John W Regular  Posts: 96 Joined: 6/18/2011 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia  User Profile | I'm using Omnidata for stocks and FX. A CFD is a Contract for Difference on the underlying symbol. In the IB screenshot I can choose to trade AUSUSD (just buy and sell the Aussie, no margin), trade the future (usual futures rules though IB, or trade the CFD (margin 100:1, soon to be reduced to 30:1). CFD's for stocks trade at 5:1. CFD's are available in many countries, linking them to OT would open up the ability to trade any stock, future or fx pair anywhere in the world to anyone living in a country that allows brokers to offer CFD's. From your question I assume that CFD's are perhaps not available in the US. This could increase OT's marketing proposition worldwide. IB won't let me trade the future unless I've got $10m in my account, but will let me trade the CFD. I notice that Frank often refers to spread betting in the UK, that's likely through a CFD. The CFD and the AUDUSD trade at exactly the same rate. A CFD is a poor man's future. IB takes the spread as its fee (i.e. a CFD sells at the bid price, and buys at the ask) If you are able to find out the CFD structure from IB perhaps you could consider making that function as an IB alternate symbol set. That would be fantastic, FX and other symbols could be traded in real time! | |
