Australian CFD market still strong despite trading dip
Contracts for difference (CFD) trading remains popular among local investors, with Australia recording the second-highest adoption rate of CFDs when compared to Singapore, the UK, Germany and France, Investment Trends has found.
Its latest Australia CFD study, based on a survey of 12,485 investors and traders conducted between 1 May and 10 June 2013, found that the Australian market had a penetration level of 0.24 per cent relative to the adult population.
This was second behind Singapore (0.55 per cent) but ahead of UK spread betting (0.18 per cent), UK CFDs (0.24 per cent), Germany CFDs (0.06 per cent) and France CFDs (0.04 per cent).
Despite Australian CFD traders falling by 7 per cent to 41,000 over the year to June 2013, clients have maintained high satisfaction levels, with 82 per cent of current CFD traders rating their main broker as good or very good and only 2 per cent giving a poor or very poor score.
First Prudential Markets came out on top in overall client satisfaction followed by Saxo Capital Markets and IG Markets, based on a comparison in areas such as functionality, value for money and service.
According to Investment Trends, IG Markets holds primary market share (38 per cent) ahead of CMC Markets (18 per cent).
Forex specialists managed to increase their market share, with third-placed FXCM up 5 per cent and AxiTrader up 4 per cent.
In other findings, Australian CFD traders had the highest level of smart phone usage among traders of leveraged products in the six countries examined.
Specifically, 70 per cent of current CFD traders use a phone or tablet in relation to trading (up from 58 per cent) compared to 66 per cent of US forex traders (as at April 2013) and 63 per cent of UK spread betting (as at July 2012).
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