Contracts for Difference

Open up a canadian account Take the Canadian Securities Course and you get around the need to be an accredited investor.

Not sure what laws (if any ) are in place to keep out foreigners in the trading of CFDs.
 
On the tax issue, I thought that stamp duty (regardless of what an earner it is) was a legal charge to verify a change of ownership.

Stamping contracts when moving house, for example, or on the change of ownership of physical shares.

Because the CFD is a synthetic vehicle, there is no actual change of ownership. Consequently there would have to be a new tax to cover them. Instead, CFDs are subject to capital gains and, as AK correctly stated, the broking operations are subject to corporation tax & income tax of employees. Certainly as they increase in popularity, so they will become a target for greater taxation, but I'd be surprised if stamp duty was introduced on CFD trading. However, watch the situation with interest!

Oh, by the way, I've managed to reduce my comms to 0.3% with Blue Index for my advisory account, and they are still performing very well for me.

Jem, what %age moves do you look for in your trading? My new comms need less than 1% move to cover costs. Seeing as I target between 2-3% before thinking about exiting, it works well for me!

Spud54
 
Quote from Spud54:

AK100,

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree here fella! Granted, the way you break it down, the %age of comms Vs margin employed does seem a little on the high side, on the flip side I get massive exposure for minimal outlay. Leverage is never going to be provided for free, even by the best brokers.

Your example was indeed informative, but why would anyone employ only 4-5x leverage?! One might as well be trading S&P futures! I use both 10x and 20x leverage which allows my margin funds to go that much further in terms of exposure.

I see CFDs as a vehicle for active short term trading - cover costs, look for the best exit point, cash in and move on. But that's clearly not for everyone.

Mr Client who makes money in the market, but not his account, shouldn't (in my opinion) be in the market. If you don't know the rules of the game, how are you going to perform?!?

Thanks for the advice on Simon Smith. I will certainly research ABC as an alternative - not one I came across in my market research. Blue Index have been good to me and, whilst the costs may be improved upon, in my opinion the product is just about perfect.
 
Quote from zdreg:

what is the difference between cfd and spread betting?

I've just opened a CFD account, just to play around with, more leverage = more fun :D

From what I can see the spreads are a 'little' tighter then with spread betting.
 
Quote from Solskjaer_20:

I've just opened a CFD account, just to play around with, more leverage = more fun :D

From what I can see the spreads are a 'little' tighter then with spread betting.

are they exactly the same product or does the structure differ?
 
Quote from zdreg:

are they exactly the same product or does the structure differ?


I have opened an account with eTrade in the uk. The cfd service they provide is ok, but it's the only one i have used. As for spread betting i've never done it, but the spreads in spread betting are way too big.

The spreads on CFDs are ok, i mean i guess you have to take into account that they offer 10x margin so they need to make money somewhere too. I'm just using this for swing/very speculative trading, i use my direct access broker for my main trading.

The cfd platform from etrade is ok, it has almost all the shares in europe for trading and a lot US ones too not just S&P 500/Nasdaq 100. Also has Oz and New Zeland and they are talking about Japan and Hong Kong being added soon too.
 
Good advice if some questions can be answered honestly :

* How can one trade with IB by short selling ? Currently uptick rule is a real problem. Also is there any real chance for accounts less than 10 k with holding 6 positions simultaneously on combined short selling and long positions ? How about overnight charges on both short and long holding positions ?



Quote from AK100:


My advice, get comms down to a maximum of 0.1% and use less leverage. Better yet forget about CFDs and trade US shares with IB.
 
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