City Index offers three ways to trade; Spread Betting, CFD Trading and FX on MT4.

Spread Betting and CFDs are similar products as they both allow you to speculate on whether a financial market will rise or fall in value. Typically UK based investors choose to Spread Bet because any profits made are free from UK Capital Gains Tax (CGT) and Stamp Duty*. Investors that wish to offset any losses against tax may prefer to trade CFDs. Clients from outside the UK should opt for CFDs as Spread Betting may not be available in your region.

Key differences:

A £1 Spread Bet is the equivalent of 100 shares in a CFD equity trade. To illustrate the difference in Spread Betting and CFD trading, let’s say you go long on a UK based Company ABC’s shares. The example below shows how you would do this as a Spread Bet and the equivalent CFD trade.

There are several key benefits to trading leverage products such as Spread Bets and CFDs over traditional share trading. These are: