Trade 24/7 with perpetual CFDs and spread bets

A perpetual CFD is a derivative contract that tracks an underlying perpetual futures market, with no expiry date. Unlike dated futures, you can hold your position indefinitely as long as your margin supports it. Instead of overnight swap charges, funding is exchanged between buyers and sellers on a regular schedule.  

A perpetual spread bet is a way to speculate on the price movement of an underlying perpetual futures market. Instead of overnight swap charges, funding is exchanged between buyers and sellers on a regular schedule.  

We publish a fixed funding rate at the start of each week, and apply it once daily. Funding flows peer-to-peer – longs pay shorts or vice versa depending on market conditions. There is no broker markup on the funding rate.  

Commission on perp CFDs is a percentage of the trade’s notional value. It’s charged per side, meaning you pay it when you open the position and again when you close it. 
 

Notional value is the full USD value of the position: lots × contract size × price 
The commission per side = notional value × commission rate 
 

Rates per side: 

• GOLD-PERP: 0.03%
• WTOIL-PERP and BRENTOIL-PERP: 0.015%
• Most other perp CFDs: 0.015%

Note that commission is separate from the spread, and from the funding rate that applies to positions held past 5pm New York time. 

 
Example 1: GOLD-PERP 

• 1 lot, contract size 100, opened and closed at $4,100
• Notional: 1 × 100 × 4,100 = $410,000

• Open: 410,000 × 0.03% = $123.00
• Close: 410,000 × 0.03% = $123.00
• Total: $246.00

Example 2: BRENTOIL-PERP 

• 1 lot, contract size 100, opened and closed at $104
• Notional: 1 × 100 × 104 = $10,400
• Open: 10,400 × 0.015% = $1.56
• Close: 10,400 × 0.015% = $1.56
• Total: $3.12

Please note that these prices are illustrative. The actual commission depends on the price at the time of each trade. 

There is no commission to pay on perp spread bets, as all opening and closing fees are wrapped into the spread. 

We currently offer a number of equity indices (NAS100, SP500), commodities (WTI, BRENT, Gold, Silver), individual equities (MSTR, TSLA, GOOGL, AMD), along with pre-IPOs such as Anthropic and OpenAI. We’re adding to our perp offering all the time. 

We currently offer 2:1 leverage on all perpetual CFDs and spread bets.

Perpetual CFDs are available on spread bet, Standard CFD and Standard Razor accounts. You can access them via TradingView, MT5, and the Pepperstone app, using your existing login.  

Perps are also available on our demo account, so you can get familiar with the product without risking any capital. 

You can identify perps in the platform by the PERP suffix after the market name (.P on TradingView) 

A standard CFD typically has hours based on a traditional exchange, with some markets available on longer hours – such as our 24/5 share CFDs.³ However, perpetual CFDs are our first 24/7 market, available for trading around the clock including weekends and holidays. There are other differences too, such as the way overnight fees are applied. A perpetual CFD has a funding-rate mechanism instead of swaps, making it closer in structure to perpetual futures – but within a CFD account.  

Like all leveraged products, perpetual CFDs and spread bets are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. However, there are also some risk considerations that are specific to perps: 

• Basis and reference market divergence risk: The Perp CFD and spread bet price is derived from a perpetual futures market that may itself diverge from the spot or traditional derivatives market for the same underlying asset. This could lead to pricing outcomes that differ from your expectations.
• 24/7 trading and out-of-hours risk: Perpetual contracts trade continuously, including during weekends and public holidays. This means you could be at risk of adverse price movements or margin close-outs while you’re not actively monitoring your positions. This makes the use of risk-management tools such as stop-losses particularly important.
• Underlying market infrastructure risk: Perp CFDs and spread bets reference perpetual futures markets that may have different liquidity profiles, market depth, trading rules and operational characteristics from regulated traditional markets, and disruption to those markets may affect our ability to price or offer our derivative products.
• Synthetic and pre-launch reference-value risk: For products referencing synthetic, pre-IPO prices, the reference value may be based on indicative, estimated or model-derived prices rather than traded market prices. This can result in higher pricing uncertainty.

Perps are high-risk leveraged products, so the following protections for retail clients apply: 

• Negative balance protection: if a retail client’s account balance falls below zero, we’re obligated to return the balance to zero at no cost to the trader.
• Margin close-out: a retail trader's open leveraged positions will be automatically closed if their account equity drops below 50% of the total required margin. We endeavour to contact our clients if their positions are at risk of closure (this is known as margin call), but we cannot guarantee to do so if the market moves quickly or gaps.

• Leverage restrictions: Regulatory leverage limits are designed to help protect retail clients by limiting their exposure relative to their margin. All perpetual CFDs are currently offered at a maximum leverage of 2:1, meaning clients must provide at least 50% of the position's value as margin.