makers provide continuous bid and offer prices for each of the stocks they have on their 'books'. There can be as few as one or as many as 20 (or more) for a particular stock depending on the average daily volume; the more actively traded a stock is, the more attractive it is for them to deal in.

The market makers play an important rose as catalysts, particularly for enhancing stock liquidity and thus generally for promoting long-term growth in the market.

They must maintain this continuous two-sided quote (bid and offer) at normal market size or greater at all times. This ensures that there is a buyer for the sell order and a seller for the buy order at any time.