View our share baskets methodology

There’s no cost when opening a live account. You can also view prices and use tools such as charts, Reuters news or research reports free of charge. You will need to deposit funds in your account to place a trade.

When you trade CFDs on share baskets on the platform, you don’t buy or sell the underlying shares. Instead, you’re taking a position on whether you think the instrument’s price will go up or down.

With CFD trading, you buy or sell a number of units for a particular instrument. For every point or unit that the price moves in your favour, you gain multiples of your stake, and vice versa.

Dividends are cash payments made to shareholders out of a corporation's profits. Typically, corporations will make regular periodic dividend payments throughout the financial year (quarterly, semi-annually or annually) and will therefore be classed as ordinary cash dividends.

When a stock goes ex-dividend, the value of that stock effectively falls by the dividend amount. This means if you hold a CFD position on a company which announces a dividend; your account will be credited or debited on the day the stock goes ex-dividend.

If you were long (holding a buy position), you would have been disadvantaged by the drop in the market caused by the pay out of the dividend, so we would credit your account with the dividend amount, less any applicable dividend withholding taxes. If you were short, you would benefit from the drop in the price, so the equivalent amount would be deducted. So, overall, you don't lose or gain anything from the adjustment. There are no withholding taxes on short positions. The dividend will appear as a 'price adjustment' in your account history within the platform.

For share baskets, any ordinary cash dividend events will be treated as a price adjustment within the share basket. On ex-date the share price of the share basket component will decrease by the approximate value of the gross ordinary cash dividend. This will in turn result in an equivalent adjustment to the overall share basket price based on the weighted average of the share basket component. A cash adjustment will then be made to the holder of the share basket for the net ordinary cash dividend value.

There are a number of costs to consider when trading on share baskets, including commissions, holding costs (for trades held overnight) and guaranteed stop-loss order charges (if you use this risk-management tool).

Some trades held open past the end of the trading day (5pm, New York time) are subject to holding costs, which can be positive or negative depending on your trade direction and the applicable holding rate.