Best execution
We’ve built our execution with a single aim – to ensure your trades are executed exactly the way you want, every time.
Call +41 (0) 58 810 77 42 to talk about opening a trading account. We’re here from Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm.
Contact us: +41 (0) 58 810 77 42
Call +41 (0) 58 810 77 42 to talk about opening a trading account. We’re here from Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm.
Contact us: +41 (0) 58 810 77 42
What is best execution?
Best execution refers to our responsibility to take all sufficient steps to achieve the best possible result on a consistent basis when executing orders on our clients' behalf, for CFD.
As part of our policy to achieve best execution, there are a variety of factors that we consider:
- Fairness of price
- Speed and likelihood of execution
- The size and nature of the order
Our intelligent execution technology has been designed on the basis of our order execution policy to take into account these and any other relevant factors, such as the nature of the underlying markets and any specific instructions you have given us, so that we can consistently deliver what we consider to be the best possible results.
It’s important for those who want to trade with us to understand how we treat your orders and execute them for you. You can find important information within our customer agreement, and from the information about the quality of our execution on this page.
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 dealing process.
As the world’s No.1 CFD provider1, 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 2024 only 0.20% 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 Apr - Jun 2024 over 263,000 of IG Group's at-quote orders received a price improvement. This was equivalent to a total benefit of £3.5 million to clients.
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 June 2023):
- Most popular currencies
- Most popular indices
| Markets | Maximum automatic size (GBP notional)4 | No. of lots (CFDs) |
| GBP/USD | 6,285,000 | 63 |
| EUR/USD | 5,300,000 | 63 |
| USD/CAD | 5,400,000 | 68 |
| USD/JPY | 7,380,000 | 93 |
| AUD/USD | 5,100,000 | 101 |
| Markets | Maximum automatic size (GBP notional)4 | No. of lots (CFDs) |
| FTSE 100 | 3,700,000 | 50 |
| DAX | 6,300,000 | 47 |
| US 500 | 15,760,000 | 18 |
| Wall St | 6,940,000 | 25 |
| Australia 200 | 3,650,000 | 36 |
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 | 89% | 11% | 55% | 45% |
| Indices | 72% | 28% | 74% | 26% |
| 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 | 93% | 7% | 49% | 51% | 0.053 | 0.086 |
| GBP/USD | 88% | 12% | 57% | 43% | 0.062 | 0.083 |
| USD/CAD | 93% | 7% | 53% | 47% | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| USD/JPY | 87% | 13% | 59% | 41% | 0.097 | 0.107 |
| AUD/USD | 96% | 4% | 43% | 57% | 0.090 | 0.083 |
| 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 | 95% | 5% | 50% | 50% | 0.013 | 0.048 |
| Germany 40 | 92% | 8% | 89% | 11% | 0.128 | 0.248 |
| US 500 | 76% | 24% | 93% | 7% | 0.140 | 0.116 |
| Wall Street | 67% | 33% | 89% | 11% | 0.184 | 0.166 |
| Australia 200 | 82% | 18% | 51% | 49% | 0.034 | 0.035 |
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
98.97% 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. Below are our order fill rates for all CFD asset classes, per quarter, over the past two years. Rejections are caused by underlying market dynamics, or relate to orders placed in error, as well as orders that exceed acceptable parameters.
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.
31.5 million trades filled for Apr - Jun 24
£2.3 trillion in notional flow per quarter8
100% of successfully filled orders executed at requested price or better
98.97% of orders successfully filled (not rejected) in
Apr – Jun 249
Open an account now
Open an account now
Fast execution on a huge range of markets
Enjoy flexible access to 17 000 global markets, with reliable execution
Deal seamlessly, wherever you are
Trade on the move with our natively designed, award-winning trading app1
Feel secure with a trusted provider
With 50 years of experience, we’re proud to offer a truly market-leading service
Open an account now
Open an account now
Fast execution on a huge range of markets
Enjoy flexible access to 17 000 global markets, with reliable execution
Deal seamlessly, wherever you are
Trade on the move with our natively designed, award-winning trading app1
Feel secure with a trusted provider
With 50 years of experience, we’re proud to offer a truly market-leading service
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.
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.
Out-of-hours markets
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 of 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.
Digital 100s
Digital 100s enable you to trade on whether statements about the future behaviour of a market will be true or false. For example: ‘EUR/USD to be above 11446.1 at 4pm’ or ‘Silver to be below $14.00 per ounce at the close of trading’.
Each digital 100 is priced between 0 and 100. The closer the price is to 100, the more likely it is the statement in question will be true. The closer it is to zero, the more likely it is it will be false.
Our digital 100 prices are based on the behaviour of an underlying market, but set by our dealing desk according to four factors:
- time to expiry
- the underlying market’s current value
- our expectation of future volatility
- client business
If the statement you trade on does indeed end up being true, the digital 100 would close with the price settling at 100. If on the other hand the statement turns out to be false, the digital 100 price would settle at 0.
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.
FAQs
What is best execution?
At its heart, best execution refers to our obligation to take all sufficient steps to consistently obtain the best possible result when executing orders on our clients’ behalf.
What do you consider when executing my orders?
When executing your orders, our intelligent execution technology will automatically consider your individual request and the characteristics of the underlying market, including the fairness of price and likelihood of execution.
We offer over 17 000 markets to 313 000+ clients (October 2019) across the globe. With more than 45 years’ experience of interacting with and learning from the markets, we have taken great care to determine the best approach when executing orders for every product we offer.
What is an OEP?
An OEP, or order execution policy, details all the execution parameters that a firm deems important to obtain the best possible result for its clients.
This includes the steps taken to achieve best execution – taking into account the nature of the client’s order, the priorities the client gives in filling that order and the market in question.
How does best execution affect me?
All financial intermediaries that execute orders on behalf of retail clients are required to offer best execution. However, it is up to individual firms to install systems and procedures that deliver, review and monitor this. Best execution will therefore vary between firms, and an order executed by one could achieve a different result to another.
We aim to be transparent in our approach and provide you with information that enables you to assess both our execution practices and their results. You can find this information within our customer agreement and summary order execution policy. You’ll also be able to see details of our execution quality over time, and understand how our practices can benefit you.
If you’d like to see full details of all our products, please visit the individual ‘product details’ pages on our website.
Has best execution always been important?
Delivering best execution has always been important, and we monitor our execution statistics each month to ensure we’re doing all we can to achieve the best possible result for our clients.
How do you monitor best execution?
We monitor a variety of execution performance metrics through a monthly report. In the report, we focus on monitoring the execution factors that are deemed the most important for achieving the best possible outcome for our clients. You can find these execution factors in our summary order execution policy.
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1 Based on revenue (published financial statements, 2022)
2 Based on IG Group's OTC data for Jun – Aug 2023
3 Based on IG Group's OTC data for Jun – Aug 2023
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 Jun – Aug 2024
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 Jun – Aug 2024. Excludes rejections due to underlying market dynamics, erroneous orders and orders exceeding acceptable parameters.
