Best CFD Platforms For Gold Trading
Gold is considered the world’s oldest form of currency and has been traded for thousands of years. However, only in the last 10-15 years has it been possible to trade gold online via a CFD trading platform.
The precious metal is deemed a safe-haven asset and remains one of the most traded assets in any financial market. Therefore, almost every CFD broker offers the ability to trade gold on their trading platform. But which broker offers the best CFD platform for gold trading?
Recommended Gold Trading CFD Platforms:
Best Gold
CFD Platforms
Who are they?
Leverage
Tier-1 Regulated?
Min. Opening $
Spot Gold spread
Silver spread
Brent Crude spread
US Crude spread
Copper spread
Spread Type
Next Steps
Low-cost CFD platform
with high leverage
200:1
$0
4pts - FIXED
2pts - FIXED
3pts - FIXED
3pts - FIXED
10pts - FIXED
Fixed
Award-winning NZ platform,
with high leverage
500:1
$200
6pts
3pts
5pts
4pts
N/A
Variable
World-leading CFD
platform, low spreads
30:1 (in Aus & UK)
$0
3pts
2pts
5pts
4pts
N/A
Fixed & Variable
Risk Warning: Gold CFD trading is not suitable for all investors. Gold CFDs are leveraged trading products and carry a high level of risk. You don’t own or have rights in the underlying assets. Please note, the information on our website is for general informational purposes and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Seek independent advice.
What Are Gold Trading CFD Platforms?
Gold trading platforms are online software, where you can login and BUY & SELL financial assets, such as Gold. No trading platform simply has gold listed on it – instead, you will be able to access thousands of CFD products from all around the globe.
CFD trading platforms are provided by CFD brokers. Many use one of these popular trading platforms:
- MetaTrader4
- MetaTrader5
- cTrader
However, quite a few other brokers offer their own, in-house built trading system, like TD365.com, who offer clients their world-class “CloudTrade” platform.
If you are interested in trading the price of Gold, without owning it, CFD trading might be a good option for you.
How To Choose a Reputable Gold CFD Platform
Choosing the best gold broker is not easy, but finding a good fit for yourself is possible, if you follow this quick guide.
Regulation
We would recommend this as the first step in narrowing down the long list of gold brokers you may have. Always trade with a regulated gold broker and further to this, ensure they offer ‘Tier-1’ regulation, i.e. they hold a licence from the FCA (UK), ASIC (Australia), FMA (NZ), MAS (Singapore), for example.
Tier one regulated brokers are heavily monitored and scrutinised. Not only that, they must segregate client funds from their own operating funds, this means your money is secure and cannot be touched.
Experienced & Established
Look for a CFD gold broker that has been around for at least 5 years. Whilst a few new brokers are probably fine to trade with, there is still a risk and is it worth risking your money with them? Probably not. All brokers on this site have been around for at least 5-10 years.
Excellent Customer Support
We will go out on a limb here to say that good customer support within the online trading world is hard to find. We are not sure why!
As a trader, you will need 24/5 support across the obvious channels (email, phone and live chat). That is a bare minimum. You should also demand a fast and responsive service, knowledgeable & friendly staff, and a quality outcome provided pretty quickly.
Costs
The cost of trading is a critical factor that you must consider. Always check how much a broker charges before you start trading with them. Ask them for their spread and commission costs for a couple of key markets and compare these with other CFD providers. Look for a low-cost option that is well regulated, like BlackBull Markets.
Platform Features
Keep your eye out for a broker that offers free (and useful) features like a solid charting package, automated-trading, free technical indicators, multiple chart capability, and educational features too.
Range of Products
Find a broker that offers all the trading markets that you want to trade – commodities like gold, FX, indices, stocks etc. – look for a broker that offers them all.
Why Trade Gold CFDs?
Using CFDs is one of the most popular ways of trading gold but why? Check out these main advantages of trading gold CFDs
Maximise Potential Returns Through Leverage
CFDs are a leveraged trading product. This means you do not have to deposit the full value of a trade in order to open a position. When you deposit funds onto your trading account, this is known as your margin. Typically, brokers will offer high leverage amounts on their gold products. For instance, if your broker offers 200:1 leverage on gold, you would only need to deposit $500 to open that particular trade.
Leveraged trading means you can multiple profits very quickly if you speculate correctly. Of course, the opposite is true as well!
Convenience
As gold CFDs are a derivative product, you can trade the price of gold without every having to take physical ownership of the asset. This not only saves money but also valuable time – open & close a gold trade in seconds with no paperwork required!
Buy and Sell 
With CFD trading, you can buy an asset like gold, in the hope it increases in value. You can also “sell” or “short” a financial asset, if you believe that its price will decline over time.
Example – you believe the price of gold will decline. You sell a $100,000 gold contract in the belief that you can buy it back later on, at a lower price. In a week’s time, the price of gold has fallen and your gold contract is now worth $85,000. You would have made $15,000 in this example – all by short selling!
Ease & Flexibility
Most CFD platforms are open 24/5 and so you can close a position pretty much whenever you need. This means you can hold a gold trade open as long as you like – minutes, days or weeks (even years)!
All trading activity can be done via a broker’s platform or their trading app – easy as that!
Hedging
Many people use CFDs to “hedge” an existing portfolio and this can protect them or offset risk. Say you have a large stock portfolio and you sense the market is about to collapse. You can open some stock CFD sell trades to profit while the market falls. Your traditional stock portfolio may have decreased in value but you have protected that by selling some CFDs and profiting from those.
The Different Ways You Can Invest In Gold
It is worth noting that there are several ways to invest in gold. This page focuses on Gold CFD trading but there are other ways;
Gold Bullion: Bullion is physical gold, i.e. the real thing. You can buy gold bullion in the form of a specialised coin or as a bar of gold. This form of investing would see you buy a piece of gold, store it away and wait in the hope that its value increase over time, before selling it for a profit. Whilst this form of investing is common, there can be significant transaction fees and storage costs, and also insurance to consider.
Certificates: This form of investing is similar to cash banknotes – buying a gold certificate demonstrates ownership of the asset.
Gold Futures: Gold futures trading is a contract that agrees to a fixed price for the commodity at a specific date in the future. This form of gold trading is conducted via an exchange and you do not own the asset.
Gold CFDs: You can trade gold using CFDs – and this page is dedicated to explaining what gold CFD trading is.
ETFs: Gold exchanged-traded funds are typically bought via an online broker or from the stock exchange.
Gold Trading Example:
- You believe that the price of Gold is under-priced at USD $1,500 and will rise in value in the coming week.
- The price of Gold on your CFD platform is quoted as 1,498 – 1,502 (a spread of 4 points).
- You enter a BUY trade of 5 units at price $1,502.
- In 3 days time you see that the price of Gold has rallied to $1,602 and you decide it’s time to sell.
- You login to your account and close the trade at 1,602.
- That is a profit of $500! (5 units x 100 point movement)