Why trade index CFDs with CMC Markets?
Our lowest ever index CFD spreads
Starting from just 0.7pts on the major indices, like the UK 100, US 30 and Germany 30, our index CFD spreads are extremely competitive, regardless of your trade size. In fact, we believe that CMC Markets offers some of the most competitive spreads on index CFDs in the market. Competitive index CFD spreads are important because the tighter the quoted spread, the less the market has to move in your favour before your trade becomes profitable.
Remember that losses can exceed your initial deposit, so ensure you understand the risks.
You can compare our competitive spreads at any time via our live spread charts on our platform.Click here to compare our spreads.
Our lowest ever index CFD margins
With CMC Markets you can now trade from just 0.25% minimum margin requirement (400:1 leverage) across our major indices. For example, with $100 as initial margin, you could open up a much larger $40,000 index CFD trading position, using our minimum margin requirement. You should remember that when you trade using leverage your losses can be greater too.
When using margin, losses can exceed the initial amount deposited (margin) to open the position. In volatile market conditions using lower margin levels can result in your position being closed out much quicker (as only a small movement is required) where the market moves against you, so it is important to ensure you monitor your positions carefully to ensure you’ve deposited enough funds to keep your account value above close out level.
Customisable leverage
You now have the option to choose your own margin requirements for each and every trade, which can help you manage risk and financing costs. From a financing perspective, if you decided to fund 50% of the trade and use 50% margin you would only pay financing costs on your net borrowings (in this case, 50% of the total trade).
Typically, most index CFDs have fixed margin requirements, which means you have to pay financing on the total position size regardless of your margin. At CMC Markets we believe customisable leverage (the ability to de-leverage your position) is a cost-effective way for customers to manage their financing costs.
By using customisable leverage, you can control your risk and financing during volatile markets to try and avoid a quick liquidation of your positions if they move against you.
Fractional trading means no minimum trade sizes
Our CMC Tracker platform allows us to offer you the unique ability to trade index CFDs at a fraction of any amount. This effectively means that you are now no longer limited to trading in whole units when trading index CFDs.
If you were to trade the Australia 200 with a traditional CFD provider you would have to take out a minimum trade size of one CFD. With CMC Markets you can take out as little as 1/10,000th of a CFD (called a unit), so you can let the amount you want to put down determine your trade size, instead of the other way around And remember there is no minimum effective commission* charge so you can do whatever trade size you feel comfortable with and you just pay for what you have bought.
* Effective commissions built into the spread.
Extra quote precision for full transparency
With precision pricing you can expect a higher level of pricing accuracy; in some cases our prices are as precise as 100th of a point. By launching precision pricing we are offering you a higher level of execution through pricing accuracy.
With CMC Markets, you will see index CFD prices quoted up to 2 decimal places, so there will be no price rounding. By offering this level of price precision you have a greater transparency on our market prices. We are so confident in our pricing structure that, if you view charts for the index CFDs you want to trade, you will see a real-time tick data chart of our dealing spreads throughout the day.
Transaction based stop loss
Whenever you open a trade our CMC Tracker platform will automatically suggest a stop loss based on the margin requirement for your trade (this feature can be disabled in the Preferences section of the platform). This will be done every time you trade if transaction based stop loss is enabled. If you customise your margin the stop loss will be aligned to your new margin requirements automatically.
You can also have the platform automatically suggest a take profit order at a percentage of the market price. So if the stop loss is set at 5% you could have the take profit level automatically set at 10% to create a 2 to 1 risk-to-reward ratio. You can enable this feature in Preferences.