CFD trading offers the ability to trade a variety of financial instruments with leverage, meaning you can open larger positions than your account balance would allow in traditional investing. This creates the possibility of larger profits, but also carries the risk of larger losses.
For example, if you trade with a leverage of 20:1, it means you can trade a notional value 20 times greater than the capital in your trading account.
Retail clients have restrictions to leverage, set by the regulator, of between 30:1 and 5:1. The maximum leverage varies per asset class.
30:1 - major currency pairs;
20:1 - major indices and gold;
10:1 - commodities other than gold and non-major equity indices;
5:1 - shares;
2:1 - crypto.
You can view and change your current leverage in your app settings (‘Account’ > ‘My accounts’ > ‘Trading options’).
Please see the following page on our website which explains more on leverage: https://capital.com/leverage-definition
*It is possible to gain access to increased leverage if you qualify as an elective professional client, please find further information under the following link https://capital.com/professional-clients-au