Can you lose more than you invest in a CFD?

Yes. As CFD trading involves trading on margin, there is the possibility that you could lose more than your initial deposit, should markets move against you. If your account equity falls below the required maintenance margin to hold your positions, you'll be placed on margin call. If the equity on your account drops below 50% of your margin requirement, we will automatically close one or more of your open positions to prevent you from incurring further losses. However, we don’t recommend relying on margin calls for your risk management. You can actively monitor your positions, plus use stops and guaranteed stops to cap your risk before you get close to a margin call. Our proprietary trading platforms come with a margin indicator which is designed to make monitoring your margin level easy. Learn more about risk management .

Can I vote if I trade a CFD?

No, if you trade a CFD in a company then you won’t get voting rights. A share CFD is a derivative of a stock. Because you don’t actually own the underlying asset, you won’t get voting rights – you only get them if you invest.

Is it better to trade shares CFDs or shares?

Both products and market access have unique features and benefits, and your circumstances and goals are equally individual. Perhaps using the points raised in this article will assist your decision making.

CFDs vs share dealing

CFD trading and investing are two popular methods of getting involved in financial markets. Let’s examine the difference between share dealing and CFDs, as well as which you should choose.

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What’s the difference between CFDs and investing?
Benefits of CFDs
How to start CFD trading
Benefits of investing
CFD vs investing example
Which is best for me?

What’s the difference between CFDs and investing?

CFDs and investing are two separate ways to take a position on a market’s price movements. On the surface, that makes them seem similar – but they work in very different ways. Because unlike investing, with CFD trading you don’t ever own the asset you’re trading.

How investing works	How CFDs work
When you invest in a market (such as a stock), you usually buy it and add it to your portfolio. Then, when the time comes to close your position you sell it on and collect the difference in its price as profit – unless you have to sell it for a loss.	When you trade a market via CFDs, you don’t buy it and add it to your portfolio. Instead, you buy a contract for difference (CFD). This is a type of financial product that tracks the live price of a specific financial asset, such as a stock, index or forex pair. When you close your position, you’ll exchange the difference in the asset’s price with your provider. If it’s gone up, you’ll earn a profit. If it’s fallen, you’ll earn a loss. Learn more about CFDs.

How investing works

How CFDs work

When you invest in a market (such as a stock), you usually buy it and add it to your portfolio.

Then, when the time comes to close your position you sell it on and collect the difference in its price as profit – unless you have to sell it for a loss.

When you trade a market via CFDs, you don’t buy it and add it to your portfolio. Instead, you buy a contract for difference (CFD). This is a type of financial product that tracks the live price of a specific financial asset, such as a stock, index or forex pair.

When you close your position, you’ll exchange the difference in the asset’s price with your provider. If it’s gone up, you’ll earn a profit. If it’s fallen, you’ll earn a loss.

Learn more about CFDs.

See how CFD trading works first hand The best way to get to grips with CFD trading is with a free risk-free demo account. These work just like live trading accounts, but all the money is virtual – so you can learn the ropes without risking any funds. All you need is an email address. Get your demo account here.

Benefits of CFD trading

Let’s take a look at three major benefits of CFD trading: leverage, going short and the range of markets available.

Leverage

When you buy a CFD, you don’t necessarily have to pay for the full price of your position upfront.

For example, buying 50 Apple CFDs gives you the same exposure as buying 50 Apple shares. But because you never own the underlying asset with CFDs, you can access some useful benefits for active traders.

Let’s return to our Apple example above. If Apple is trading at $150, then buying 50 shares would cost $7,500. With investing, you’ll need to pay that full $7,500 to buy the shares. With CFDs, you might only need 10% of your position’s price in your account – in this instance, $750.

Despite only putting down 10% of your position’s total value, your profit or loss is still based on its full size. So you can earn 100% of a transaction’s gains – or losses.

Going short

So far, we’ve only looked at going long by buying markets with CFDs. But because you don’t own the underlying asset, you’re not limited to long positions with contracts for difference. You can go short by selling a market at the outset instead.

Shorting gives you a position that will profit if the underlying asset price falls instead of rising. It can be a useful method of targeting returns in bearish conditions.

It is technically possible to go short when share dealing. But for most investors, it’s a complex process that involves borrowing and reselling stocks. With CFDs, the process is the same as going long – you just choose ‘sell’ instead of ‘buy’.

What can I trade?

With share dealing, you can only access a narrow range of asset classes: typically shares and ETFs.

With CFDs, on the other hand, you can deal in a vast range of markets: forex, commodities, stock indices, shares, ETFs and more. For example, FOREX.com offers over 6000 global CFD markets. Using a single platform and account, you can take your position on Amazon, Wall Street, gold and much more.

To see our full range of markets – and trade them risk free – open a demo account.

How to start CFD trading

Follow these five steps to start trading CFDs with FOREX.com today:

Open a live account to trade CFDs with real funds, or a demo account to develop your skills with virtual capital
Add funds using debit or credit card, PayNow or bank transfer
Choose a market from the 1000s available
Buy (go long) if you think your market’s price will rise or sell (go short) if you believe it will fall
Execute your trade, remembering to use stops and limits to control your risk

Benefits of trading shares vs shares CFDs

CFDs are a powerful tool, but they aren’t for everyone. Let’s take a look at some key benefits of investing over CFD trading.

Lower risk

When you trade on leverage, you’re essentially amplifying your exposure without committing extra capital. While this has the potential to increase your profits, it will also increase your losses, which makes CFD trading riskier than investing – although you can limit your risk with stop losses and take profits.

No overnight financing

When you keep a long CFD position open overnight, you’ll pay interest on the leverage you’ve used. So for long-term positions, investing can be more cost effective.

CFDs are often popular with active traders who might only keep positions open for hours or days. Investors, on the other hand, are mostly more passive.

Shares CFDs vs Shares trading example

The easiest way to understand the difference between CFDs and share dealing is with an example.

Let’s say ABC plc is trading with a sell/buy price of $1.30/$1.32, and you want to open a long position.

Trading ABC CFDs	Investing in ABC shares
You decide to buy 1000 ABC CFDs because you think the company’s price will rise. The CFD for ABC has a margin rate of 10%, which means you need 10% of the position’s total value in your account to open the trade. 1,000 x 1.32 is $1,320, so your margin is $132. ABC stock rises to a sell/buy price of $1.37/$1.39. You close your position by selling at $1.37 (the new sell price). ABC has moved 5 points ($1.32 to $1.37) in your favour. Multiplied by your position’s size (1,000 units), your gross profit is $50. You’d pay commission to open and close the trade, which would lower your total profit. If ABC had fallen 5 points to a sell price of $1.27, you’d have lost $50 (plus commission).	You buy 1000 ABC shares with share dealing. You’re investing, so you need to buy the shares outright. To buy 1,000 shares in company ABC, you’d need $1,320. If ABC hits $1.37/$1.39, then you can sell your shares for $1,370, earning you a $50 gross profit. Again, your total profit would be $50 minus any commissions or broker fees. If ABC had fallen five points you’d lose $50.

Trading ABC CFDs

Investing in ABC shares

You decide to buy 1000 ABC CFDs because you think the company’s price will rise.

The CFD for ABC has a margin rate of 10%, which means you need 10% of the position’s total value in your account to open the trade. 1,000 x 1.32 is $1,320, so your margin is $132.

ABC stock rises to a sell/buy price of $1.37/$1.39. You close your position by selling at $1.37 (the new sell price).

ABC has moved 5 points ($1.32 to $1.37) in your favour. Multiplied by your position’s size (1,000 units), your gross profit is $50. You’d pay commission to open and close the trade, which would lower your total profit.

If ABC had fallen 5 points to a sell price of $1.27, you’d have lost $50 (plus commission).

You buy 1000 ABC shares with share dealing.

You’re investing, so you need to buy the shares outright. To buy 1,000 shares in company ABC, you’d need $1,320.

If ABC hits $1.37/$1.39, then you can sell your shares for $1,370, earning you a $50 gross profit.

Again, your total profit would be $50 minus any commissions or broker fees.

If ABC had fallen five points you’d lose $50.

Now we know the benefits of both products, you should be able to choose which you want to get started with. To help you out, here’s a quick recap:

CFDs might be for you if you want:	Share dealing might be for you if you:
Access to over 6000+ markets, including forex, commodities, indices, shares and more To trade on leverage The option to go short as well as long	Are happy sticking to global stocks and ETFs Are comfortable committing to the full value of the position upfront Want to take ownership of the asset

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