MARKET PRICING

Alvar Financial gives you direct access to a wide variety of markets including indices, shares, forex and commodities. We offer expiry-dated contracts (futures, which expire on a specified date) and rolling contracts (which automatically roll over from day to day, or in some cases month to month). For instance, forex and indices are daily rolling, while most commodities are expiry-dated.

For spread betting and non-forex CFDs our dealing charge is contained in the spread, wrapped around the underlying market price. For forex CFDs you trade at the underlying market price and we charge 3 of the quoted currency per standard lot, per side. For example, on USD/JPY we charge $3 (per $100,000 lot) on opening and $3 on closing; on GBP/USD we charge £3 (per £100,000 lot) on opening and £3 on closing. This commission is automatically converted into your account currency if necessary.

Margin

For each position you open with Alvar Financial you need to put down a margin deposit. This is automatically calculated when you place your trade, based on the full value of your position and the leverage rate quoted in the tables above. We provide different margin rates for retail and professional clients.

For example, if you are opening a £1/point spread bet on UK 100 at 7000 and our leverage rate for UK 100 (for professional clients) is 200:1, your initial margin requirement will be £1 x 7000 (position value) / 200 (leverage rate) = £35.

Or if you buy 5 CFDs of GBP/USD (lot size = £100,000) and our leverage rate for GBP/USD (for professional clients) is 100:1, your initial margin requirement will be 5 x £100,000 (position value) / 100 (leverage rate) = £5000.

Please note that your margin requirement is not affected by the attachment of a Stop Loss order to your position. Whether expressed as a ratio or a percentage, these are simply two different ways of expressing the proportion of your position value that is required as margin. The essential mechanism is the same.

Margin monitoring

It is solely your responsibility to monitor your positions and ensure your account is funded to support them. If your equity (your account balance plus/minus your running profit/loss) falls to 50% of your total margin commitment, Alvar Financial may at its discretion close all of your positions to prevent you from going into negative equity. This percentage is known as your ‘margin level’. To avoid automatic closure you can either close some of your positions or add more funds to your account. Please read the Customer Agreement in full.

Overnight financing (swap)

A financing adjustment is applied on forex and indices to reflect the daily interest cost of holding your position overnight. For forex the rate is calculated as the central bank interest rate of the second-named currency minus the central bank interest rate of the first-named currency, plus 1%* for long positions or minus 1%* for short positions. For indices the rate is calculated as the underlying instrument’s overnight funding reference rate +/– 2.5%.* In each case the annual interest cost is converted into a daily basis.

*These are minimum values.

CFD lot sizes

For forex CFDs the contract size is 100,000 of the first-named currency, e.g. 1 CFD of USD/JPY is $100,000. For index CFDs the contract size is 1 unit of the quoted currency per point, e.g. 1 CFD of Germany 30 is €1 per point.

Quoted hours

Our trading hours are given in UK time. The underlying market hours are driven by local time in the country of origin, and as such there may be seasonal adjustments such as daylight saving hours. A change to trading hours will be posted on our website not on this page.

Grey market

When the underlying market is open we will operate our tightest spreads. When the market is closed and goes ‘grey’ we will operate wider spreads which may vary by time. Our spreads may also vary according to underlying liquidity or in fast-moving market conditions.

Dividend adjustments

If you have an open position on an index and a stock within that index goes ex-dividend, we will make cash adjustments on the ex-dividend date to reflect the ex-dividend change in value of the index. Clients with long positions on an index will be credited this adjustment and clients with short positions will be debited.

Spot oil markets

We offer future oil markets that expire when the underlying market expires. We also offer rolling daily contracts for oil markets.

Partial fill

Most of our markets are offered on a ‘fill or kill’ basis, whereby your trade or order is either executed in full or rejected if this is not possible due to insufficient liquidity or excessive price movement. However, certain markets (namely UK shares for spread betting and CFD trading, and European shares for CFD trading) are offered on a ‘partial fill’ basis. This means that, if full execution of your trade or order is not possible due to market conditions, we will fill that part of your trade or order which is possible. For example, you may request to buy £100/point of Vodafone but if this full execution is not possible you might be partially filled with an open position of £75/point.

Short selling restrictions

Sometimes the relevant regulators may place short selling restrictions on some of the equity markets we quote, so you will not be allowed to hold short positions in these markets. We will attempt to keep you informed of such regulatory changes, but please understand that it is your responsibility to know which shares you can and cannot short. If you place a trade in contravention to these restrictions we may, solely at our discretion, close any such position without notice to you. We will close positions at either the current quote or at the entry level plus our spread. You will be liable for any loss you might incur as a result of such an action by us and you may also be liable to action taken by the regulator due to your contravention of the regulation. If you have a query about a specific market please check with the relevant exchange, or contact our team who will be pleased to help.

General notes

All details are correct at time of compilation. However, these tables are to be used as a guide only as their content may change. Alvar Financial reserves the right to alter the contract specifications at any time.