Introduction to CFDs The 'CFD' (Contract for Difference) was developed to allow clients to enjoy all the benefits of owning a stock, Forex, Index or Commodity position without having to physically own the underlying instrument itself. A CFD can be any type of financial instrument including: Shares, Forex, Indices and Commodities. For example, instead of purchasing 1,000 Microsoft shares from a stockbroker, a client could instead buy a 10 CFDs of Microsoft on the Plus500 trading platform. A $5 per share rise in the price of Microsoft would give the client a $5,000 profit, just as if he had purchased the actual shares that are traded on the exchange. A major difference is that there are no exchange fees and many of the inefficiencies of trading the underlying shares on the exchange are eliminated. Plus500 can offer CFDs with zero commissions and very attractive margin requirements. CFDs have grown in popularity dramatically over the past few years, and we believe that this will increasingly be the preferred way to trade the financial markets. The other major benefit of trading a CFD is the fact that the client can trade on margin. CFD trading means clients can trade a full portfolio of shares, indices or commodities without having to tie up large amounts of capital. Using the example above, a client purchasing $50,000 worth of CFD Shares will only be asked for $1,000 margin.