How to trade CFDs

After registering for an account, you will be able to set up your customisable platform. Choose between a dark or light theme and whether you would like a fixed or floating layout. A fixed layout is a good option for new traders, while more experienced traders may want to adapt their platform to their preferences with floating modules. You can also select asset classes that interest you in order to receive personalised CFD trading suggestions.

We offer a wide range of instruments within various financial markets. You can trade CFDs on 300+ forex pairs, which is the highest number in the industry, as well as 10,000+ shares and ETFs. Please note that equity CFDs can only be traded with a live account, and this also grants you access to live market data and Morningstar equity reports.

We have created a new collection of share basket CFDs, which are custom portfolios of stocks chosen by our market analysts based on current trends. Among these are Big Tech, Renewable Energy and 5G stock baskets. Basket trading allows you to diversify your portfolio and it helps to offset risk of investing in a singular stock, and they also come with lower holding costs and zero commission fees. Learn more about our bespoke share baskets that are exclusive to CMC Markets.

You are able to filter products in the platform by Type (market), Sub Type (industry or sector), Region and Country. The product library also contains a topical section, which contains instruments that have increased notably in momentum or experienced major price swings over a set time period. This helps you to choose assets that are particularly suited for short-term trades without having to study price charts beforehand, if you are lacking in time. Our popular 'Hot Products’ tool is explained in more detail here.

Once you have selected the instrument that you want to trade, you can place a buy or sell CFD order directly from its trading chart, as shown below. Alternatively, you can place a trade through your watchlist or any open position that you have on your account.

Select the type of buy or sell order that you prefer. Market orders aim to execute the trade immediately at the best available price, whereas limit orders​ allow you to specify the price at which you would like the trade to be executed, ensuring that you do not spend over your limit. You can also add execution tools at this point, such as stop-loss and take-profit orders, as part of your risk management strategy.

Once you have placed a buy or sell order, you will be able to monitor your CFD positions at the bottom of the screen. These tabs include open positions, upcoming orders that are due to be carried out, any price alerts that you have set for a particular asset, and your trading history. You can also access these tabs through the ‘Account’ section of the navigation bar.

We offer a number of platform features and trading tools that you can use to your advantage. These cover aspects of both fundamental analysis and technical analysis for CFD trading. You can access these through the ‘News & Analysis’ tab on the navigation bar or through the charts directly.

Firstly, you can create and customise your own watchlists, which are essentially a collection of your favourite products to monitor in one place. You can also trade on our pre-existing watchlists, including the most popular products on our platform.

Secondly, our client sentiment tool helps to identify market sentiment and gives you an insight into how other investors are using the platform. This information is updated every minute, so it will always show live data. It can be useful to know whether other traders are choosing to go long or short on a particular asset, which is shown on a basic demo account. A live account goes even further, revealing the trader’s position value and whether the market you are looking to trade is in a bullish or bearish phase, so you can plan your trades accordingly.

Traders often use technical indicators and apply drawing tools to their price charts, especially when practising short-term CFD trading strategies. Below is an example of the range of technical indicators​​ and drawing tools that we offer on Next Generation. These include popular indicators that are found on most trading platforms, such as Bollinger Bands, RSI and moving averages, as well as our own momentum indicator, price projection boxes, buy and sell arrows and trendlines.

When you place a buy or sell order, you also have the chance to add order execution tools to the trade, such as stop-loss or take-profit orders. Remember, trading CFDs with leverage on our platform comes with a high level of risk, so traders often use stop-loss orders​​ to prevent as much loss of capital as possible. Stop-losses are not always guaranteed to work, which is why we offer a variety of execution tools that may suit your trading strategy better. You can amend your order settings in the ‘Settings’ tab in the navigation bar for future use and these will be remembered by the system.

Our award-winning CFD trading app is a useful method of trading when you are on-the-go. It is designed to work on both iOS and Android software, which also applies to tablet devices, which we have optimised over the years for user experience. Some of our mobile-friendly trading features include mini-chart layouts, a customisable dashboard and advanced order ticketing that allows you to open and close CFD positions with the touch of a button.

You can also set up trade alerts via SMS, email or push notifications on the app so that you never miss an important event or price change. Learn more about our trading alerts​​.