CMC Markets

CMC Markets is an international CFD broker used by 300,000 active clients worldwide. It offers trading in CFDs for stocks, currencies, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and raw materials.

CMC Markets UK Plc is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), registration number 173730. The branch in Germany is supervised by the German supervisory authority (BaFin, Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht). Clients from Poland are served by the German branch, subject to regulations that are the same for all European Union markets.

Brief history of CMC Markets

An investment firm operating continuously since 1989. Initially only as a forex broker under the name Currency Management Corporation, but over time it was shortened to CMC, and in 2006 after rebranding it took on its current form as CMC Markets.

CMC Markets was also one of the world’s first forex and contract for difference (CFD) brokers, which in 1996 launched the online trading platform MarketMaker, which allowed retail investors to access transactions previously reserved only for institutional investors.

Since 2016, CMC Markets has been a listed company on the London Stock Exchange and is currently one of the larger retail brokers operating in markets worldwide, from the UK, through Poland, to New Zealand, Singapore, and Canada.

CMC Markets Homepage

Offer of CMC Markets broker

The CMC Markets broker currently offers 12,000 different CFD contracts, including currency pairs, indices, commodities and raw materials, stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, and ETF funds. The detailed offer of each of them is presented below.

Forex

The broker’s offer includes over 330 currency pairs, including all major markets and dozens from emerging markets. CMC Markets reminds on its website that it was one of the first in the world to offer online FX trading and continues its long-standing tradition.

“We offer low and transparent spreads starting from 0.7 pips and low position maintenance costs” – promotes Forex transactions on its CMC Markets platform.

In addition to the currency pairs themselves, CMC Markets also offers access to proprietary stock market indices that track the value of a specific currency relative to a basket of FX instruments. These include, for example, the CMC USD Index or the CMC EUR Index.

Stocks in CMC Markets

Stocks are currently the largest number of CFD instruments offered by CMC Markets. The broker allows trading on 10,000 different instruments from around the world, including stocks of Polish companies and international giants such as Tesla, Facebook, or Apple.

It should be emphasized that CMC Markets does not offer access to real, physical stocks, only CFD contracts on stocks.

The commission for conducting CFD transactions on Polish stocks is 0.18%. For transactions on instruments listed in the US and Canada, it is 2 cents per share, and for European stocks, it is 0.1% per share. The margin ratio for CFDs on stocks starts at 20% (so the maximum leverage is 5:1).

Sample trading costs for foreign stocks on CMC Markets.

CMC Markets also allows for CFD trading on baskets of stocks prepared by the broker. The client has the opportunity to be exposed to different market sectors, from companies related to 5G technology to the renewable energy industry.

“The baskets of stocks include companies related to a particular industry. These instruments provide the opportunity to gain a broader exposure to a given industry compared to trading on a single stock. Conduct transactions on multiple sectors, including big tech companies, marijuana producers, Chinese tech companies, companies related to social media or streaming services,” explains CMC Markets.

The cost of maintaining these types of baskets on an annual basis is 2% for short positions and around 5-6% for long positions.

ETFs and Indices in CMC

In addition to the stock offering, CMC Markets provides CFDs on indices and ETF funds. The CMC Markets platform includes over 80 cash and futures indices. The broker offers attractive trading costs – 1 point spread during trading hours on indices such as France 40 and 1.2 point spread on Germany 40. Available instruments include FTSE, DAX, Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500, as well as regional indices from Australia, Asia and the Pacific, the USA, and Europe, including the Polish WIG.

Additionally, CMC Markets offers over 1,000 CFD instruments on ETFs. The offering includes all the most popular instruments from companies such as Invesco, VanEck, iShares, ARK Innovatoion, and many others.

For CFD contracts on ETFs from Germany or the USA, the client pays a fixed commission of €5 (German CFD contracts on ETFs) or $7 (US CFD contracts on ETFs), regardless of the position size. In addition, there are no daily position maintenance costs – regardless of whether the client applies Day Trading strategies or invests in the long term.

Bonds

Bond markets include government bonds such as Gilt, T-Note, and Bund. CMC Markets offers over 50 bonds from around the world, including cash and futures markets.

Commodities and Raw Materials

CMC Markets allows trading in commodities and raw materials from the cash and futures markets, such as crude oil, gold, and silver. Investors can take advantage of competitive spreads – 0.3 points on gold, 2.5 points on crude oil, or 0.3 on natural gas. They can also invest in commodity and raw material indices, with a total of 120 instruments available. The most popular commodities such as Brent crude oil and WTI crude oil are available 23 hours a day.

The offering is complemented by indices that combine several different assets in this sector, such as the agricultural products index, the energy products index, or the precious metals index.

Cryptocurrencies in CMC Markets

CMC Markets offers 19 popular digital assets in their offering, and with CFD contracts, they can be played both short and long. The offering includes assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and cryptocurrency indices.

It is important to note that CMC Markets does not offer access to real, physical cryptocurrencies, only CFD contracts on digital assets.

The costs depend on the type of instrument. For Bitcoin, the minimum spread is 75, and the daily position maintenance cost is 0.0959% (buy) or 0.0274% (sell). The maximum leverage for all cryptocurrency instruments is 2:1.

Costs and fees in CMC Markets

The basic costs related to individual instruments have been described above. In addition to that, CMC Markets may charge additional transaction costs, for example in connection with maintaining positions on stock and currency markets. Full information on the costs of maintaining positions can be found here.

The cost of maintaining a position for CFDs on indices is based on the interbank interest rate for the currency of the given index (see the table) plus 0.0082% for a long position and minus 0.0082% for a short position. The cost of maintaining a position for CFDs on stocks is based on the interbank interest rate for the currency of the given stock (see the table) plus 0.0082% for a long position and minus 0.0082% for a short position. The maintenance costs for short positions (sell) for CFDs on stocks also include the borrowing cost for the instrument on the underlying market.

Other costs include, among others, a subscription fee for CFD stock quotes charged in the case of Australian and Hong Kong stocks, which are AUD 20 and HKD 120 respectively. For other countries, the subscription fee is zero.

Additional fees also include the cost of guaranteed stop-loss orders (GSL), which will vary depending on the instrument. For example, if an investor opens a short position of 50,000 units on GBP/USD, the GSL fee will be $7.5 (0.00015 x 50,000 units). If the position is closed independently, the previously activated take profit or GSL order is cancelled, the $7.5 fee will be fully refunded.