CFD Trading (Contract For Difference)

In finance, a contract for difference (CFD) is a contract between two parties, typically described as "buyer" and "seller", stipulating that the seller will pay to the buyer the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time (if the difference is negative, then the buyer pays instead to the seller). In effect CFDs are financial derivatives that allow traders to take advantage of prices moving up (long positions) or prices moving down (short positions) on underlying financial instruments and are often used to speculate on those markets. For example, when applied to equities, such a contract is an equity derivative that allows traders to speculate on share price movements, without the need for ownership of the underlying shares.

CFDs were originally developed in the early 1990s in London as a type of equity swap that was traded on margin. The invention of the CFD is widely credited to Brian Keenan and Jon Wood, both of UBS Warburg,
They were initially used by hedge funds and institutional traders to hedge cost-effectively their exposure to stocks on the London Stock Exchange, mainly because they required only a small margin and because no physical shares changed hands avoided the UK tax of stamp duty. In the late 1990s CFDs were introduced to retail traders. They were popularized by a number of UK companies, characterized by innovative online trading platforms that made it easy to see live prices and trade in real time. The first company to do this was GNI (originally known as Gerrard & National Inter-commodities); GNI and its CFD trading service GNI touch was later acquired by MF Global. They were soon followed by IG Markets and CMC Markets who started to popularize the service in 2000. In June 2009, the UK regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA) implemented a general disclosure regime for CFDs to avoid them being used in insider information cases. This was after a number of high-profile cases where positions in CFDs were used instead of physical underlying stock to hide them from the normal disclosure rules related to insider information.

CFDs are traded between individual traders and CFD providers. There are no standard contract terms for CFDs, and each CFD provider can specify their own, but they tend to have a number of things in common. The CFD is started by making an opening trade on a particular instrument with the CFD provider. This creates a ‘position’ in that instrument. There is no expiry date. Once the position is closed, the difference between the opening trade and the closing trade is paid as profit or loss. The CFD provider may make a number of charges as part of the trading or the open position. These may include, bid-offer spread, commission, overnight financing and account management fees.

The main risk is market risk as the contract is designed to pay the difference between the opening price and the closing price of the underlying asset. CFDs are traded on margin, and the leveraging effect of this increases the risk significantly. Margin rates are typically small and therefore a small amount of money can be used to hold a large position. It is this very risk that drives the use of CFDs, either to speculate on movements in financial markets or to hedge existing positions elsewhere. One of the ways to mitigate this risk is the use of stop loss orders. Users typically deposit an amount of money with the CFD provider to cover the margin and can lose much more than this deposit if the market moves against them.

Some financial commentators and regulators have expressed concern about the way that CFDs are marketed at new and inexperienced traders by the CFD providers. In particular the way that the potential gains are advertised in a way that may not fully explain the risks involved. In anticipation and response to this concern most financial regulators that cover CFDs specify that risk warnings must be prominently displayed on all advertising, web sites and when new accounts are opened. For example, the UK FSA rules for CFD providers include that they must assess the suitability of CFDs for each new client based on their experience and must provide a risk warning document to all new clients, based on a general template devised by the FSA. The Australian financial regulator ASIC on its trader information site suggests that trading CFDs is riskier than gambling on horses or going to a casino. It recommends that trading CFDs should be carried out by individuals who have extensive experience of trading, in particular during volatile markets and can afford losses that any trading system cannot avoid.

CFDs, when offered by providers under the market maker model, have been compared to the bets sold by bucket shops, which flourished in the United States at the turn of the 20th century. These allowed speculators to place highly leveraged bets on stocks generally not backed or hedged by actual trades on an exchange, so the speculator was in effect betting against the house. Bucket shops, colorfully described in Jesse Livermore's semi-autobiographical "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator", are illegal in the United States according to criminal as well as securities law.