CFD Simulator

Spread Betting and CFDs are leveraged products. They carry a high level of risk to your capital and may not be suitable for all investors. These products can result in losses that exceed your initial stake. You should only speculate with funds that you can afford to lose. Please make sure that you understand the risks involved and seek professional advice, if necessary.

Use our CFD Simulator to see how you can trade on financial markets.

Please note that this is a simulator only and there is no guarantee that results achieved using this service will be replicated when trading CFDs in the live CFD environment. The amount of margin shown is for illustrative purposes only and differing levels of margin may be required depending on instrument type and other factors.

How does it work?
When you open a CFD trade, simply choose whether the price of that instrument is likely to go up or down, and nominate the number of contracts you wish to trade (minimum trade size of 1CFD). Your profit or loss is the difference between the price at which you buy and the price at which you sell multiplied by the number of contracts.

Example: You believe that the Vodafone share price will go up; therefore you decide to buy 1000 Vodafone Share CFDs at 123.35 pence. If the price moved up say from 123.35 to 153.35 pence, you would have made a profit of 30 pence per CFD. With 1000 CFDs, that would equate to £300.
However, if the price dropped by 30 pence (to 93.35), you would lose £300 instead.

CFDs allow you to trade on whether the price of a financial instrument is likely to go up in value (strengthen) or go down (weaken). Your profit or loss is determined by the difference you buy at and the price you sell at. This gives you the opportunity to potentially profit from a market whether it is rising or falling.

Buying a rising market (going long)
If you buy a financial instrument that you believe will rise in value, and in due course your prediction is correct, you can sell the instrument for a profit. However, if you are incorrect and the value falls, you will make a loss.

Selling a falling market (going short)
If you sell a financial instrument that you believe will fall in value, and in due course your prediction is correct, you can buy the instrument back at a lower price, for a profit. If you are incorrect and the value rises, you make a loss.

Margin trading
With CFD trading you are only required to deposit a fraction of the overall value of the trade. Typically margins with NatWest Index vary between 1% and 10%. Margin enables you to magnify your return on investment. However, losses will also be magnified so it is advisable to use one of the free risk management tools such as a stop loss or limit order that we provide to help take control of your risk.

The spread
As with prices of financial instruments, CFD prices are quoted in pairs known as the bid and the offer. The bid or ‘sell’ price is quoted first and the offer or ‘buy’ price is quoted second. The spread is the difference between the bid and the offer.
When opening or closing a position, you buy at the upper end and sell at the lower price.

If you were viewing the price of share like Vodafone for example, it might look like this:
Vodafone CFD example

The price to the left is the sell price and the price to the right is the buy price.

Buy at 147.95 if you think Vodafone will rise in value or

Sell at 147.90 if you think Vodafone will fall in value.


Services relating to Contracts for Difference are provided by CMC Markets UK Plc (trading as NatWest Index) to whom you have been introduced by NatWest Stockbrokers Limited. All dealing, administration and settlement in relation to these services are undertaken by CMC Markets UK Plc who is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.