As the name suggests, CFDs are 'contracts' between a buyer and seller. The buyer is the trader, and the seller is the forex broker. The contract says that the buyer will either pay or receive the difference in price in the market between the time they open a position and the time they close it. As you can see, forex CFD trading does not involve purchasing a currency directly.

If the market goes up, the trader receives the difference, but if it goes down, they must pay the difference.
The unit for currency trading is a pip. For most major forex pairs, a pip is $0.0001. The exception is the Japanese yen, which is $0.01 per pip.

Here is an example of CFD forex trading. If you open a CFD position in AUD/USD with your forex broker at $0.7210, the initial value of your position is $0. However, if the market rises to $0.7220, you earn 10 pips, which is the same as $0.0010 per dollar. This amount might not seem significant, but when you engage in forex CFD trading, you use leverage to increase the size of your position.


Frequently Ask Question
When you start trading, it is a good idea to limit your use of leverage until you are confident in your strategies and able to properly employ risk management tools.
The concept is slightly more complicated if you have open positions. In these cases, the equity is the balance plus the profit or minus the loss of your current trades. Therefore, your equity can change minute by minute.
If you use leverage with a 1:10 margin requirement and have an open position worth $10,000, you must keep $1,000 in your account. If you have $5,000 in your account, you have $4,000 in free margin. If you close the $10,000 position, the $1,000 will become part of the free margin total.
The most traded pairs on the market include EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and AUD/USD.