Monitor and close your position
When you decide to close a position, click on the ‘Positions’ tab on the left menu. Select ‘Close position’ and set the number of contracts you’d like to close. Alternatively, open the market’s deal ticket and take the opposite position to one you have open – for example, if you bought CFDs to open, you’d now sell, and vice versa.
Trading CFDs on cryptocurrencies: ether example
After completing a thorough analysis on ether price movements, you believe the market will trend upwards from its current level of 3200. Consequently, you decide to take a long position using CFDs. Because you’re going long, you open your position by electing to ‘buy’.
In this example, after a spread of 8 points is applied – and excluding other costs – the buy (or offer) price is set at 3204, while the sell (or bid) price is 3196. The CFD you use specifies an amount of $1 per point of market movement, and you opt to trade 10 contracts. This brings your total exposure for the position to $32,040 ($3204 x $1 per point x 10 contracts).
But, as positions on ether CFDs can be opened with a margin deposit of 50%, you’ll only need to deposit $15,020. At this point it’s important to note that because your exposure is larger than your required margin, you stand to lose more than the deposit if the market moves against you. So, to manage your risk, you can set a stop-loss to close your trade automatically.2 In this case, suppose you add a guaranteed stop loss at 3000.
The market moves as you predicted, up to a level of 3500, at which point you decide to close your position and take a profit. The sell (or bid) price after the spread is applied is 3496. The difference in price between 3496 and 3204 is 292 points. This, excluding other costs, brings your profit on the trade to $2920 – a return of 19.4% on your margin deposit.