I am very new to Spread Betting and therefore just getting a handle on it. Does anyone have any Exit strategies, indicators, techniques or any good tip on where to close a bet?

This is a hard question to answer and to be honest there probably isn't a right or wrong answer. The place you should be looking for the answer to "when to exit" is your strategy, but by the comment and that fact that you are new I'm guessing you don't have one. If you take a look at my strategy development page it will give you some kind of idea of what you should be including in a strategy if you want to try an develop your own of course.

If you already have a strategy in place for entering the trade but are looking for better exits then it really depends on your entry strategy.

If your just after an exit strategy then here are a few to help you out.
Risk/Reward ratio exit.
If you know what your initial risk is(distance between entry and stop level) then you could aim for a ratio of that risk as your reward say 1:3 risk reward. Therefore if you risk £10 on a trade you would look to make £30. This would give you an exit price and is a good strategy to use. I would suggest aiming for a minimum of 1:3 though as this means you can get 70% of your trades wrong and still make money.

If like me you don't like to cut your winners short with a risk reward ratio you could use a trailing stop exit. Therefore as the position moves into profit you move up you stop inline with it locking in profit along the way. It's important to note that you should only ever move your stop in your favour. Never move a stop back the other way. To trail this stop you could trail at some % of price away from the current price or use an ATR trailing stop or something else it's really your choice.

You could also use moving averages and exit when price crosses said moving average.

I'm sure by now you've realised that the question you asked really raises more questions than answers. I would suggest having a read through my strategy section & some of the beginners guide and possibly some of my technical analysis section(although I need to add way more to this).

Sorry I can't be more help. If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

_________________
May the markets be with you!

Harry,
The Spread betting beginner

thank you so much for the pointers, they are exactly what I was looking for as a guide and fuel for thought and learning. I will let you know how I am getting on as I have only been trading now for 3 weeks. By the bye I am finding this site gives great understandable help for the total beginner.

NWR

Thanks for the compliment nwr, let me know if you need any more pointers.

Also if you think there is something missing from the site please do let me know as I will add it to my list of things to add. Not sure when I'll get the time to add it but I'll get to it eventually.

Thanks again.

_________________
May the markets be with you!

Harry,
The Spread betting beginner

Another thing to consider with exit strategies is what sort of profile of winners to losers you are expecting with the strategy. For example if your strategy comes up with 60% winners and 40% losers you can make a very good profit if you set a limit order at the same distance as the stop loss order. However if your strategy only comes up with 30% winners, but when they do come up they can be 10 baggers you will make huge loss putting a limit order at the same distance as the stop loss. In the second case you must run the winner when it occurs (probably by a trailing stop loss) in order to compensate for the expected losers. So risk reward ratios do depend on the type of strategy. For example Bollingerband Breakout strategies often fail but can be rewarding when they do take off. Support and resistance type strategies can often be quite reliable but are very rarely ten baggers.