How does stock trading work?

Stocks are bought and sold on a global network of exchanges. Most UK shares, for example, are traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), while most US shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or NASDAQ.

Stocks can normally only be bought and sold when the designated stock exchange is open. For example, shares on the LSE are traded between 8:00am and 4:30pm UK time, while those listed on the NYSE will trade between 9:30am and 4pm Eastern time.

When you use IG’s Stock Trading service, you choose the company you’re interested in from the selection in our online platform. You then select the number of shares you’d like to buy (or sell), or the value of the investment you’d like to make.

You can choose to trade shares either ‘at quote’ for UK shares only or ‘on exchange’ in the platform. Use the former, and we’ll show you the best price available from the market makers we use. You’ll then have 15 seconds to confirm your order – if you do, we ‘execute’ the deal for you in the underlying market and your order will be filled immediately.

Use ‘on exchange’, and your trade will be entered into an order book in the underlying market. It will only be filled once a counterparty offer is also entered on that order book. You have a range of order types to choose from here, giving you control over how much of your order needs to be filled, and how long you’d like to hold it for.