Chris Cheverall, CMC Markets Head Of UK, On Winning Best Spread Betting Broker 2026

Richard Berry (00:04)
Welcome to Good Money Guide. My name is Richard Berry and today we’re talking to Chris Cheverall, Managing Director and Head of UK from CMC Markets, which has just been voted best spread betting broker in our 2026 Trading Awards. So Chris, welcome. Thank you for joining us.

Chris Cheverall (00:20)
Thank you, it’s great to be here and to accept yet another award for CMC.

Richard Berry (00:24)
You’ve won a few actually with us over the years. How are things going at CMC?

Chris Cheverall (00:30)
we’ve had a really, really excellent year and I’m really proud to sit over the UK part of CMC’s business and I personally am really focused to help grow CMC UK’s market share and adding new products, especially spread product is an excellent way to do that.

Richard Berry (00:47)
Well, I’ve always loved spread betting. think it’s the way I first started trading and it’s the way I still now, whenever I’m taking a position on something, it’s always a spread bet. So I was happy to see you guys won this award. I think I’ve been using CMC now for over 25 years. ⁓ I remember sitting across ⁓ from your office when I was a stockbroker going to pick up a CD of your market maker trading platform.

to get trading. It’s quite funny. It’s nice to see the odds.

Chris Cheverall (01:19)
That’s excellent history and CMC has been around for 37 years. So if you’ve been a client for 25, we must be doing something right.

Richard Berry (01:27)
It’s always been a good platform. I’ve always enjoyed it, which is why I was glad to see you the award, actually. You had some really good reviews. The awards are based on customer feedback, and customer feedback is such an important part of how we present brands on Good Money Guide. And with the rise of AI, it’s so important for brands as well.

Chris Cheverall (01:49)
Yeah,

it’s really nice and important for us to get that customer validation. We’re committed to servicing customers and keep delivering on the platform and on product. So it’s really nice to receive this award, especially as it’s come from customers.

Richard Berry (02:03)
Yeah, that’s good. And I’ve always said as well in trading and investing, it is a sort of relationship business where you’re looking after your clients for 30 years. It’s not like car insurance where you have to switch every year. You know, might have six or seven different accounts, but you will be with them for 20 or 30 years.

Chris Cheverall (02:22)
⁓ You know insurance if as you mentioned it is is is commoditized. It’s just based on price ⁓ When an insurer pays you out you tend to value that relationship And I suppose we’re in the value relationship business ⁓ So if we’re consistent in what we do and we keep improving and what we do and I suppose that that breeds longevity of customer

Richard Berry (02:44)
Absolutely. And well, you did mention price as well, actually, but you are in the price business because whenever we do our price comparison, you’ve always got very aggressive pricing and you’ve got rebate structures for volume traders. above pricing, what do you think it is about CMC that’s unique? know, what’s that one thing that CMC has that keeps the customers

Chris Cheverall (03:09)
Yeah,

it’s a good question because there are a couple of things but I think overarching is really that we are our own price formers of liquidity and the reason that’s important is especially in times of stress but in general we control spreads, control top-of-book liquidity and we control margin so we don’t rely on anybody else to set those terms for us and that will be really important for instance at times of stress on individual asset prices.

such as silver, ⁓ you know, which was born out in December’s rally or then the corrections to the year long rally and especially now in oil. So where we can control all of the elements that deliver what’s important to our customer, I think we’re able to be consistent and then retain the customer. In terms of USP, and as we’re here to talk about spread betting ⁓ in part, it’s really worth mentioning the CMC original.

and that’s a product called Spectre, which is a fully funded, non-leveraged, ⁓ no max cap spread bet. It’s available on all of the products on our platform. And I think the reason that that’s a really good product, if we think about, you know, longer term trading ⁓ horizons is because we charge not an overnight finance fee, but a very transparent one-off annual fee. ⁓ And I think that product is going to be really important to our customers.

going forward and we’re going to make more announcements on the expansion of that product in the next month or two.

Richard Berry (04:42)
Okay, so what’s the difference between an overnight fee and a one-off fee? So if I put a spread bet position on not on, without leverage, with leverage I’d have to pay an overnight financing fee. How does the one-off fee, is that built into the spread or is it charged?

Chris Cheverall (05:00)
It’s

an annual AUA fee. So we charge an annual AUA of 1.2 % to professional customers I think which is slightly different to the benchmark US dollar rate fee Let’s say of four and a half or thereabouts plus two or three percent Depending on the product. So you’re talking about a differential of maybe five or five and a half percent Which I think is really important if one’s thinking about slightly longer term time horizon

I mean, there’s nothing wrong with employing leverage, over leverage maybe, but it’s important if one’s thinking about holding costs and understanding, you know, what your all-in fees are for that trade. Because hidden costs exist in trading, whether that’s spread, whether that’s commission, whether that’s finance or whether that’s margin, which is a cost. If we can smooth out ⁓ those peaks and troughs, then I think we ⁓ give the customer much more simplicity.

Richard Berry (05:56)
Especially if you’re running a long short portfolio as well, know with medium to long-term positions you can really run up quite a big bill quickly, particularly with interest rates so high.

Chris Cheverall (06:06)
Absolutely, people think of holding costs as a nightly fee, which it is, but you have to think about the annual holding fee, which really can eat into your performance.

Richard Berry (06:16)
I remember when I first started off as a stockbroker.

I was going for lots of interviews. One was at CMC actually, I didn’t get the job. But ⁓ I phoned around lots of brokers or made inquiries at lots of brokers and asked them lots of sort of leading questions about the product. And more than one firm said to me when I asked about overnight financing, ⁓ don’t worry about that. You shouldn’t even factor that into your strategy. ⁓ These were advisory brokers, by the way, not execution-only brokers. ⁓ And I remember being like gobsmacked that

people don’t take into account overnight financing into running longer positions on leverage.

Chris Cheverall (06:58)
Yeah, and maybe that’s something to do with the the speculative nature of trading versus any longer term time horizon You know, of course like any like any fee that you’ll accumulate Really you’ll need to take that out of any potential gain you hope to make if it’s a tax-efficient game and also so the better But but you’re still paying those fees if you choose to hold that crypto position You know over over three or six months as opposed to two days

which of course is a strategy, which is more suited to leverage products, but on the fully funded side, if we can be really transparent and clear that you’ll pay this one fee, I think it’s really probably gonna help longer term with your return.

Richard Berry (07:40)
I

think it’s great, especially because you’ve got tax benefits as well. Everybody’s always quite rude about the government, but at least we have the ISA where you can get your profits tax free and financial spread betting, which is unique to the UK, where you can keep your profits and not give them away in capital gains tax.

Chris Cheverall (08:00)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, no one really wants to pay a large CGT bill on their profit. But in this tax efficient solution, you know, we can help ⁓ maximise gains in that respect.

Richard Berry (08:14)
So Spectre, we’ll keep an eye on that. I’m looking forward to trying it when it comes to retail.

So let’s move on to trading mistakes. Obviously, we’ve touched on leverage, which is obviously one of them. But ⁓ when people are trading,

You know, it is a high risk. It is a high risk product obviously specs takes some of that risk away because you’re not trading on leverage, but ⁓ What do you think is some of the the biggest mistakes people make when they’re when they’re spread betting not just with CMC, but you know with everyone

Chris Cheverall (08:46)
Yeah, I mean, look, I’d frame it slightly differently. You know, a lot of people use CMC’s trading platform as an execution on your platform, and that’s fine whether they take leverage or not. I think if you try and make use of all of the tools in that platform, and we’ve helped deliver these for client benefit, so whether that’s educational material, using charting tools, using guarantees, stop losses, or, you know, taking advantage of weekend trading and overnight trading.

even if you just want to see what your performance has looked like over those normal closed periods. So I think a mistake would be not to use all of the tools on that platform. Possibly the platform can be a bit over-facing if you’ve never used it before, but we’re here to help with educational material on how to use the platform. If you are using leverage, would say guaranteed stop loss is probably a good idea, particularly if you’re interested in trading more volatile products.

You know, last year it was silver, this year it’s energy and natural gas and oil. But the fact remains, if you want to protect some element of downsides, then that’s a really good way ⁓ of employing some risk element. And of course you only pay if the guarantee of stop loss is activated. Costs you nothing to place a ⁓ stop loss order and take one away. So it’s not my mistake, but I would encourage people to use the full width of the array of products.

which is going to ultimately help their trading return.

Richard Berry (10:11)
And do you have any stats actually on guaranteed stops? Like how many of your customers use them or what percentage?

Chris Cheverall (10:18)
It’s a newer product. So it’s gaining more traction. It gains more traction in the more volatile instruments, which tend to be the most actively traded. it’s something that people are using more and more. It’s something newer we’ve introduced to the platform and rolled out globally. But I think more people should use it or at least do some research on how to best use it.

Richard Berry (10:41)
Why

not? mean, it’s a product unique, pretty much unique to UK OTC markets, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t get guaranteed stop if you’re trading the DMA futures.

Chris Cheverall (10:50)
Exactly,

it’s unique to ATC and I think that’s a good point actually.

Richard Berry (10:56)
That’s a great, it’s a great product. Another win for the UK, another win for the UK markets. You mentioned weekend trading as well. So we’re moving towards an always on culture for pretty much everything. I saw on LinkedIn on the train on the way and you’ve just launched weekend trading. So weekend trading 24 seven hour. ⁓

24-7 markets, do you think that’s the future? Are we moving towards an always open stock market?

Chris Cheverall (11:26)
I

think we are undoubtedly moving in that direction. We started offering crypto at the weekend last year. We added gold this year. We’ve had extended market hours for some equity markets, particularly in the US. 24.5. That will go to 24.7, as will all of our products. US equity listed markets.

Are now 22 hours. I think futures markets as you know have always been pretty much 24 Maybe 22 23, but it amounts to the same thing But the consumers demand the clients demand rather that we offer Market uptime and price uptime in all of those periods So it’s not a great leap of faith to assume that we’re going to be 24 7 for everything We already have the support net customer support network and trading capabilities

to offer clients this now on some products, it’s the same thing if we offer it to all. It’s just about managing price construction. It’s about managing best execution. It’s about understanding where the price should be if there’s not an active market in that current time. But all of that will fall in with our with our best X rules and our commitment to clients to deliver them the best price at the best time. But yes, if we’re not there already, we’re going there for everything in the not too distant future.

Richard Berry (12:52)
And is there one thing you think people can do to make more of their account with CMC? One of the features I really like is the sentiment gauge. So not just, you know, what percentage of our customers are long and short, but what percentage of winning customers are long or short. ⁓ I always find sentiment a bit of a contrarian indicator actually, but.

What do you think is one feature that’s perhaps not being utilized as much that people could use to make more?

Chris Cheverall (13:23)
I personally I like charts I like to try and price plot on charts So I think making use of that and the trading strategies a good idea I think sentiment is really important Whether that’s thematic led to a certain asset class or directional led to long or short ⁓ I think it’s important. I think one of the things that’s really important

to understand when looking at trading strategies is understanding the interconnectedness of asset classes. ⁓ And we’ve moved to a place where everything affects a different asset class. And that’s just become really transparent on an almost daily basis as energy affects inflation. Inflation will affect bonds, bond deals. The equity market has an inverse price reaction currently to the energy market.

although I think that’s decoupled fairly recently in the US, mainly due to earnings seasons. That goes into currencies and cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has tended to be viewed as a safe haven or a hedge against dollar, as have precious metals. So I think it’s really important to understand the connectedness of the product, particularly as we’re into a new normal of volatility, and particularly as we think about, you know,

term or whether that’s created by a tariff in global supply chain or whether that’s created by, you know, the effects of transportation, for instance, on food prices or how that relates to ⁓ aviation fuel and the cost of your next holiday, ⁓ you know, and therefore holiday firms. So I think the interconnectedness and understanding the themes between those are really important when it comes to trading, which goes back to a sentiment index as well, which is also really important.

Retail has been really adept at buying dips and that’s probably not been as apparent as it was since 2008, but it’s continued since then and buying the dip, especially in the equity market, has proved the right thing to do. So when institutions are mandated to sell, retail clients are quite happy to buy. And that has been a really good trading strategy in the last 10 plus years, 20 years, I should say almost.

Richard Berry (15:39)
Do you think that’s a confidence thing? Because 10 years ago, I don’t think there was the financial literacy in the UK that there is now. mean, there was still like, we’re still a long way off. ⁓ But I think people are much more engaged in the market. And one of the sort of main messages that comes across is don’t panic. ⁓ You know, the markets are designed to go up. So do you think that’s investors having the confidence to view?

a in the market as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Chris Cheverall (16:11)
Yeah, I still think UK customers are uninvested in capital markets. So maybe that’s an educational thing. The amount of resource available online in terms of, know, if you like Tesla and you like buying Tesla, the amount of resource available into how many cars Tesla are selling versus, you know, what BYD’s market share is, that information is so available now and you don’t really have to go on internet searches now. You can just use a chat.

version to figure out what if those results are good or bad and So it’s probably a confidence thing as well, but I think it comes with broader education on investment in things other than traditional asset classes It depends which way around it

Richard Berry (16:55)
Good pairs trade, Tesla vs.

We did some analysis on it a while ago. I’ll reread it after this and see if we were right. ⁓ That would be interesting. ⁓ Investing versus trading on CMC. So obviously, know, spread betting ⁓ is a trading product. ⁓ You’ve got two separate brands. You’ve got the CMC Invest and you’ve got the CMC Markets. ⁓ Do you think there’s going to be a greater… ⁓

fluidity between people investing and trading in the UK. I feel as though they’re becoming more similar than they were a decade or so ago.

Chris Cheverall (17:41)
I’m certainly the asset classes have crossed over so so so Bitcoin for instance isn’t just a Mechanism, it’s an investment investment mechanism, too I guess it depends on your time horizon, but I think it’s a good point because I think people are equally as comfortable Investing for the long term in what you might call alternate assets So traditionally your your equity

You know your broad based equity ETF would be a fairly cheap way to invest and get broad based equity exposure But you can just as equally, you know buy a basket of cryptocurrency in an ETF form ⁓ Or a you know an oil or energy basket in ETF form and so I think it’s really easy to invest in those asset classes and think about the transactional nature of trading in those asset classes we have

over 12,000 equity and ETFs on our new multi-asset platform. And that really is designed to capture the longer term, fully paid cash equity investment, whether that’s an ETF in a specter account or whether that’s a transactional cryptocurrency leverage trades. You know, the two things possibly would appeal to one customer, which is why I’m pleased to say we’re going to unify and bring all of those.

our platforms together in one super app, which will be coming out. I don’t have a time frame, but will be coming out as we as we unify into our trading and investment products.

Richard Berry (19:18)
Yeah, I think anything that’s a gateway into getting people involved in the markets is brilliant. You know, if you’re taking high risk or whatever you think of crypto, when you’re young, you can afford to take a little bit of risk. You’ve got a bit of time and not a lot of money, but it will educate you on the market and get you involved and get you get your time, get your time.

Chris Cheverall (19:39)
I would tend to agree. mean your your risk tolerance is not just Born out of how long you think you’ve got to retirement, you know when you’re 25 You’re not thinking of retirement, but when you’re 55 you probably are So that would dictate, you know What sort of things you choose to invest in and how long you wish to hold them for until retirement age? But I mean the early the earlier you start with that clearly the better but you know I guess first and foremost trying to get onto the housing ladder

And then, you know, as you get more accumulated income after you’re trying to invest that for a longer term.

Richard Berry (20:16)
So themes for 2026, we touched a bit on commodities, energies, ⁓ and what’s going on on the other side of the water. But what do you think are going to be the biggest investing or trading themes for 2026? Where do you think people should be?

Chris Cheverall (20:34)
It’s impossible to get away from AI. Yeah, I know we’ve been speaking about that for a few years now It’s accelerated at pace It’s still the outside of energy and oil as you mentioned. It’s still going to be the overarching investment theme And there’s a really good push-pull Dynamic going on so the push is you know, how much money can this company save by automation? and streamlining its process processes and then the the the pull is

How much money does it take to get there? So the CAPEX or the capital expenditure for AI delivery is north of 500 billion in the US. So what return on investment will companies make based on that spend? I mean, the answer is we don’t know yet. So that’s really the overarching theme. How much more money do these companies need to raise? How much more do they need to invest? And how quickly can they get to automation, which is going to be a huge cost save and driver of profit.

Richard Berry (21:33)
And do ⁓ you have AI indices at CMC?

Chris Cheverall (21:37)
Yes, we have a mechanism to create custom baskets around AI stocks. All of the stocks in CFD and or spread that form are listed on the the site and the ETF which covers that space is added as well. So I think people are more interested in individual stories as it relates to, you know, something like Anthropic or Palantir and they’re the best way to possibly

get exposure to the AI universe on a single market in the same way as some people might be more interested in micro strategy as a play on Bitcoin as opposed to Bitcoin itself. As long as we give clients choice, then I think they’ll be able to express their investment needs by following one particular stock or by following a broad sector of stocks, whether that’s fund or basket related. We do have a mechanism to build our own baskets and we do have

Richard Berry (22:27)
join basket.

Chris Cheverall (22:33)
our own basket thematic products on the on the site. So people should be able to go to that and find a basket that they like, which is thematic. And, you know, as mentioned, the thematics are a small number because we still can’t help talking about AI and how that’s going to change the economy. It already has changed the economy. You know, it seems normal to order food and have it delivered to the door or order a taxi on the phone. You know, but.

20 years ago in my lifetime, that wasn’t normal. ⁓ And soon, you know, a driverless car will arrive at the door as opposed to someone driving a car. ⁓ So I suppose that that’s going to be the new normal, but something we’re just all going to get used to, of course a younger generation have embraced long before we’ve embraced it.

Richard Berry (23:21)
And are you guys implementing AI into your strategy and platform and apps? Do you use it to improve the apps and can traders use it for spread betting?

Chris Cheverall (23:35)
So it’s not available to customers yet, but clearly we’re going to build a lot of the AI tooling into our trading applications, probably under a super app banner. We use it in customer services, like a lot of customer services use a version of chat. We still have a people customer service team, so clients can reach us if they need to. But when you get that initial Q &A, sometimes…

quicker for the customer to go through their questions to get to an answer quicker until somebody takes over, which is fairly normal these days. I think there’s more work to do in terms of interrogation of the platform. If you want to, you know, just ask or type, you know, what are the best AI stocks or, you know, what is my, what is my profit or loss in gold? So I still think there’s a way to go there in terms of how we can assist with either hands free or just

verbal messages ⁓ if you really want to see your last year’s trading activity condensed into one space. It should be easier to get to that than it currently is.

Richard Berry (24:42)
that’s helpful. I think it can really help with post-trade analysis, you know, looking at where you did well, where you won. I think that’s a really good application. It’s the reporting that helps not just finding opportunities but ⁓ seeing where you’ve gone wrong and seeing where you’ve done well. So let’s talk about your trading. We’re here to talk about spread betting. How have you done over the years? Do want to talk us through some of your best and worst positions?

Chris Cheverall (25:10)
⁓ I guess I’ll start with worst, but on a more general basis. What worst is when I think I was trying to make a quick profit and I don’t necessarily have the most speculative or risk nature. I think in, you know, my best have tended to be longer, more stable investment, which accumulate over time. So I think, you know, one always wants to

have some equity exposure ⁓ which tends to perform well over time. ⁓ I think over concentration is an issue. You know shouldn’t have all of your assets set in cash and you shouldn’t have probably all of your assets set in crypto but a portion of cash and a portion of crypto if crypto is your thing as opposed to some broad-based equity exposure in the form of possibly an ETF if it’s tax efficient so the better.

⁓ But some broad-based exposure that will accumulate returns over time is probably going to work for me If you’re more of an intuitive ⁓ Trading type then maybe you can follow the markets more more granular which I tend not to do So I tend more to think about longer-term macro Fundamental as opposed to maybe shorter term price swings, which I’m sure work for some over some element of time

Longer term, I’m more of a passive investor than an active trader.

Richard Berry (26:41)
And we’ll one more question before we move on to our final one.

Chris Cheverall (26:45)
Brocruge.

Richard Berry (26:47)
So many parts of it seem the same and so many parts of it seem to have changed so much. Where do you think the future of spread betting is for the UK? you think it’s due? Because it seems to not get the publicity or the appetite that it’s had in the past. Do you think spread betting in the UK is going to rise or do you think it’ll be overtaken by?

CFDs or tokenized markets.

Chris Cheverall (27:19)
Yeah, I wouldn’t compare spread betting and tokens necessarily. If we’re talking about tax efficiency for a UK audience, clearly we’re talking about a finite number of clients. There aren’t as many spread bettors around as they used to be. And there aren’t many original price constructors around as they used to be. CMC is one. I think as long as one gets comfortable with stake.

And as what one as long as one gets comfortable with single currency account That then I think it makes enormous sense to look at spread betting in that respect Where we go from here? I mean you mentioned tokens so so they could exist alongside Tradfied if you think of a spread betters Tradfied Define Tradfied coexist already how they coexist and harmonize into one space with

an overarching regulatory landscape is important ⁓ for customers. If we think about is a token a security, if it’s a security, how is it regulated? think Mika has helped harmonize EU and UK regulation for crypto, but we need to go further and think about all DeFi products and then how DeFi and Tradfire work in one app for consumer delivery.

which is something that’s important to us and that we’ll work on in the future. Great.

Richard Berry (28:45)
You mentioned stakes and single currency accounts actually that they were the two reasons that drew me into spread betting in the first place. I found stakes easier to understand than ⁓ working out exposure on a CFD and not having dollar exposure or foreign exchange fees was another good bonus. finally, you know, we like to ask this of everybody. It’s always nice to get a book recommendation.

from people in the industry. So is there a book you can recommend that people should read that will help them, you know, manage the markets better?

Chris Cheverall (29:24)
Well, I’m an avid reader, not just of financial books. But if we’re thinking about books that regard finance, there’s a book called The Intelligent Investor, and that’s a really good read if you want to think about speculation versus investment. And so it discusses the irrationality of the markets and how we should think about intuitively reacting to that irrationality with a longer term investment horizon. So I think that’s a really good read.

There’s another book which isn’t about finance. It’s more behavioral which is called thinking fast and slow and that really goes into ⁓ The two different ways our brain works ⁓ You know one is one is intuitive and one is more stable And if you think about that in terms of investments, you have to be fairly intuitive and react to market events ⁓ If you can couple that with some

stability and rational approach to investing, I think you’re in a good place. So those two, I think, combine quite well. One’s behavioural, one’s really talking about your own investment thesis or ideas, which I think are different for everyone. ⁓ But those are both good reads.

Richard Berry (30:36)
two great books. Is it Benjamin Graham? Yeah. The Intelligent Investor. I think there was a time when that was on everybody’s desk.

Chris Cheverall (30:41)
Yeah, no, I still have it. I go back to it from time to time. I mean, there are other books about finance, which are great reads. I’m not sure they’re teaching much about investing, but I think, you know, I read a book called Liars Poker when I was 16 and Barbarians at the Gate as well. So if you want to read about life as a bonds salesman on Wall Street, Liars Poker, which is film as well, is worth a look. Barbarians at the Gate is very good. It’s a little bit more in depth. It talks about leveraged buyouts.

but that’s a good read as well. those are first two financial related books I read. And then I’ve since tried to educate myself by reading some other book types. But I’m an avid reader, as I say, so I’ve always got some type of book on the go, including a finance book.

Richard Berry (31:25)
You have to alternate between finance and real life otherwise. ⁓ Chris, thank you very much for coming in. It was really nice to hear about what’s going on at CMC and the spread betting industry. thanks for coming in and congratulations again on winning best spread betting broker this

Chris Cheverall (31:28)
Absolutely.

Thank you

very much and I look forward to the next award.

Richard Berry (31:45)
Thank you very much for watching and listening. If you’ve ⁓ used CMC Markets or you go on to use CMC Markets after this, please come to the CMC Markets review page on Good Money Guide. Leave a review, tell us what you think. Thank you very much.