Trading CFDs on Penny Stocks

Generally CFD companies in Australia offer CFDs over the stocks making up the ASX top 300, the rationale behind this is simple, shares with a larger market capitalisation are often much more liquid. Some CFD companies forget that we live in Australia, a land abundant with resources and of course also rich in resource shares. A good number of shares listed on the ASX are resource based, this is in actual fact the largest sector of the Australian share market.

CFD trading over speculative resource stocks can be exceptionally worthwhile if you choose your stocks prudently. When buying and selling CFDs over speculative stocks you should perform some research on the company. Prior to choosing your stocks you must make sure that the company has first-class management and a good project. Naturally if the copper price has risen and you’re searching for exposure to stocks in this sector logically you wouldn’t pick a CFD over a stock with gold assets, this is the reason choosing stocks in the relevant sector is also crucial. It is always vital that you keep in mind buying and selling CFDs over speculative stocks also has risks as these sorts of stocks can go up in price as quick as they can come down.

So why a trade CFD instead of buying the Stock outright?
The answer to this question is straightforward and can be summed up in a few words, unrealised profits and losses. Unlike stocks CFDs are marked to market every day meaning that the profits or losses are credited or deducted to and from your account each trading day. The profits and losses from trading shares are dealt with very differently in that they're only realised once the stock is sold. Realising profits and losses each day means that you can use your unrealised to profits to open up new positions without needing to deposit additional money into your account, needless to say the same goes for losses in that you will have to deposit money into your trading account if the position moves against you.

It’s imperative that you note the majority of speculative stocks can have a larger margin requirement than shares in the ASX top 300, their margin requirement can easily be as high as 100% however the bulk are obtainable on a margin of 75%. One crucial factor to consider here is whether your CFD company will charge you financing on the full notional value of the position, this would of course be quite high if the position was on a 100% margin, there are on the other hand a few CFD brokers that will only charge financing on the borrowed amount. It would be much more cost effective to select a CFD provider which will only charge you on the borrowed amount, if the CFD is on 100% margin this will likely deliver a significant cost saving.

There's hardly any CFD brokers in Australia which will let you trade CFDs on all ASX listed stocks, certainly one of the most popular CFD companies is IC Markets. Among the list of major advanatages of buying and selling with IC Markets is that they don’t have any CFDs on 100% margin and only charge financing on the borrowed total meaning that you won’t pay any financing charges for CFDs purchased on 100% margin.