Shares trading

A share represents a portion of the ownership of a public company. The shares of a publicly listed company will be available on a stock market, such as the FTSE 100 index, whose constituent stocks are listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Trading shares in the underlying market involves the buying and selling of a company's shares, with the aim of profiting through the company's share price rising over time. The aim would be to sell your shares at a higher price than when you bought them.

You can invest in shares with us and own a portion of a company's stock, or spread bet and trade CFDs or options on shares, without actually owning the underlying stock. Learn more about shares trading

When investing in shares, you buy and own company shares outright, usually with longer-term investment in mind.

When trading share CFDs, you don't take ownership of the underlying shares. Instead, you speculate on whether share prices will rise or fall. CFDs are leveraged products, meaning you only deposit a percentage of the total position value to open a trade.

You can invest directly in 11,000 global shares, and spread bet or trade CFDs on 10,000+ stocks.

Our share offering covers companies listed across as many as 25 countries and major international stock exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

This allows you to speculate on a wide range of sectors and industries, and gives you access to the world's largest and most actively traded companies, including the 'magnificent seven' US tech stocks.

The value of shares can rise or fall based on market conditions, company performance and economic events. When trading derivative products such as spread bets and CFDs, profits and losses are based on the full value of the position. It's important to understand the risks before trading and use risk-management tools where appropriate.

When you spread bet or trade CFDs on shares on our platform, you don't buy or sell the underlying share. Instead, you're taking a position on whether you think the company's share price will go up or down.

With spread betting, you buy or sell an amount per point movement for the share instrument you’re trading, such as £5 per point. This is known as your stake. With CFD trading, you buy or sell a number of units for a particular instrument. For every point or unit that the price moves in your favour, you gain multiples of your stake, and vice versa.

As an example, say you wanted to buy £1,300 worth of Lloyds penny shares at £65 per share. For the spread betting equivalent of this trade, you would specify a stake size of £20 per point to get the same exposure as you would if you bought 20 Lloyds shares at £65 through traditional share dealing. Due to the leverage available with spread betting (5:1 in this case), you would be able to enter this position with an initial outlay of £260, instead of £1,300. However, your profits and losses are based on the full value of the trade (£1,300).

As a retail (non-professional) client, negative balance protection means that you will never lose more than the available cash in your account. View our spread betting versus CFDs comparison.

Non-UK, non-European and Greek share spread bets have an additional spread added either side of the existing spread. See our US share spread bet example below.

US shares example:

Share price / Cost
$0-15 | 1 cent (each side)
$15-25 | 2 cents (each side)
$25-35 | 3 cents (each side)
$35+ | 4 cents (each side)

CFD/underlying sell/buy price = $25.50 / $25.58

The share price falls into the $25-35 bracket. So, 3 cents is added to both sides, widening the spread: $25.50 - $0.03 / $25.58 + $0.03

Spread bet sell/buy price = $25.47 / $25.61

Spread betting allows you to trade tax-free on a wide range of financial markets up to 24 hours a day, from Sunday night through to Friday night. Spread bet on your mobile device or PC on a wide range of instruments with leverage.

When a stock goes ex-dividend (ie when a company's dividend allocations have been specified), the value of that stock effectively falls by the dividend amount. This means if you hold a spread bet or CFD position on a company which announces a dividend, your account will be credited or debited on the day the stock goes ex-dividend.

If you were long (holding a buy position), you would have been disadvantaged by the drop in the market caused by the pay out of the dividend, so we would credit your account with the dividend amount, less any applicable dividend withholding taxes. If you were short the stock, you would benefit from the drop in the price, so the equivalent amount would be deducted. So, overall, you don't lose or gain anything from the adjustment. There are no withholding taxes on short positions. The dividend will appear as a 'Price Adjustment' in your account history within the platform.

Yes, there is a higher risk when you trade outside of the core trading session hours (when the underlying exchange is closed). There is likely to be a greater level of price volatility, due to lower trading volumes. This is because there are fewer participants than during normal market hours, resulting in less liquidity, which means that markets are more volatile as a result.

These market conditions mean that prices are likely to fluctuate more rapidly than usual, and some trades could be more difficult to execute, owing to the lower trading volumes. Our spreads may also be wider compared with the main trading session.

Our order types and execution function as normal during extended-hours trading, although we lower trading and position limits compared with the main trading session. This helps us to manage risk during periods of lower liquidity in the market. Account liquidations also function as normal, so it’s important to ensure that your account is properly funded, and that you allow enough time to deposit funds, if required.

There's no cost to open a live trading account with us. You can also view prices and use tools such as charts, Reuters news, or Morningstar quantitative research equity reports, free of charge. You'll need to deposit funds in your account to place a trade.

Yes, CMC Markets UK plc (registration number 173730) is fully authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. Retail client money is held in segregated client bank accounts and money held on behalf of clients is distributed across a range of major banks, which are regularly assessed against our risk criteria.

Under the FCA's Client Money rules, we're required to segregate client money (unless you agree with us otherwise) from CMC's own funds. The funds held in segregated bank accounts do not belong to CMC, and will be held in a way that enables it to be identified as client money. Learn more about client money regulations

CMC Markets earns revenue through spreads and other applicable fees and charges. The fees and charges that apply may vary depending on the product and account type.