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What is a CFD, and what its specification sheet says · Taiwan

CFD is short for «contract for difference». Every one that can be traded arrives described in a specification window — six fields there decide how a trade behaves long before any view of the market does.

A CFD follows the price of something — a currency pair, gold, an index — and settles the difference between the figure it opened at and the figure it closed at. Since there is no object to inspect, the contract is defined entirely in writing, and that writing is not hidden: a specification window in the platform, opened by right-clicking an instrument, holds every field that decides what one unit of it is, when it can be traded, and what a night of holding costs. Reading it is a two-minute job that most beginners postpone until something on the ticket refuses to behave.

Six fields, and what each one settles

Open the specification for one instrument and read down. The words differ slightly between platforms; the six meanings do not.

The symbol: The name of the price the contract copies, and nothing more. Two symbols can look almost identical and belong to different contracts — read it before the direction, not after.
Contract size: What one lot stands for. This field, not the price, is what turns a movement into an amount: the same distance travelled means different money on instruments whose contract sizes differ.
Volume: minimum, maximum, step: The smallest position allowed, the largest, and the increment between them. A size that will not type in is usually a step, not a fault.
Profit currency: The currency the result is counted in before it reaches the account balance. Where it differs from the account currency, a conversion sits between the two.
Trading hours: The stretches when the contract is quoted at all. Outside them there is no fill to be had — an order simply waits, and the first quote after a break need not continue from the last one before it.
Swap long and swap short: The nightly figure for a position carried past the daily rollover, listed separately for each direction. It is stated here in advance, which is why it is never a surprise.

The spec answers questions the chart cannot

A price window shows movement. The specification explains what that movement is worth and when it can be acted on — two different jobs, one of which is usually skipped.

Question	Field that answers it
What does one lot of this actually represent?	Contract size
Why will the platform not accept my size?	Minimum volume and step
Why is nothing quoted right now?	Trading hours
What will tonight cost if this stays open?	Swap long or swap short
Why did the result arrive converted?	Profit currency

Every row is readable with nothing open and nothing funded, which makes the specification a window worth opening before anything is funded.

Two things the sheet never states

The specification is precise about the contract and silent about the market. It does not hold the live gap between the buy and the sell quote — that figure is on the ticket and moves through the day — and it holds no opinion whatsoever about direction.

Which is the useful division: the sheet is a set of constants to be read once, the ticket is a set of live figures to be read every time. Pricing a trade from the live pair is worked through on start here.

Six unread fields, five ordinary accidents

The regulatory wording attached to these instruments calls them complex and warns that many people trading them lose money. Part of that complexity is administrative rather than dramatic: an order can be sent without any of the six fields having been opened, and each one quietly decides something about how the position behaves.

Where the sheet gets skipped

Size typed from habit. A figure that worked on one instrument means something else where the contract size differs.
An order sent outside trading hours. Nothing is wrong; there is simply no quote to fill it against yet.
A weekend assumed to be a pause. The first quote after a closed stretch need not continue from the last one before it.
Swap discovered afterwards. The figure was on the sheet the whole time, listed by direction.

A demo account opens the same specification windows with virtual money behind them, so all six fields can be found before anything real is involved. Keep the basic safety rules alongside. This site is an independent guide, not a broker: it opens no accounts and holds no money.

Questions asked with the specification open

Where is the specification window found?

In the instrument list of the platform, usually by right-clicking a symbol and choosing the specification entry. It opens with no position and no order.

The same ten-pip move paid differently on two instruments. Why?

Because contract size differs between them. The distance was equal; what one lot of each represents was not.

The platform refuses the size I typed. What is wrong?

Usually the minimum volume or the step. Both are stated on the sheet, and a size between two steps cannot be accepted.

Is a CFD quoted around the clock?

It depends on the instrument, and the trading-hours field is where that is written. Some run through most of the week, others keep to shorter stretches.

Swap long and swap short show different figures. Is that an error?

No — the two directions are charged separately, and one of them can even be a credit. Both are listed so they can be read before an order.

Does the specification say what a trade will cost to open?

Not the live part of it. The gap between the two quotes sits on the ticket and moves; the sheet holds the constants around it.

A field on the sheet uses a word I do not know.

Lot, pip, swap and margin are defined plainly in trading words; how an order reaches a fill is in your first trade.

What forex is

The prices most often written into a contract, and how a pair is read.

See what forex is

Practice calculator

Contract size and a distance, turned into an amount.

Run the sum

Account types

Where the charge on a fill is placed, and how two forms compare.

Compare the forms

Open one specification and read all six fields.

A demo account shows the same windows with virtual money behind them: an email and a password to open it, nothing deposited, no time limit.

Open a free demo at Exness