Hi guys, I used to work in quant but I've been away doing my PhD for a while.I'd like to do some trading on my own though. In particular, I'd like to short a couple of tech companies and hedge it by buying some Nasdaq index.Anyone know any good brokers who can do this for me? Just small scale, a couple of grand max, just for fun.Or should I do it with spread betting instead? Isn't that just a big ripoff where the bookies take everyone's money?(Not used to actually having to set up trades like this, I used to just generate a big CSV file of trades and email it to our company brokers every day!)thanks

Are you interested in using a US broker?I've gotten good execution from Interactive Brokers and Fidelity Active Trader, and I'm sure many of the other ones will also give you very good execution. You can sell short by pushing a button, or do a synthetic short with options. Depending on the tech names, the synthetic might be easier than trying to borrow the stock, but the Q's are the easy part of your trade.

I'm in the UK, would rather use someone here if possible -- not sure what the deal is setting up a US account. Having said that they're all US companies though. What's the deal with synthenetic shorting? Is that like an equivilent basket to selling short? What are the pros/cons of it compared to regular shorting?

A synthetic short, in its simplest form, involves buying a put and selling a naked call.Pros: No uptick rule, possibly lower margin requirements, possibly better effective borrow/margin rates than from a retail broker, ability to take off only half of the trade later (you can buy back the call or sell the put without trading the other), lock-in of dividend/borrow/interest rates, and using quantos or certain other exotics can let you short without taking FX risk.Cons: Commissions and trading costs may be a bit higher since you are trading two options instead of shorting one stock, and may have to roll this position over if your trade carries past the options' expiry. You are also taking term structure risk on the rates you have locked in, which are usually not that significant, but can be at times.

in europe banks also sell short certificates on single underlying, baskets and index

if you dont need to do big size, and you will take a view longer then 3 months I would suggest a spreadbetting service.Cantor or igindex , you will not pay tax , given it doesnt sound like you will be doing high frequency trades the wider bid -offer spread might not be such an obstacle.

Quite a few places will let you trade CFD's now. This has got to be the easiest way of doing it. see: http://www.iii.co.uk/cfd/ and http://www.iii.co.uk/cfd/?type=intro

Do what exotiq says: Interactive Brokers is an international firm, and they have lots of European accounts, so they will gladly open an account for you. They accept G7 currencies, so you can deposit GBP in your account to start trading. But if you want to convert into USD, you can do that too.See www.interactivebrokers.com