CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Explore and trade the major indices in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US. Take advantage of weighted exposure to the stock market of a single economy or across an economic area. Indices allow you to express a positive or negative view of both.
Stock indices reflect the major share markets for a sector, region or country. The underlying stock prices drive the index, and the individual shares are impacted by macroeconomic and microeconomic data, Central Bank policies, and geopolitical factors. There are a large number of stock indices and all the majors are available to trade with Hantec Markets.
Indices are a way to be exposed to the stock market of an economy or economic area.
They are generally a weighted index of the top stocks in a country
For CFD traders, this allows an easy way to express a positive or negative view on the global economy or a specific country's economy
Access the Hantec Markets MetaTrader4 platform, an award-winning technology available on desktop, mobile and Mac.
All our market analysis is produced daily by our senior market analyst, Richard Perry.
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Before we can look at the specifics of indices or averages, we first need to explore the underlying financial market assets that are included in stock indices: namely stocks, shares, or equities.
Shares are a type of security defined as part ownership in a company, usually, one that is publicly listed. This gives the owner of the share an entitlement to the corporation’s earnings and assets, voting rights in major decisions about the company at the Annual General Meeting (AGM), and a dividend payment if there is one (effectively a proportion of the company’s profits).
Furthermore, if the company is run profitably and successfully, the hope is that the company’s share price will rise, and the owner of the share will make a capital gain on the value of their shareholding. Stocks and shares are primarily bought and sold on Stock Exchanges.
Averages are calculated from the prices of the selected stocks within an index (as we see below) and are used by investors as a way of gauging the performance of the different markets that the stock indices reflect. There are two main ways of calculating the value of stock indices: a price-weighted index or a capitalisation-weighted index.
Without doing a deep dive into the mathematics behind these calculations, in simple terms they differ in this way:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is an example of a price-weighted index. The S&P 500 a capitalisation-weighted index.
US – S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000.
Europe – FTSE 100 (UK), DAX (Germany), CAC 40 (France), EURO STOXX 50 (pan-European), FTSE MIB (Italy), IBEX 35 (Spain), SMI (Switzerland).
Asia/ Pacific – Nikkei 225 (Japan), S&P/ASX 200 (Australia), Shanghai Composite (China), Hang Seng (Hong Kong), KOSPI (South Korea), Nifty (India).
Many factors can influence the level of a stock index, but the main factors are:
Data: This includes both macroeconomic and microeconomic data.
Central Banks: Central Banks in most major economies control monetary policy, through changes to the national interest rate. Depending on how interest rates are expected to rise or fall in the future, this can impact on the whole economy by slowing or encouraging growth. That can affect individual shares and, by extension, the stock indices they form a part of.
Geopolitics: This is a broad concept which includes political, environmental, geographic and social impacts on economies and financial markets. Examples of geopolitics include trade wars (US-China trade war, 2018-2020), large political events (US elections, Brexit) and geographic events (also described as “Acts of God”) such as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011.
Bid
The rate at which you can sell the base currency, in our case it’s the Euro, and buy the quote currency, i.e the Japanese Yen.
Ask (or Offer)
The rate at which you can buy the base currency, in our case the British Pound, and sell the quoted currency, i.e. the Japanese Yen.
Spreads
The difference between the Bid and the Ask prices.
Currency rate
The value of one currency expressed in terms of another. Its fluctuation depends on numerous factors including the supply and demand on the market and/or open market operations by a government or by a central bank.
Lot
Usually contract size is based on a lot system, and for most currency pairs 1 lot is 100,000 units of a base currency.
Pip
Minimum rate fluctuation
Account types
Hantec Markets offer a variety of live and demo trading accounts including Joint and Corporate accounts.
Head to our learning hub or contact us about opening an account
Support your trading strategy with our daily reports and analysis conducted by our chief analyst, Richard Perry
You can contact us anytime the markets are open, we’re here 24 hours a day 5 days a week
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.
68% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Please click here to view our Risk Disclosure.
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