Hays is a British company headquartered in London, which now concentrates on providing recruitment and human resources solutions. This is a fairly stable business, but you can still see spread betting cyclical opportunities in the daily chart below.
The original Hays company started in 1867, and was an operator of warehouses on the River Thames. However, the name precedes that, and is attributed to Alexander Hay who started a brewery in the same location in the 17th century. It was redeveloped as a dock in 1856 and named Hay’s Wharf. It has recently been converted to a shopping and restaurant area, renamed to Hay’s Galleria.
The company was bought by the Kuwait Investment Authority in 1980 in order to get the property. Hays took over Farmhouse Securities, a food distributor, to get the management team, and with that came a move into office support services. Hays also took over Career Care Group, a personnel business.
In 1987 a management buyout was completed, and the company went public in 1989 on the London Stock Exchange. There was a policy decision made in 2003 to concentrate on being a specialist recruitment business, and all other sectors were sold off.
Now Hays works in 33 countries, including the UK, Europe, and Asia-Pacific Regions. It places both permanent and temporary staff, and sees a fairly steady flow of business as a consequence. This is reflected in the daily price chart above.
While Hays is trending up and down, it presents a reasonable length of trend for spread betting. Looking at the chart, it seems that trends last for two or three weeks, which is ample time for making a trade and taking a profit. When spread betting on the company, you should research other technical indicators to see which ones will work better on this stock, as the MACD seems to lag some of the price movement.
Hays Rolling Daily: How to Spread Bet on Hays Shares?
Hays is a specialist recruitment agency with an income of about £100 million per year, and employing nearly 8000 people. If you think the share price is going up, you could place a long bet on the stock, and the current price is 83.74 – 84.16 for a rolling daily bet. Suppose you stake £30 per point.
It may be that the price goes up, as you had hoped, and you are able to close your trade and collect your winnings when the price is quoted at 92.04 – 92.46. How much you won depends on the number of points you made, so first you must take the opening price of 84.16 away from the closing price of 92.04. This gives you 7.88 points. You chose a stake of £30 per point. That means that you have gained 7.88 times £30, which is £236.40.
On the other hand, the price may go down after you place your bet, and you must choose when to close your trade and accept your losses so they do not become too large. Perhaps you would close your trade when the quote is 78.76 – 79.18. The opening price was 84.16. The closing price is 78.76. That means you have lost 84.16 minus 78.76 points, which is 5.40 points. Multiplying this by £30, your total loss is £162.
It can be a good idea to take out a stop loss on your spread bets. That way your spread betting provider is obligated to close a losing trade for you, once it reaches a price level that you have set in advance. This means you do not have to be glued to the screen, watching the prices all day long. Say the stop loss closed the bet for you when the price was 81.25 – 81.67. The closing price would be 81.25, and taking that away from 84.16 you find that you have lost 2.91 points. For your chosen size of stake, that amounts to £87.30.
Hays Quarterly Futures
With a daily rolling long bet, you may find there have been some charges made to your account each evening when the bet was rolled over. While these are usually not large, it depends how long you hold onto the bet, so if you believe that you may be holding the bet open for a month or more then a futures style bet can work out more economically. The current quotation for the far quarter futures on Hays is 84.05 – 85.06. Perhaps you would choose to stake £20 per point on a long bet at 85.06.
In time, you may see the price rise to 96.50 – 97.51 and decide to collect your profits. The bet was made at 85.06, and you closed the bet at 96.50. Taking 85.06 away from 96.50, you find you have gained 11.44 points. Your stake is £20 per point. This means that you have gained a total of £228.80 on this bet.
If the price falls, you might choose to accept your loss and exit the position when the quote is 79.07 – 80.08. 85.06-79.07 is 5.99 points, so you have lost 5.99 times £20 which is £119.80.
Once again, the stop loss order can be very useful, particularly if you do not want to be watching the market all day long. With a stop loss order, you might find the bet closing for you at 81.56 – 82.57. Your bet was placed at the price of 85.06, as before, and this time it was closed at 81.56, which is a loss of 3.50 points. With a £20 stake, your losses amount to £70.
It is important to note that even with a futures style bet, you are at liberty to close your spread trade at any time, whether to take your profit or to prevent further losses.