FXCM has added Australian shares to its commission-free Single Share CFD offering, the retail FX, CFD, and crypto broker announced.
The Australian entity of FXCM has recently launched, ‘Save Money, Sleep Better’ campaign, offering zero rollover fees to Australian customers trading Stock Indices, Gold, and Silver.
Now it is offering access to Australian shares, with trading sizes as small as 1/10th of a share. Australian listed firms will be available as trading instruments without incurring commission or data subscription fees.
While going commission-free, everyone knows there are no free lunches. FXCM has disclosed the broker can be compensated in several ways, which include but are not limited to adding a mark-up to the spreads it receives from its liquidity providers, adding a mark-up to rollover, etc.
Commission-based pricing is applicable to Active Trader account types, the firm added.
Brendan Callan, Chief Executive Officer of FXCM, commented: “The addition of Australian stocks along with our existing AUS200 index will not only benefit our Australian customers, but it will also create more opportunities for our entire global client base. Fractional shares remove a barrier for those who want to invest smaller sums, including underserved individuals who would like to experience trading.
“This new product complements our Hong Kong, UK, European and US offerings, as we close in on having stock trading available almost 24 hours a day.”
Last year, the group launched its UKOilSpot and USOilSpot CFD products, which represent the current spot price of West Texas Intermediate and Brent Crude. The innovation here is they do not expire.
These products allow customers to leave positions open indefinitely and avoid potentially thin liquidity in the days leading up to contract expiration.
The launch followed the negative oil prices in April 2020, which led many investors to refrain from trading such products. The addition of the CFD products will now give customers the choice of trading either the current contracts, USOil and UKOil which have monthly expirations as they are based on the front-month futures contracts, or the perpetual USOilSpot and UKOilSpot positions which do not expire.
The retail FX and CFD broker has the same contract sizing and pip costs in both UKOilSpot and USOilSpot CFD and Futures Oil CFDs, but spot products have a daily financing fee for holding positions past 5pm EST, while existing futures products do not.
In regard to Australia, FXCM has also launched a StockBasket offering on its Australian and South African entities. The 6 stock basket products combine the shares of multiple companies from one sector into a single tradeable instrument.
The 6 baskets available to retail clients are: Big US Tech (“FAANG”), Esports & Gaming (“ESPORTS”), Biotech, Cannabis, China Tech (“CHN.TECH”) and China E-commerce (“CHN.ECOMM”).
