One wrapper, five contents

Hong Kong — What is a CFD, and what does the thing underneath still decide?

A contract for difference is a wrapper, and the same wrapper goes over a currency pair, gold, a stock index, a crypto CFD and an energy. Beginners assume the wrapper makes them behave alike. This page is about everything it does not equalise.

A CFD follows the price of something else and settles the difference between opening and closing. The wrapper is identical whatever it goes around. The thing underneath keeps its own unit of quantity, its own size of step, its own timetable — and those, not the contract, decide what a number on the order screen is worth.

Five underlyings, side by side

Underneath the contract	What the price counts	What it brings that the wrapper does not
A currency pair — EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY	One currency measured in another	Quoting round the clock on weekdays, and the step size the other four end up compared with
A metal — XAU/USD, XAG/USD	Dollars per measure of the metal	Gold trades nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week; one unit of size is a weight, not a count of currency
A stock index — US30, US500	A level, moving in points	A session timetable, and a step that is a point rather than a decimal place
A crypto CFD — BTC/USD, ETH/USD	Dollars per coin	Quoting 24/7, weekends included
An energy — crude oil, natural gas	The price of a measure of the commodity	Its own contract size, and hours that follow the market it tracks

Read the right-hand column as a to-do list rather than trivia. Each entry names a figure to fetch on the platform before an order on that family is sized, and the wrapper tells you nothing about any of them.

Which figures have to be refetched when the symbol changes

The figure	Where the platform states it	Survives a change of underlying?
What one unit of size holds	The contract details for that symbol	No — reread it first, before anything else
What one step of price is worth	The order screen, at the size you intend	No, and this is the one carried across by mistake most often
The width of the gap between the two prices	The two quotes themselves	No, and it moves through the day as well
Which hours it quotes in	The symbol's own specification	No — a blank weekend chart is usually a timetable, not a fault
The login, the account and the record	The account area	Yes — one account covers all five families

So a statement about the wrapper travels: it holds on every family at once. A statement carrying a number does not travel at all, because the number belongs to a symbol and a moment.

The exercise that makes the difference visible

On virtual money, open the same size on a currency pair and on a metal at the same moment, and put the two order screens next to each other before confirming anything. The wrapper is word for word the same. The step values are not, the quantities behind one unit of size are not, and the two positions start at different distances behind.

That single comparison teaches what no description does: how far apart two markets can sit inside one identical contract. A demo account runs it for the price of the time it takes, and demo results don't guarantee the same results on a real account.

Four lines per symbol, and the note is finished

The symbol and the moment. No figure below means anything without both written beside it.
What one unit of size holds, copied from that symbol's details rather than remembered from another market.
What one step is worth at the size intended — the figure the sizing page needs and cannot supply.
The hours it quotes in, so a still screen is read as a timetable instead of a problem.

No note reaches the next price. That part is unavailable on every family equally, and leverage magnifies losses on every family equally too — risk basics holds the amount that decision starts from.

Questions asked with two symbols open

The same size was typed on two markets. Is that the same trade?

No. The number is the same; what it covers is set per symbol in the contract details.

An index CFD moved a hundred points and a pair moved a hundred pips. Same result?

No reason it should be. What one step is worth comes from the symbol, and the order screen prints it.

If a contract follows the gold price, where is the gold?

Nowhere — the contract copies the price and leaves the metal where it is. The weight only survives as the unit behind one lot.

Which underlying is quoting when everything else has stopped?

Crypto CFDs, which quote 24/7. Gold trades nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week; index and energy CFDs follow their own sessions.

Is a crypto CFD a way of paying for anything?

No. It is an instrument to trade, priced in dollars, and it has no part in moving money into or out of an account.

Is one of these families gentler than the others?

None is. They differ in unit, step and hours; the leverage behaves identically across all five.

Where does a beginner start if five families look like five subjects?

One symbol, read end to end, then a second one for comparison — the market list puts them in order.

After all the reading, which part stays out of reach?

The next price. Every other figure on this page has an address on the platform.

Where the reading continues

The five families in full

What one account reaches, and what each market re-sets.

See the market list

The reference underlying

Currency pairs, and the parts of them nobody can change.

What is forex

The words that move with the symbol

Pip, point, lot — one name, several quantities.

Read the words

Put two markets on the screen at once

The same size on a currency pair and on a metal, side by side on virtual money — with the two step values written down before either is confirmed.

Open a demo account at Exness