Shares trading

Yes, you can make money from share trading. Just like any other financial market, you’ll make a profit by closing trades at a more favourable level than when you opened them. If a trade moves against you, on the other hand, you’ll make a loss. 

To make consistent profits from share trading you’ll need a solid strategy and plan. We’d always recommend that beginner traders head over to the City Index Academy to learn how the markets work, then try a risk-free City Index demo trading account to test your performance with virtual capital.

Yes, you’ll pay commission to trade any share CFD markets with City Index – unlike all other asset classes, where you’ll pay via the spread instead. This makes the process of buying share CFDs fairly similar to the underlying market.

Our commission rates are just 0.08% on SG markets, 0.1% on European and UK markets or 1.5 cents per share on US markets. There’s a minimum commission of $10 on Singaporean stocks, £8 on UK stocks, €8 on EU stocks and $8 on US stocks.

Yes, there are no minimum holding periods for shares, meaning you can buy and sell them on the same day. So if you’re interested in day trading shares, all you’ll need is a trading account with a regulated provider such as City Index.

You don’t have to stick to day trading shares, either. The high volatility and liquidity offered by both indices and forex make both asset classes hugely popular among day traders. To try out both without risking any capital, open your free City Index demo.

The terms share trading and share dealing are often used interchangeably, but they describe two different approaches to the stock markets. Share trading is short-term speculation using leveraged products, share dealing is longer-term investing.

When you trade shares, you typically use leveraged products such as CFDs to take a view on share prices without taking ownership of the underlying stocks themselves. So you don’t build a portfolio, but instead aim to profit from short-term price movements – which could be up or down.

Share dealing, on the other hand, is the traditional method of buying stocks outright and adding them to your portfolio. This gives you a much longer-term view, and is usually only used to take advantage of upward price movement.

Find out more about the difference between CFD trading and investing.

When you trade a share CFD, you’re entering into a contract in which you and your CFD provider agree to exchange the difference in an asset’s price from when your position is opened to when it is closed.

A share is a single unit of ownership in a publicly traded company. A CFD is a contract that enables you to trade on the price movements of shares – alongside lots of other markets including indices, forex and commodities – without ever owning the underlying asset.

When you buy a single share CFD, it gives you the same exposure as buying one share. Buying one Apple CFD, for example, is comparable to buying an Apple share. However, the key difference is that with the CFD you never take ownership of the share itself. Instead, you’re trading a contract in which you agree to exchange the difference in the stock’s price from when you open your position to when you close it.

Learn more about CFDs vs shares.