Six markets.One account.

A Contract for Difference is an agreement to exchange the difference in an asset's price between opening and closing a position. You never own the share, coin or barrel — you take a position on where its price goes. That is what lets a single account cover stocks, crypto, currencies, indices and commodities at once.

Buying a share makes you a shareholder: you own it, can hold it indefinitely, and may receive dividends. A CFD gives you exposure to the price only. In exchange you can open a position in either direction, use leverage, and close it in seconds. You also pay overnight financing for holding it, which an owner does not.

Cryptocurrencies trade on a global network with no opening bell and no central exchange, so there is no moment at which everyone stops. Shares trade on exchanges that operate business hours in their own city — the US market runs 09:30 to 16:00 New York time, and is closed at weekends and on exchange holidays.

Forex runs continuously from the Sydney open on Sunday evening to the New York close on Friday, but activity moves around the globe in four overlapping sessions: Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. Spreads are usually tightest when London and New York overlap, and widest in the quiet hours after the New York close.

Leverage lets you hold a position larger than the money you put up. At 1:100, a $1,000 position requires $10 of your balance as margin — the rest is exposure. It multiplies gains and losses equally, so a move that would have cost you $10 unleveraged costs the same $10 here, but on a position a hundred times the size.

Margin is the part of your balance locked to keep a position open. As losses grow, your equity falls toward the margin you have committed. If it falls too far, positions are closed automatically to stop the account going negative. Stop losses exist so that you choose that level rather than the system choosing it for you.

The spread is the gap between the buy and sell price, and it is why a position shows a small loss the moment it opens. We publish it as a percentage of the instrument's price, so it costs the same share of your trade whether the asset trades at $0.30 or $100,000. The exact figures are on our pricing page.

A swap is the daily financing fee for holding a position overnight, calculated on the margin used. It is charged once a day, at 21:00 UTC, and long and short positions have separate rates. A position opened and closed within the same trading day pays no swap at all.

There is no universally safe market, but there is a useful difference: major currency pairs and large indices tend to move in smaller percentage steps than individual cryptocurrencies, so mistakes cost less while you are learning. Whatever you choose, start on a demo account — it uses the same live prices with virtual funds.

No. Positions are closed automatically before your balance reaches zero, so your loss is limited to the funds in your account. That is a floor, not a safety net: it is entirely possible to lose the whole balance, and most beginners do lose money. Trade only what you can afford to lose.