CFDs are financial contracts between a broker and trader that pays for the difference in the settlement price between when you open and close a trade.
If a trader expects the currency to move higher, they will enter a long position with a specific lot size. Conversely, if the trader expects the currency to move lower, they will enter a short position, expecting to profit from it.
The benefit of CFDs is that there is no need to own the physical asset. Instead, traders speculate in the difference between opening and closing trade prices. While these contracts can be used to speculate on the foreign exchange markets, the same concept applies to other assets such as commodities , oil and indices.
To gain a better understanding of how CFDs work, let’s look at Amazon stock as an example.
If you think Amazon shares are going to go higher, you would want to buy into this stock and profit from this opportunity. Hence, you purchase 10 CFDs on Amazon shares at $2,500, so the total value of the trade will be $25,000 (10 x $2,500). If Amazon appreciates to $3,000, you will make $500 per share, which is a $5,000 profit (10 x $500). CFD concepts are applied to forex trading as well.