Forex Glossary
What Is CFD?
A leveraged derivative to trade an asset’s price difference without owning the underlying asset.
With a CFD you can go long or short; you never own the asset, only profit/lose from the price difference. In Türkiye, CFDs are legal only via SPK-licensed firms.
Risk warning. Leveraged forex trading carries high risk and in Türkiye may only be offered by SPK-authorised intermediaries; leverage is capped at 1:10 (half of that may apply if the initial margin at account opening is below TRY 50,000). This content is not investment advice; user statements belong to their authors.
What are you actually trading in a CFD?
A CFD (Contract for Difference) is a leveraged derivative that lets you trade the price difference of an asset. When you buy a gold CFD you do not buy gold; you become party to a contract on the price difference.
The distinction is small in theory and decisive in practice: because you hold no asset, whether the other side meets its obligation depends entirely on the contract and the counterparty's reliability.
Who is the counterparty?
This is the key question in CFDs. In an ECN/STP model the broker routes orders to liquidity providers; in a Market Maker model the broker itself is the counterparty — when you win, it loses. The model is not illegal, but it makes how conflicts of interest are managed and how prices are formed important.
Whether a firm states its execution model openly is part of our transparency assessment; you can compare firms in the broker directory.
The legal framework for CFDs in Türkiye
The SPK classifies leveraged trading not as a separate activity but as a **derivative instrument**, and only intermediaries it authorises may conduct it. Banks may not carry out leveraged trading for their customers.
Trading through entities and websites other than those authorised by the Board constitutes, in the SPK's words, a breach of capital markets legislation. Detail is in our is forex legal in Türkiye article.
What to watch in CFD advertising
"Trade everything from one account" is the real appeal of CFDs: equities, commodities, indices and crypto all appear on one platform. But product breadth does not mean the firm is authorised.
The order is always the same: first the firm's SPK authorisation, then whether the leverage offered exceeds 1:10, then whether the domain appears in our SPK bulletin archive.