Straddling with my spreadbet account

Not sure i'v grasped the idea of straggling news completely so please let me know if i'm wrong.

Basically as i understand it you put an order to buy if the price reaches a certain point, and/or an order to sell when it drops to a certain point. As i'm using a spreadbetting account i pet per pip and based on these screenshots i'm just wondering if this is how it would be done.

http://i14.tinypic.com/4yuhk7s.jpg

This is the order screen, and this is the order i created with seperate orders to BUY at 2.0325 and SELL at 2.0302

http://i19.tinypic.com/63r592f.jpg

Please let me know if this looks correct!

Ive just had a look on the trading platform and that does seem to be how to set orders either side the market
You will have to click on both if done buttons to set stop losses for both potential trades

Keep in mind the price can move unpredictably around news releases and if your straddle is too close can hit one price then reverse..take out your stop then carry on past the now cancelled order
Bit upsetting really
Keep your bets to 50p until you get used to this
All the best in your trading

Trading the news can be profitable and it also can be a killer. Here are a couple of things to consider when trading the news:

1) the momentum of price can depend on the difference b/ expected and actual
2) when multiple data is released at the same time price can whipsaw
3) on more intensely anticipated data price spreads can go very wide
4) sometimes price can gap so getting into the momentum can be harder than you might think
5) setting stops - wow, what can I say about this. this requires a little ebook to answer this question
6) sometimes entering a half hour or more before the news may be a worthwhile strategy.
7) sometimes the speculators are looking mostly for a peice of data inside a ecomonic report and not the headline number
8) some brokers purposefully slow the execution of their platform to discourage news traders
9) stradding can be done profitably but you need to have a well defined strategy that takes spreads, whipsaws, stops and take profits into account.
10) know where you want to set you take profit. this may be difference from one news event to the next
11) splitting your lots may be a way to take an initial profit and let the other trade run for larger profit
12) keep in mind that some brokers have specific rules against scalping the news.

Hope this helps. Some of my best trades have been trading the news, but you need to be prepared by reading everything you can about the data before it comes so you can get a sense of what it will do. I've lost money on the news also. Practice your strategies on demo first.

KudzuFx
Glad you posted details of some of the pitfalls
Better than my "its a bit dodgy" post

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated - i did attempt to trade the news yesterday however the news seemed to have little effect so i'll practise this week.

Tuna, could You tell me if spread is widening during news (on spreadbeting acc) ?

Andrew