Does CMC Markets allow options trading?

Is City Index a good options broker?

You can trade options with City Index. However, you are limited to trading them as a financial spread bet or a CFD and you can only trade options on some of the most popular major markets like the FTSE or Gold online. If you want to trade stock options, you have to phone the options desk. Which is nice actually becuase most brokers don’t have voice brokerage any more. It’s particulary useful for options trading, becuase it can be, for want of a better word, complicated.

Sometime’s it’s much easier to tell a dealer what you want to to and let them take on the risk of making sure they buy and sell the right strategy.

It’s really simple to trade options with City Index online, if you just want to take a limited risk directional bet. There are no options strategies available so if you want to trade basic call or put spreads, you have to trade the individual legs.

However, as profits from options trading as a spread bet on City Index are tax-free I thought I’d test the platform by trading some Gold options.

Jackson wrote some great analysis on Gold’s bull run, as it just topped $3,000 and doesn’t show any sign of stopping. So I’ll go long. When you’re trading Gold CFDs or spread bets you have to worry about high overnight financial charges on long term positions. But that’s not the case with options, you just pay your premium and wait. City Index earn their money on options by widening the spread.

I’ve given it till June and hoped that Gold goes up by another 10% and bought some $3,300 June Calls. If the market comes off before then, I’ve lost my premium, but if it pays off, I’ll buy Mrs Berry something yellow and shiny for her 40th Birthday.

For more sophisticated options traders, Interactive Brokers or Saxo offer direct market access on a wider range of equity options (but no financial spread betting for tax-efficient trading).

Is Plus500 a good broker?

Yes, Plus500’s trading platform has evolved nicely over the years from a simple interface to an intuitive execution venue for CFDs on the major markets and stocks.

1. Submit some documents to the company (identification, residence verification, etc.)
2. Read through several documents and complete a questionnaire
3. To be able to trade, you will need to fund your account (in the UK, the minimum initial deposit is £100).

Pricing: It’s dynamic so moves with the market for minimum spreads.

Plus500 does not charge any trading commissions when you place a CFD trade. However, there are some fees you need to be aware of including:

• Overnight funding fees – This is either added to or subtracted from your account when holding a position after a certain time
• Currency conversion fee – There is a fee (0.7%) for all trades on instruments denominated in a currency different to the currency of your account
• Guaranteed stop-loss order fees – If you request a guaranteed stop loss on a trade, there will be a small fee
• Inactivity fees – If you do not log in to your trading account for three months, a fee of up to USD $10 per month will be applied to your account.

Withdrawals are free of charge no matter how many you make per month.

Deposits are also free of charge.

Market Access: Very good, Plus500 are always first to try new asset classes

With Plus500, you can trade CFDs on a range of assets and instruments including:

• Shares (e.g. Lloyds Bank, Tesla, Apple)
• Currencies/forex (e.g. GBP/USD)
• Commodities (e.g. gold, oil)
• Options (exchange-traded options)
• Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
• Indices (e.g. FTSE 100, S&P 500, ESG indices)

Overall, there are over 2,800 assets you can trade with CFDs.

The maximum amount of leverage you can use with Plus500 varies depending on the asset class as shown in the table below. If you are trading forex, you can potentially borrow up to 30 times your own money. For shares, you can only borrow up to five times your own capital.

Plus500 margin rates:

• Shares – 1:5
• Forex – 1:30
• Commodities – 1:20
• Indices – 1:20
• Options – 1:5
• ETFs – 1:5

Platform & Apps: Basic execution, but it does the job well

Plus500 trading apps and platform also offers several tools to help traders manage risk including:

• Stop-loss orders – Traders can use these orders to automatically close out a losing position at a specific level
• Guaranteed stop-loss orders – A guaranteed stop-loss puts an absolute limit on your potential loss from a losing trade
• Trailing stop-loss orders – This type of stop loss moves upwards as the price of the security being traded rises
• Take profit orders – Traders can use these orders to automatically close out a winning position at a specific level.

Customer Service: Plus500 doesn’t have a phone option, but its live chat is sufficient

Plus500’s customer service options are limited to online chat, email and WhatsApp. So, you can’t contact the company by telephone. However, don’t let that put you off. We contacted the company via online chat and were very impressed with the service and support offered. 

It’s worth noting that support is available 24/7. This is a big plus – some other CFD providers only provide support during the week.

If you are a larger or professional trader you can get access to Plus500’s Premium Service Package which includes:

• A dedicated premium service client manager.
• Periodic emails containing expert analysis of upcoming trading events.
• External trading webinars.
• A premium service customer support team.

The premium service is invitation only. To become a premium customer, you must have a real-money trading account.

However, if you want better margin rates but are not interested in the premium package you can upgrade to a professional account. The Plus500 professional account is an account designed for professional traders. With this account, you have access to higher levels of leverage (e.g. 1:20 for shares).

To be eligible for a professional account, you must meet two of the following three criteria:

• You’ve performed an average of at least 10 transactions per quarter, of significant size, over the previous four quarters on the relevant market (with Plus500 and/or other providers)
• You have a portfolio worth more than €500,000 (including cash savings and financial instruments)
• You have worked in the financial sector for at least a year in a professional position that requires knowledge of the related transactions or services.

Research & Analysis: Some sentiment, but limited education and analysis. Plus500 offers a range of additional features designed to help traders make money, including:

• Charting tools – Plus500’s platform offers charts with a wide range of indicators and drawing tools to help traders identify and capitalise on patterns and trends (there 13 charting tools and over 100 indicators)
• Market news – On its website, there is a section dedicated to news and market insights
• Alerts – With Plus500, you can set up real-time email, SMS, and push notifications for trade alerts (e.g. price alerts or % change alerts)
• An economic calendar – The economic calendar is designed to help traders prepare for important economic data (e.g. inflation data, retail sales data, job reports, PMI data)
• +Insights – This is a feature that allows Plus500 users learn more about market trends based on the company’s internal data (e.g. most bought stocks, most sold stocks)
• Watchlists – Users can manage multiple watchlists.
• Trading Academy – Plus500’s Trading Academy offers a range of educational products including eBooks, videos, and FAQs
• Webinars – Plus500 offers regular webinars to its professional clients
• A free unlimited demo account – With the demo account, novice traders can learn to trade CFDs without risking real money.

Is Interactive Brokers good for options trading?

Interactive Brokers won “best options broker” in our 2025 and 2023 awards. They offer a huge range of markets to trade options on, low fees and platform features that enable you to easily create options strategies.

IBKR offers one of the most, if not the most, advanced options trading platforms for private clients, both for derivatives markets (indices, commodities, and forex) and stocks and shares. They provide access to a huge number of UK and international stock options, but where they really win business is through their execution capabilities.

Their strategy builder tool automatically creates the legs for spreads based on what you think is going to happen to the market and you can set your profit and loss visually through drag and drop charts.

For this review, I spent an hour or so talking to Steve Sanders, who runs product development for IBKR and it’s epic. There is far too much to go into for a short piffy review and even an a options broker myself I found some of it overwhelming. If you are a professional options trader, I would say there is no better platform out there.

However, if you are just getting started trading option, IBKR has a new options tool called Options Wizard, which identifies options strategies according to market outlook, as well as the ability to add option chains into layouts and customise the data that is shown.

What’s great about this is that it will create strategies around what you think will happen in the market rather than having to work it out longhand yourself. For exmaple, one of the most popular pieces of analysis we write is about whether or not the Lloyds share price will reach £1 in 2025. So to test IBKR’s Options Wizard I asked it on the GlobalTrader app to to come up with an options strategy that would make me the most money if Lloyds reached £1 before the end of the year.  

Users can also now make use of options screeners, which sort and scan for option data within new dedicated sections and sub-tabs.

Options Wizard: Identify options strategies that match a market outlook.

Option Chain in Custom Layouts: Add one or multiple option chains into layouts and customize data columns to show option-specific data, such as the Greeks or Implied Volatility, and use color grouping to connect to other tools in the custom layout area, such as the Rapid Order Entry, to create trades.

Options Screeners: Sort and scan for option data with new dedicated sections and sub-tabs that offer complex combination strategies volume and trades for the day, among other features.

Is Spreadex good for options trading?

Yes, you can trade options with Spreadex, but you are limited to only a few indices and maor US stocks, but profits are tax-free if you trade as a spread bet and commission is built into the spread. If you want to trade options as a spread bet, then you are much better off with IG. Or if you are a more sophisticated trader, Saxo and Interactive Brokers offer DMA on exchange options trading across all asset classes.

I really like Spreadex and I really like options, I much preferred it when you could trade shorter-term options, but the FCA no longer allows retail investors to trade binary options, so you have to take a slightly longer-term view.

It’s been a long day testing options trading platforms, and I’m a little tired so when I logged into my Spreadex account after 4 pm with only 10 minutes till the close, I wasn’t sure what to trade.

However, thankfully, Spreadex has recently integrated trading signals from Autochartist, which gives you an ever-updating list of trading ideas. These are mainly for going long or short on spread bets, but still give you an idea of where the market may be going.

There was a bearish signal for the FTSE, and whilst I wouldn’t normally bet against Britain, the UK markets have been sliding a bit recently from all-time highs. Plus I won £500 from Spreadex on the Cheltenham Gold Cup, so I don’t mind having a punt on the markets falling further. I bought some April 8625 Puts which is just below where the market is trading.

If the FTSE goes down, I’ll add my winnings to this years Ascot kitty. If the UK market continues to rise, my max loss is £90, but everyone else wins. That’s a pretty good hedge by my book, I’d say.

Is IG/Tastytrade good for options trading?

I’ve always loved options trading, but is it really for UK traders? Can we grasp the Americanness of them? Or should we stick to good old fashioned financial spread betting and CFDs to hedge?

IG is betting big on options at the moment, particularly after their acquisition of TastyTrade in the US. IG even took over the advertising spots on The Drain (the Waterloo & City Tube Line) that ushers finance types to the square mile every morning, with the hope, I assume, of enticing sophisticated traders to take a position on the US election.

Side note – when I took The Drain the following week, it was a different advertiser, which was a shame because I happen to know that if no one is booked in after your slot, the Underground will just let you leave your ads up there – potentially doubling or even tripling your return on investment.

I’m not going to go on an advertising rant here, but when I flicked on Margin Call the other night on Amazon Prime, I got probably one of the most highly targets ads I’ve seen. I’d been researching options, and IG, and was also about to watch a film about the dangers of highly leveraged positions – so what advert came on before hand? That’s right – IG’s new option trading offering…

But is options trading on IG any good?

Well, in the past, if you wanted to trade options with IG, you could do so as a spread bet or a CFD, on major indices currencies or commodities (and some US stocks). This was good because if you wanted to hedge your portfolio, you could buy a put as a financial spread bet, and if the FTSE took a tumble, you wouldn’t have to pay tax on your options spread bet profits, or CGT from liquidating any long-term holdings.

But now, IG options trading has got a little tastier, as they say in EC, you can now access the mightly TastyTrade options platform through your IG account. Until recently, you had to sign up directly with TastyTrade in the US, but you can’t do that anymore because of the FCA & SEC, which is actually fine because it’s an absolute nightmare funding a US account from the UK. It takes ages. Even in the world of instant bank transfers, it can still take days before your deposit is eligible for trading. But now as TastyTrade sits in your IG dashboard alongside your spread betting, CFD, GIA, ISA and SIPP account when you deposit funds via debit card, they are available immediately.

If you don’t know what TastyTrade is and how important it is for options trading just check out Tom Sosnoff on Youtube. What started out as essentially an educational social media channel about options trading that ushered customers onto a white label soon became a stand-alone platform and was then acquired by IG for over $ 1 billion.

Now, I like options trading. I’m a natural bear, so if I think the market is going to tank, I’d rather buy a put, that short sell an index as your risk is limted to the premium you pay, which means I can sleep at night. I’ve been an options broker back in the days when customers would phone through the individual legs of a spread and you’d have to get on the phone to a market maker to do they deal – trying you best not to get it the wrong way round. Which I often would, ensuing much hilarity as I tried to trade out of the errors.

But thankfully, options trading is much easier these days.

TastyTrade is an epic platform and far too big for me to explore on my own, so after interviewing Matt Brief, the head of IG UK about why they are bringing options to Blighty, I spent a good hour or so going through the platform with Hannes Bruwer. Hannes found his niche as an options sales trader at IG after joining their graduate program following his Masters in economics.

Niche here is I think the right word. Becuase in America everyone loves options because for some reason they understand them. Maybe because they don’t have CFDs and financial spread betting. But in the UK, options trading is not all that popular, and that’s something that may change with the introduction of TastyTrade and all the educational content that comes with it. Because for some reason, everyone wants to be like Mike, or maybe now Tom…

But anyway, What does Tastytrade do? Well, three things: it lets you trade US stocks, futures and options – yes, you could do this with IG before, but this is a whole other level.

The platform will automatically build options strategies like Vertical, Strangle, Straddle, Butterly and Ratio spreads etc. So if for example you expect the Tesla share price to move because you think that Elon Musk is about to go bonkers on Twitter/X again – but are not sure in which direction, you can use Straddle to buy both a put and a call simultaneously. Or you can execute a short straddle if you think that Musk has become a boring old man and the Tesla share price is due a dull period as there are no earnings out for a while.

It gives you an excellent representation through the advanced tab’s bull/bear visuals where you can see your max profit and loss. There is also a quick analysis tab that calculates probability. You can also see how you have done on every asset you have traded since you opened your account – which comes in quite handy as being able to see your individual P&L may guide you towards stocks or indices you do well at and hopefully help you avoid currencies where you constantly lose money.

Mainly though, people trade SPX, SPY, top stocks, covered calls, and long options to take positions, but interesting, apparently the most successful traders are those that short options accumulating premium. But stop losses aside, naked options selling can potentially mean unlimited losses, so you really need to know what you are doing for that.

If you are just interested in covered calls, which are one of the most popular options strategies on the platform where you sell calls against a stock you own, the platform automatically recognises that you hold the stock on account and adjusts your margin to free up as much buying power as possible. IG has always been good at collateral as you can use stock for margin trading with a normal IG account, but you need a professional account and special permission from the risk department for that.

On the downside, there is no strategy builder where you can decide where you think the market is going to go, where the system will work out which strategy is most appropriate like Interactive Brokers does with Capitalise.ai.

But, and I cannot stress this enough, this is where IG stands out, if you don’t know what you are doing, you can phone IG up and ask and someone will talk you through your trades over the phone, or even do them with or for you.  You can have all the best tech in the world, but if you can’t get a hold of someone when you need to, it doesn’t matter.

If you’re starting small, IG has micro lots, and cash-settled options on indices, and if you add the $ sign before a code, it will show you the continuation chart of a future, rather than the quarterly charts, which makes historic performance easier to understand.

Or if you like the quarterly contracts, you can trade one futures month against another, which is futures spread trading, as opposed to financial spread betting, if you’re looking for allusive arbitrage opportunities or like a punt on divergence.

If you’re executing “lots”, commission is capped at $10 per strategy, otherwise it’s $1 a contract, which is relatively expensive for small trades, but good for bigger ones. It’s a lower margin (for want of a better word) product for IG, but they say they are intent on offering a full suit of products with the aim of being able to cater for every sort of investor and trader.

There are no options on UK stocks, unless they have an ADR like Lloyds, so you can hedge your bigger UK longer-term equity holdings. Charting is drag and drop; you can backtest a range of strategies and ideas without risking real money.

Overall, TastyTrade’s options platform is an excellent addition to IG’s account range, giving traders greater flexibility and options…

I had a little play about and put some trades on after the demo with Hannes as it’s always nice to have a punt on the market in a relatively limited-risk way. And by that, I mean long options and if I lose money, marking it through the business as part of the research and development budget.

You have to go through a little bit of KYC and answer a quiz about options to get your account activated and do the aweful Onfido ID verification process, which means getting up and going to look for your drivers licence or passport. But it, literally only takes 5 minutes. Especially if you copy and paste the suitability questions into ChatGPT because you’re in a hurry and becuase, that is simply how every exam, question or anything that requires a bit of effort will be done from now on.

For the test trades, going back to my earlier point, I personally think that Tesla can go bananas at the founder’s whim so I bought a straddle that basically meant that if the price moved by more than $3.20 in either direction by the end of the day I’d make money. A fair bet, seeing as Tesla, can move between 2-3% or $5.50 on average for no apparent reason.

But typically, it didn’t. Musk must be planning another ludicrous update – so I lost $185 on that trade. I was keeping an eye on it all day via the app, which is much easier to use than the desktop version (as all apps are). I closed the position out before the end of the say as I just don;t need the hassle of being assigned. Although IG say they can walk you through your options if that does happen.

My mate, Darren reckoned that Southwest Airline, Norwegian Cruise Line and WYNN Resorts looked good in the short term. Now, as I personally think that the Wynn has the best poker room in Vegas and despite sitting down with pocket rockets earlier this year they still have some of my rake. I’d like a bit of it back, so went long and bought some November 120 calls. That gives them a few weeks to break out above last year’s highs.

Jackson is quite rightly bearish on Aston Martin and whilst I think there is money to be made by owning a classic DB6, two clear-cut depreciating assets are a new Aston Martin or AML shares. So I was going to buy some puts to see if they have another profit warning, as they say they come in threes. But can’t becasue even though they have an ADR, it’s not on the platform.

But if there is one thing you can rely on, it is the unreliability of British car marques, so I picked on Lotus (LOT) instead, who have done terribly since their IPO, as we expected. But, as I can’t trade options on those either I’ve had to reduce myself to the indignity of shorting the stock as a vanilla margin trade. LOT US is hard to borrow too, so the sort interest is going to be high (75% a year) so it definitely won’t be a long-term position.

Ed, is bullish Uber in the medium term, and I personally think that if there was ever a consumer case for monopolies, Uber would be it. It has made my life immeasurably easier and cheaper over the years, so I’ll “ride” that wave and hopefully “share” in their profits. They’ve come off a little bit, but overall I think bullish, I bought some November 90 calls, hoping the rally will continue. Maybe a potential hedge against the Lotus short as it is slightly car related.

Fingers crossed…

Is CMC Markets good for options trading?

CMC Markets lets you trade options on major US and European indices including the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, FTSE 100, DAX, CAC 40 and Euro Stoxx 50. More stocks and markets will be added soon, but the key differentiator is that they are fractional options so you can take a position size as small as a hundredth of an option (0.01 of a unit).

CMC Markets CFD options trading also gives you a bit more flexibility with either daily or longer-term time options expiry for yield enhancement strategies and the ability to trade in non-volatilie markets and protect your downside and mitigate potential losses to an existing portfolio.

However, as you can options with CMC as a spread bet they can be used to hedge your exposure with tax-free profits.

CMC doesn’t charge commission on the trading of options, but makes money from the difference between the ask price and the bid price of instruments as well as a currency conversion fee of 0.5%.

It doesn’t really matter that CMC Markets don’t offer loads of options markets because that’s not their target market. CMC Markets traders are generaly active day traders in the UK and other regions where options trading hasn’t really become a thing.

Is Saxo a Good Options Trading Platform?

Yes, Saxo is one of the better value brokers for larger trades as you can trade stock options from USD 0.85, EUR 1 or GBP 1. Saxo Markets provides access to 1,200+ listed options from 23 exchanges worldwide, across equities, indices, interest rates, energy, and metals.

Saxo options trading is one of the best things about the platform’s range of markets. You can trade options with Saxo DMA on exchange on indices, commodities, forex and equities, or as a CFD. Saxo is one of a handful of options brokers to offer this, and it has the best market range.

What is the Platform Like to Use?

The key difference between CFDs and options trading is that options can limit your risk to the premium you’ve paid.

However, it’s possible to take on more options risk, which isn’t for “retail” clients who can only hold (buy) options. If you upgrade to a professional trading account, you can buy and sell (write) options in the hope that they expire worthless.

You Can Exercise Options Early

Another key benefit of trading options through Saxo is that you can exercise options early (rather than just closing off your options position). To exercise an American option early on Saxo you just need to request it in your account summary tab and a position in the underlying asset will be added to your account.

Risk Ladder

Saxo is also one of the only options brokers to offer a risk ladder calculator. This calculates the present value change as well as Delta, Gamma, Vega and Theta (commonly referred to as “Greeks”) for a range of spot values. The calculations make it possible for traders to get a quick overview of their portfolio’s risk exposure relative to different values at manually set time ranges of the underlying spot. It’s a really useful tool for traders with complex portfolios.

What is Investa?

Investa is a mobile-first investing app offering zero-commission trading of US stocks and options, with an intuitive interface and a simplified options chain that is on a mission to make options trading more accessible and easier in the UK.

Pricing: Zero commission stocks and options which is good, but the 0.99% FX fee is quite high compared to 0.02% from Interactive Brokers (although IBKR charges commission).

Market Access: You can trade stocks and buy near the money call and put options on major US stocks same day or up to a year in advance. No UK shares, indices, commodities or currencies (although you can trade sector and index ETFs like SPY).

Apps & Platform: Great iPhone app, but no desktop or Google Play version. The dealing ticket is very clear with some good explanations around breaking even.

Customer Service: Very good, an experienced and attentive small team give a bit of much needed personal service in the world of mega apps.

Research & Analysis: You get some basic Greeks data and charts on the app. The website has more educational guides on how to trade options.

What’s it like to trade options on Investa?

I like trading options, I like the way they are limited risk (when buying at least, which is all you can do on Investa at the moment) becuase you can set your stake, trade with what you are only prepared to lose and sit back and wait. You can trade End of Day Options on Investa, but for that sort of thing I prefer day trading on financial spread betting (because it is tax free god forbid I should make any money).

But I think options are great for long term positions becuase unlike spread betting or CFD trading, you don’t have to pay overnight funding fees to run a long term position. Which is important as interest rates are so high at the moment you can run up fees of over 10% a year, especially if you are trading with eToro who charge a whopping 6.4% +/- SONIA (ouch).

However, if you want a long term punt with options (or to hedge a position which is what everyone says they should be used for rather than straight speculation) your only cost is the premium you pay. After that there are no more fees until you sell or are exersised.

Talking of hedging, I think Snapchat is destroying my daughters life. She spends too much time on it. I hate Snapchat with the passion of a thousand suns. We don’t allow TikTok as it’s too adictive, Youtube is fine becuase there are tutorials for everything on it, Instagram is apparently for old people and she doesn’t even know what Facebook is.

But Snapchat is so ingrained in her and her friends social life, that it’s how they meet, how they communicate (WhatsApp is ignored) and where they share things that it’s impossible to ban. Of course with the exception of taking her phone away completely, but that is a ridiculios notion in this day and age.

So, I’ll hedge that hatred by reveling in the fact that whilst most other social media companies shares prices are doing well, Snap Chat is down about 30% over a year.

I’ve gone out as far ahead as possible on Investa and bought a single (becuase I’m a one lot wonder) Sept 26 $7 Put, which gives me the right, but not the obligation to sell 100 shares in Snap at $7. I am obviously hoping they go down significantly over the next year.

If they do, and I make a profit, I’ll use that to buy some shares in something that will stand the test of time like Rolls Royce (which is being touted as potentially the UK’s first Trillion dollar company) for her Junior SIPP, so that whatever damage Snap Chat has done in her teenage years, will maybe pay off for her retirement when I and Snap Bloody Chat are long gone…