CFD Rates and Conditions

* Due to limited liquidity in the exchange order book, market orders are not supported on this exchange as the fill price can vary considerably from the indicated market price. Use Limit Orders instead to guarantee the minimum price for your order.

*** South African Stocks and Single Stock CFDs are not available to residents of South Africa due to regulatory issues.

Stock CFD Margins

Stock CFDs are offered under a number of margin groups with margin requirements that depend on the Market Capitalisation, liquidity and volatility of the stock.

You must maintain funds in your account to cover your CFD exposure at all times.

Index CFDs

Index CFDs are over-the-counter products where the prices quoted by Saxo Capital Markets are established by its parent company, Saxo Bank A/S . Index CFDs aim to reflect the fair value of the underlying index but the actual bid and ask price may differ slightly from the actual index level.

Index CFD Spreads

Index CFDs are traded on the index level with the following bid/ask spreads.

Please note that from the 1st of January 2011 Saxo Capital Markets has significantly lowered its target spreads on the 10 most popular CFD index-trackers by up to 67% making trading these CFD indices even more competitive.

* Normal market conditions. If the underlying future trades at a spread that is larger then the minimum spread the Index spread will be increased with the additional spread from the future. Example: Dax.I normal spread is 3 index points if the future spread is 0,5 indicating normal conditions. If the liquidity is low in the future and the spread is 1 the Index spread will be 3 (1-0,5) = 3,5.

** Please note that times noted are local exchange times

DAX®30 is a registered trademark of Deutsche Börse AG

***Break time 12:00 - 13:00.

Index CFD Margin Requirements

For index CFDs, you must maintain a minimum of 5% of the investment value in your account to cover your CFD exposure at all times.

CFD Financing credit/debit rates

As CFDs are a margined product, you finance the traded value through an overnight credit/debit charge. When you hold a CFD over night (i.e. have an open CFD position at close of market on the Stock Exhange or 17:00 New York Time for Index CFDs) your CFD position will consequently be subject to the following credit or debit:

• When you hold a long CFD-position, you are subject to a debit calculated on the basis of the relevant Inter-Bank Offer Rate for the currency in which the underlying share is traded (e.g. LIBOR) plus a mark-up (times Actual Days/360 or Actual Days/365).
• When you hold a short CFD-position, you receive a credit* calculated on the basis of the relevant Inter-Bank Bid Rate for the currency in which the underlying share is traded (e.g. LIBID) minus a mark-down (times Actual Days/360 or Actual Days/365).

The credit/debit is calculated on the total nominal value of the underlying stock(s) at the time the CFD contract is established (whether long or short).

If you open and close a CFD position within one trading day, you are not subject to these credits/debits.

* Should the relevant Inter-Bank Bid Rate minus the mark-down result in a debit as opposed to a credit, then you will pay the finance charge.

Borrowing Costs on Short CFD Overnight Positions

A borrowing cost will be applied to short CFD positions held overnight. This borrowing cost is dependent on the liquidity of the stocks and may be 0 for high liquidity stocks.

The specific borrowing rate for a stock can be seen as the "Borrowing Rate" under "Account > Trading Conditions > CFD Stock/Index Instrument List" in the trading platforms. When selling a CFD, the borrowing cost for holding the position overnight is shown in the CFD Trade module in the "Est. borrowing cost per day" field.

The borrowing rate will be fixed when the position is opened and will be charged on a monthly basis.

Currency conversions

Currency conversions of trading costs as well as profits and losses from trading activities are done using the prevailing close rate as of 17:00h New York Time, plus/minus 0.5%.

Dividends from stock positions

Dividend payments from stock positions will be credited to your account with any applicable standard withholding taxes deducted. We can not currently support or offer preferential withholding tax rates that may be available due to residency or legal status.

Short Selling CFDs

When short selling a CFD directly on an exchange (ie. Direct Market Access CFDs), you will be affected by the rules for the stock market in that country. For example:

• For Australian CFDs, you may experience limitations on the amount of CFDs you can short trade in a single day due to limited borrowing availability in the underlying market.

When short selling CFDs, you can experience forced closure of a position if your CFDs get recalled. The risk is particularly high if a stock becomes hard to borrow due to take overs, dividends, rights offerings (and other merger and acquisition activities) or increased hedge fund selling of the stock.

CFDS SHORT-SELLING RESTRICTIONS

Due to market conditions, a number of financial authorities are announcing rule changes that affect short-selling of physical Stocks. These rule changes are put in place to protect the integrity and quality of the securities market and strengthen investor confidence. As a consequence, the changes will affect the short-selling of related CFDs.

It is the client’s responsibility to keep informed about what markets imply restrictions in short-selling. This can be done by contacting local authorities. List of CFDs available for short-selling is available under CFD Trading Conditions on Saxo trading platforms.

Dividends on CFD Positions

Holders of long CFD positions will, when dividends are paid on the underlying share, qualify for a proportional payout. Holders of short CFD positions will have to pay an amount equal to the full (gross) dividend paid on the underlying share.

All cash dividends for CFD positions are settled on pay date. Cash dividends are booked on ex-date to reflect the market price movement on the ex-date, but the actual value of the payment is settled on pay date.

Dividends on CFD positions are cash adjustments paid or debited by Saxo Capital Markets and not by the underlying company. Dividends paid on CFDs are not eligible for any preferential withholding tax rates sometimes associated with dividends paid on physical stocks and may therefore differ from the dividends payable on the underlying share.

Each booking will be issued a reference number for the related positions. You can find each booking in the Activity Log in the Account Menu in Saxo Trader 2 and in WebConnect.

Dividends on Index Trackers

When any underlying stock that is part of an Index CFD goes ex-dividend the Index CFD will be price adjusted to reflect this dividend. The weighted proportion of the applicable dividend within the Index will be credited to the Clients account for long positions and debited for short.

Please note that the DAX30 is a Total Return Index, meaning that the index is automatically adjusted for dividends.

Index Dividend = Share Dividend * Shares in index / Index Divisor*.

* Divisor: an amount used to stabilize the index value when its composition changes. The sum of all index members' prices is divided by the divisor to achieve the normalized index value. The divisor is adjusted when capitalization amendments are made to the index members, allowing the index value to remain comparable at all times. To prevent the value of an index from changing due to such an event, all corporate actions that affect the market capitalization of the index require a divisor adjustment to ensure that the index values remain constant immediately before and after the event.

Partial Fills

Partial fills may occur on limit orders and the remaining amount stays in the market as a limit order and may be filled within the order duration.

Market orders can be filled at numerous levels, the price paid will be the volume weighted average price of all the fills.

Market Orders

Certain exchanges do not support market orders. If a client places a market order in these markets, Saxo Capital Markets will automatically convert the order to an aggressive limit order within a certain percentage limit “in the money”. The Percentage limit varies between 1% and 4% depending on the exchange and the type of instrument. Please note that it is a client’s responsibility to check if the order is filled in the market after order entry. If clients experience or suspect any errors with their order, they should contact Saxo Capital Markets immediately.

In addition, some of our execution brokers may choose to convert market orders on certain exchanges into aggressive limit orders 3% “in the money”. This is due to their internal compliance and is intended to protect clients from unintentionally moving the market.  Saxo Capital Markets will not be responsible for missing fills due to this.

Pre-Opening Order Fills in US Markets

In US markets, Saxo Capital Markets consolidates liquidity from a number of sources in addition to the primary exchanges. When there is a delay in the opening of the primary exchange, orders can be filled from these other sources before trading commences on the primary exchange.

CFD market orders placed after 09:30 ET will not be filled before the stock is crossed on the primary exchange.

CFD stop orders are triggered on the primary market price feed and follow the routing rules listed above for market orders. As some stops are handled manually delays can sometimes occur.

Nordic Markets

Orders traded in the Nordic markets (Denmark, Sweden and Norway) are split into an "Even lot" which will be traded, and a remainder which will be routed to the odd-lot book.

When part of an order is routed to the odd-lot book, limit orders will be filled if possible or left on the book until a fill is possible. A market order will be filled immediately if possible, and will otherwise be cancelled (fill or kill principle).

Warsaw Stock Exchange

Broker’s market orders may be submitted to the exchange only during the continuous trading phase, except when balancing occurs. For any such order to be accepted, at least one opposite limit order must be awaiting execution.

A broker’s market order shall be executed at the price of the best opposite buy or, as the case may be, sell order awaiting execution.

Where any market order is partly executed, the unexecuted portion shall become a limit order at the last price.

The commission and margin rates referred to above may vary from time to time especially for very active or inactive customers. Saxo Capital Markets reserves the right to amend the commission rates, brokerage fees, margin rates and interest rates referred to according to the General Business Terms or Trading Agreement covering the client relationship between Saxo Capital Markets and the Client.

Corporate actions

For more information on Corporate actions, please read Corporate Action Calculations.