When were CFDs introduced in Australia?

I am curious as to when CFD's started trading in Australia. Can anyone answer this for me?

Thank You

Re: CFD Question?

Cyber Man said:

I am curious as to when CFD's started trading in Australia. Can anyone answer this for me?

Thank You

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Deal for free was around in 2002, maybe late 2001. Roughly around that time.

Re: CFD Question?

professor_frink said:

Deal for free was around in 2002, maybe late 2001. Roughly around that time.

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Yeah thats what I remember too Professor.

Re: CFD Question?

Been out of the market for about 5 years now to concentrate on other things and in this time I purposely did not pay any attention to its movements. I am now about to start trading full time and I see there’s been a huge bull market from about march 03 and I also see that there are now CFD's and these CFD's seem to be marketed at amateur investors.

With this highly leveraged product and believing that amateur investors are more inclined to go long than short I wonder if this has been a major contributing factor to the recent bull market.

I realize that other markets that don't allow CFD's like the US (I think) have also gone up but not to the extent that we have experienced over the same time.

Judging by what little I know about CFD's they seem to have become mainstream at about the time of the start of the Aus bull market.

Many home investors have reported a great profit trading CFD’s and this is no surprise since there has been very little downward pressure since their introduction. I have to wonder what will happen when the market does start moving against them.

This is just a small observation after looking at the market for about a week.

Re: CFD Question?

I think you are correct Cyber Man - the same derivatives that are distorting the market going up will distort it going down as well, only more so as the need to exit longs will exacerbate what would have been an orderly decline into something a lot quicker and sharper. No doubt DMA CFD's have contributed to market liquidity going up. As the usual margin on the blue chips is about 10% or 10 to 1 then I would think that come the day of reckoning (whenever that may be?) then the market will overshoot by similar proportions.

Re: CFD Question?

I still have the 70 odd page Australian IG Index Dealing handbook Edition 1 from June 2002, so I guess that was roughly when they started up here???