What is indices trading?

Indices trading (Index) is the buying and selling of financial instruments that are based on the performance of a specific stock market index. A stock market index represents a basket of stocks that are selected to represent a particular sector or market, e.g., tech stocks. Well-known indices include the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, FTSE 100, and Nikkei 225.

Indices trading allows you to speculate on the direction of an entire market or a specific sector without the need to buy or sell individual stocks. When trading indices CFDs with Axi, you do not take any ownership of the underlying asset. Instead, you simply trade the real-time price movements of the underlying index in the open market.

How to trade Index CFDs

Axi offers more than 30 top global indices to trade as Cash or Futures CFDs using the MT4 trading platform, with no commission and ultra-competitive spreads. Popular Index Cash CFDs include AUS200, US30, UK100, and GER40 plus the Future Cash CFDS HSI.fs, S&P.fs, and DAX40.fs, VIX.fs, and more.

For a quick comparison between Cash and Futures CFDs, refer to the table below:

A complete list of indices available to trade with Axi can be found in our Product Schedule. 

Trading hours for indices

Because of the global nature of indices, different instruments have different trading hours. For a full list of indices trading hours, including opening times, closing times, and scheduled breaks in MT4 pricing, please refer to our Product Schedule.

You can also view trading hours directly on the MT4 platform. To do this, go to the Market Watch window, right-click on the instrument you want to view/trade, and choose "Specification".