Best execution
We’ve built our execution with a single aim – to ensure your trades are executed exactly the way you want, every time.
Start trading today. Call +44 (20) 7633 5430, or email sales.en@ig.com to talk about opening a trading account. We’re here 24/5.
Contact us: +44 (20) 7633 5430
Start trading today. Call +44 (20) 7633 5430, or email sales.en@ig.com to talk about opening a trading account. We’re here 24/5.
Contact us: +44 (20) 7633 5430
Our commitment to best execution
Putting your interests first
A transparent policy
An automated process
At IG we’d like to see you trading successfully and regularly with us – it’s a fundamental part of our business model – so we do our utmost to act in your favour at every stage of the trading process.
As the world’s No.1 CFD provider,1 we believe it’s our responsibility to lead industry standards in best execution – giving your trades every possible chance to play out as you intended. That’s why we continuously invest in faster and more intelligent execution technology.
How we deliver best execution
Our order flow*
*The diagram shows a simplified version of our order flow, for illustrative purposes. Order flow relates to all OTC leveraged products traded with IG.
Pricing
We aim to offer you the best price and the tightest spread
Our clients tell us that price is the most important factor in terms of best execution. So we source our underlying prices from multiple venues, and these are reviewed regularly. Plus, we’ll always try to add liquidity venues that improve the integrity of our price and reduce the transactional charges to our clients.
As the world’s largest and oldest CFD provider,1 we can offer greater liquidity at the best possible price.
How we give you the best price
Markets can move in milliseconds, meaning the price you click to trade on may have changed by the time your order reaches us. Our order management system will never fill you at a level worse than the one you requested – however, occasionally insufficient liquidity may result in your order being rejected instead. In Apr – Jun 2022 only 0.24% of orders placed with IG Group were rejected due to size (liquidity).
Watch the videos below to learn more about speed of execution, price improvement and sourcing better prices.
- Speed of execution
- Price improvement
- Sourcing better prices
Symmetrical tolerance
You’ll always get your desired price (or better) on limit and at-quote orders
A symmetrical tolerance level is set a certain distance either side of your requested price – if the market stays within this range by the time we receive your order, your order will be executed at the level you requested.
If the price moves outside this range, we will do one of two things:
- If the market moves to a better level for you, our price-improvement technology will ensure you receive it
- If the price moves beyond our tolerance in the opposite direction, we'll reject the order and ask you to resubmit at the current level
We make these checks to ensure the price your order is filled at is consistent with the current price that is available to our clients.
If you submit a market order it will be filled in the size and price available when we receive it.
To give an example, in April – June 2022 over 1,051,034 of IG Group's at-quote orders received a price improvement. We passed on nearly 4.2 millions points of positive slippage which was equivalent of £34m.
Deep liquidity and advanced dealing options
We take steps to help you get your full size
Liquidity – the ease with which an asset can be bought and sold quickly, and at stable prices – affects your ability to get the deal you want.
At IG, our size and the huge volume of trades we handle every day enable us to offer deep and consistent liquidity, giving you more control over your trades. Particularly if you deal in larger sizes, you’re more likely to be filled at your desired price with IG.
Maximum automatic size
To prevent your order from being rejected, we set a maximum size we automatically accept. This avoids delay to your execution – potentially adversely affecting the outcome – which would result from order rejection.
Our maximum automatic sizes are shown below (data correct as of 24 June 2020):
- Most popular currencies
- Most popular indices
| Markets | Maximum automatic size (GBP notional)4 | No. of lots (CFDs) |
| GBP/USD | 6,232,500 | 62 |
| EUR/USD | 5,629,000 | 62 |
| USD/CAD | 5,411,200 | 67 |
| USD/JPY | 5,349,000 | 66 |
| AUD/USD | 5,527,200 | 99 |
| Markets | Maximum automatic size (GBP notional)4 | No. of lots (CFDs) |
| FTSE 100 | 3,125,000 | 50 |
| DAX | 4,912,000 | 17 |
| US 500 | 15,525,000 | 24 |
| Wall St | 5,184,000 | 24 |
| Australia 200 | 2,870,400 | 34 |
Advanced dealing options
To help you take control of your execution and increase the probability that your order will be accepted, we offer two special dealing options:
- Points through current – a way to reduce the likelihood of price rejection by specifying your tolerance for price movement, particularly useful when trading in large sizes
- Partial fills – a tool to prevent rejection on grounds of size, ensuring your order will be filled in the largest size possible if we can’t fill it in full
Slippage
We pass on positive slippage, and offer guaranteed stops to help you avoid negative slippage
Slippage occurs when your order is executed at a price that differs from the one you requested. Caused by insufficient liquidity at your desired price level, it can work either against you or in your favour:
- Slippage on stops has a negative impact for you, as you’ll be filled at a worse price
- Slippage on limits has a positive effect for you, as you’ll be filled at a better price
This means you’ll get the best deal from a provider that offers lower slippage on stops but higher slippage on limits.
IG achieves this by adjusting our execution logic to ensure you’re more likely to experience positive than negative slippage. To see that in action, take a look at our slippage performance for the last quarter in the table below.
- Summary
- Most popular currencies
- Most popular indices
| Markets | Stops – zero slippage | Stops – negative slippage | Limits – positive slippage | Limits – zero slippage |
| Currencies | 91% | 9% | 49% | 51% |
| Indices | 68% | 32% | 80% | 20% |
| Markets | Stops - Zero slippage | Stops - Negative slippage | Limits - Positive slippage | Limits - Zero slippage | Average negative slippage (in pips) | Average positive slippage (in pips) |
| EUR/USD | 91% | 9% | 25% | 75% | 0.136 | 0.119 |
| GBP/USD | 83% | 17% | 44% | 56% | 0.490 | 0.474 |
| USD/CAD | 88% | 12% | 19% | 81% | 0.315 | 0.301 |
| USD/JPY | 95% | 5% | 14% | 86% | 0.081 | 0.072 |
| AUD/USD | 96% | 4% | 22% | 78% | 0.061 | 0.078 |
| Markets | Stops - Zero slippage | Stops - Negative slippage | Limits - Positive slippage | Limits - Zero slippage | Average negative slippage (in pips) | Average positive slippage (in pips) |
| FTSE 100 | 93% | 7% | 55% | 45% | 0.088 | 0.195 |
| Germany 40 | 78% | 22% | 58% | 42% | 0.240 | 0.351 |
| US 500 | 74% | 26% | 92% | 8% | 0.108 | 0.166 |
| Wall Street | 55% | 45% | 92% | 8% | 0.674 | 0.871 |
| Australia 200 | 78% | 22% | 47% | 53% | 0.167 | 0.181 |
Keep in mind that you can completely avoid the risk of negative slippage on stop orders to close by using guaranteed stops. These are free to place – you’ll only pay a small charge if they’re triggered. Find out more.
Order fill
97.93% of orders filled.5 Rejections are due to underlying market dynamics plus erroneous/excessive orders.
As it’s in your interests to get the best order fill you can, we make it our business to deliver that. We constantly monitor client rejection rates to ensure your likelihood of execution is as high as possible. Rejections are caused by underlying market dynamics, or relate to orders placed in error, as well as orders that exceed acceptable parameters.6
Why do clients’ orders get rejected?
The main reasons why clients get rejected are price changes in the underlying market and issues with liquidity. We created our advanced dealing options to give you back control over these factors.
No manual intervention
We never intervene to handle active at-quote orders7 manually – and this means you get a faster execution speed, plus it’s more likely we’ll be able to execute your order at the price you specify.
The only occasions when you may experience manual intervention at IG are on stops and limits, or on trades placed by phone.
46 million trades filled in April - June 22
£2.6 trillion in notional flow per quarter8
100% of at quote orders filled at requested price or better in April – June 2022
98.42% of orders successfully filled (not rejected) in April – June 20229
Open an account now
Open an account now
Fast execution on a huge range of markets
Enjoy flexible access to more than 17,000 global markets, with reliable execution
Deal seamlessly, wherever you are
Trade on the move with our natively designed, award-winning trading app
Feel secure with a trusted provider
We have over 45 years of experience offering a truly market-leading service
*IG Group’s total markets
Open an account now
Open an account now
Fast execution on a huge range of markets
Enjoy flexible access to more than 17,000 global markets, with reliable execution
Deal seamlessly, wherever you are
Trade on the move with our natively designed, award-winning trading app
Feel secure with a trusted provider
We have over 45 years of experience offering a truly market-leading service
*IG Group’s total markets
Order execution policy
When we execute orders on your behalf, our order execution policy ensures that we will consistently take all the steps needed to achieve the best possible result.
This policy outlines the factors we consider and the steps we take when handling and executing your orders. You can see a summary of that policy below, along with a list of the execution venues, exchanges, liquidity providers or brokers we may rely on to execute or price your orders.
Summary order execution policy
(PDF, 728KB)
Execution venues
(PDF, 98KB)
PDFs require Adobe Reader, which is available free from Adobe.
For more information on best execution, please refer to our regulatory disclosures updated on a regular basis under MIFID II reporting obligations.
Pricing for specific products and markets
How are out-of-hours markets priced?
We offer two-way quotes on a variety of markets outside of their traditional trading hours. This enables us to offer continuous, fair trading opportunities, even when the underlying market is shut. However, in these circumstances we cannot draw on the current market price as a reference, so will instead create our own prices to reflect our view of a market’s prospects.
For example, we might price an out-of-hours index by taking into account the performance of other indices around the world that are open. We might also account for our overall clients’ trading activity on the out-of-hours market, or factor in news stories that break outside of the trading session. Since our out-of-hours prices are market-made, automatically priced off moves in correlated markets, you’ll find that our spreads are generally wider than during normal trading hours. This is all done with our clients' best interest in mind.
Weekend markets are an extension to our out-of-hours market offering, with our quotations reflecting our view of the prospects for each market. This includes analysing specific market or geographic news flow which may affect markets that we are pricing. Furthermore, business done by other clients may affect our quotations. There may be nothing against which to measure our quotations at these times, and the market-making element will again necessitate wider spreads than during normal market trading hours. Weekend markets can be used by clients to hedge their existing positions in the markets we offer, though price movements in these markets over the weekend will not affect the status of existing positions. This ensures that clients who do not wish to utilise the weekend offering cannot be adversely affected by it (for example, by having stop losses triggered).
Remember, out-of-hours prices may be very different to those available when the market opens next, so trading on them could lead to a profit or loss that would not have otherwise been incurred if you’d waited
How does IG’s pricing for CFD options work?
An option’s price – meaning the premium that the holder pays the writer to buy the option – will change depending on several different factors. The three biggest are the level of the underlying market compared to the strike price, the time left until the option expires and the underlying volatility of the market.
All of these factors work on the same principle: the more likely it is that an option will move above its strike price (for calls) or below it (for puts), the higher its premium will be.
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1 Based on revenue (published financial statements, October 2023)
2 Based on IG Group's OTC data for April – June 2022
3 Based on IG Group's OTC data for April – June 2022
4 This is the minimum liquidity a client should usually be able to receive per trade during main market hours. A client may be able to receive more depending on broker exposure
5 Based on IG Group's OTC data for April – June 2022
6 Rejection rates are for orders rejected by IG. Rejections due to client error, for example placing an order on the wrong side of the market, are excluded
7 An 'active' order, submitted through our platforms, is where you give us an instruction to execute an order immediately. As opposed to 'passive' orders where you give us an instruction to execute an order later, subject to the price moving to a specific level
8
Includes all OTC trades with IG Group
9 Based on IG Group's OTC data for April – June 2022. Excludes rejections due to underlying market dynamics, erroneous orders and orders exceeding acceptable parameters.
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^IG International Limited is part of the IG Group and its ultimate parent company is IG Group Holdings Plc. IG Group established in London in 1974, and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 index.
