Been a bit late picking up on this thread, but here goes anyway ...
I find it interesting that you are so disparaging (esp. Girlpower) about spreadbetting.
Right from the off, I'll make it clear I have nothing to do with the industry - I'm a full-time UK trader who happens to make the majority of my trades via spreadbets.
Looking back over my book last year, I made around 600 trades - so probably not a huge amount compared to the majority of traders here. These trades were across a variety of markets - gold, equities, indices, currencies. My total costs - INCLUDING the entire bid/offer spread, financing charges, margin interest etc. - represented 0.18% of my turnover.
The point is that the advantage of not paying 40% capital gains tax can easily outweigh marginal improvements in bid/offer spreads. If I am shooting to pick up a 300pt movement on the Dow, then paying 3pts more to take the postion thus saving myself 120pts worth of tax seems to be fairly logical.
Anyone else out there UK based and using spreadbetting ?