Derivatives

How are CFDs taxed?

Search the net for guidance on how profits and losses on CFDs are treated for tax purposes, and what you can and can’t claim as deductions, and you’ll find plenty of “information,” not all of it useful and much of it misleading. Discussions in stock trading forums typify the confusion that surrounds CFDs and tax,…

Protect your portfolio from market wobbles

Trading derivatives can conjure up images of overnight wealth or wealth destruction. A reason is leverage, where speculating on an asset class can quickly magnify profits and losses for a small up-front outlay. Contracts for difference, a popular financial instrument among speculators, are also an effective weapon in preserving wealth when acting as a hedge….

CFD strategies in all markets with examples

Increasingly unsatisfied with long exposure through the stock market, more investors are using a diversified mix of CFD’s to add leverage and flexibility to their investment portfolio. But regardless of which CFD trading strategies are used, and which instruments are traded, the overarching goal is to make money, despite what markets are doing. Irrespective of…

The tax treatment of CFDs

By Jimmy B. Prince, author of Tax for Australians for Dummies A contract for difference (CFD) is a derivative that allows you to speculate in the price movement of underlying securities such as shares, indices and commodities without the need to actually own them. Expressed simply a CFD transaction is normally a short term contract…

Top 10 CFD stocks for the week

Shorting the banks was a popular strategy last week following weak offshore leads. Westpac was downgraded to Neutral by Macquarie as its 3Q update disappointed the market. Diawa cut its target for NAB from $29 to $26.10. The uncertainty surrounding its bid for AXA is also weighing on the stock. ANZ, too, was out of…

Hedging your losses, and making profits, using CFDs

Not everyone lost money in the past couple of weeks of market gyrations. Plenty made tidy profits short-selling CFDs on stocks or indices they guessed would be sold down as the market over-reacted to the bad news on sub-prime mortgages. Others used CFDs to protect the value of their existing share or CFD holdings. Harley…

Trading CFDs full-time

Full-time traders used to be slick young traders on too much coffee who traded big sums for the big banks. Today, full-time traders come from all walks of life such as Newcastle-based mother of two, Justine Pollard, who trades Contracts for Difference (CFDs) from home. CFDs are criticised by many commentators as being too risky…

How to insure your investment portfolio before it’s too late

There’s nothing like a 23 per cent fall in the sharemarket to focus investors’ minds on protecting their portfolio. Arguably, it’s a bit late to think about this now but for those who have used the slump to establish new shareholdings, the summer’s experience should have portfolio insurance high on the agenda. You can get…

Battle of the CFD providers

The Australian contracts for difference (CFD) market is estimated to be worth up to $400 billion – not bad for a market that did not exist six years ago. But this very lucrative market is being competed for by providers of two different CFD trading models – the market-maker model, and the direct market access…

CFD fever hits Singapore

Peter Oxlade, senior vice president and head of CFDs & Securities for Man Financial, is under no illusions: establishing a viable presence in Singapore’s fledgling CFD market – and the wider Asian region – will be no walk in park. But he’s convinced, after slightly less than a year in Singapore, it’s a walk a…