Kobo Ledger

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I had read the word unlimited as a description of the account. It is closer to a conditional offer, and the conditions are specific enough that I wrote them down.

Two things have to be true at the same time. The account has to hold equity of less than 5,000 USD, and it has to have closed at least 10 orders with a combined volume of at least 5 lots. On a Cent account that second figure reads as 500 cent lots. Pending orders do not count towards it. Until both conditions are met, the option is not offered at all, which is a different experience from being refused.

The part I had wrong was what happens afterwards. Crossing the equity line later does not leave the setting quietly switched on. Leverage drops back to the published bands.

Those bands are worth knowing before they apply rather than after. Below 5,000 USD it is unlimited if eligible and 1:2000 otherwise. From 5,000 to just under 30,000 it is 1:2000. From 30,000 to just under 100,000 it is 1:1000. At 100,000 and above it is 1:500.

So the ceiling falls as the account grows, and a plan built on the top figure quietly stops matching the account that is actually running.

Full detail: Leverage and margin, with the conditions written out

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For a while I wrote down only what I made or lost on a position. It looked tidy and it was useless, because the number already had things folded into it that I could not see afterwards.

Now each row has the difference between the buy and sell price at the moment I entered, any separate charge applied per lot, and anything added or subtracted for holding the position past the daily rollover. Three columns instead of one, and suddenly the trades that quietly cost more than they looked stand out.

The rollover column was the surprise. On a position I closed the same afternoon it is empty. On one I left open across the middle of the week it was not, and on one particular day of the week it was noticeably larger than the others.

None of this changes what I trade. It changed how long I am willing to leave something open without a reason, which turned out to be the more useful lesson.

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I had been saying "I bought gold" for months. Reading what a CFD is properly, that sentence is wrong in a way that matters for how long I should be holding anything.

CFD stands for contract for difference. You and the broker agree to settle the difference between the price when you open and the price when you close. That is the entire object. When I trade a gold CFD there is no gold anywhere with my name on it. When I trade an Apple CFD I am not on the shareholder register, I have no vote, and nobody will send me an annual report.

What that structure buys is real. You can go short as easily as long, so a falling market is tradable. You can hold positions far smaller than one unit of the underlying — a fraction of an ounce of gold, a fraction of a share. And you reach US shares, global indices and commodities from one account funded in naira, without a foreign brokerage relationship. For someone here, that last one is the whole appeal.

What it costs is the mirror image. A small deposit controls a large position, so both the gain and the loss are magnified relative to your money. There are financing charges for holding overnight and the cost of the spread on every round trip. And the contract is with the broker rather than with an exchange, so your exposure includes the broker itself.

The line that changed my thinking: a CFD is a poor vehicle for a long, patient hold. Financing accrues nightly against you and there is nothing to keep at the end. If the plan is to buy something and hold it for years, this is the wrong instrument. CFDs suit views measured in days or weeks, not decades.

Which means the sentence I should have been saying is not "I bought gold" but "I have a position open on gold" — and the second one has an expiry attached to it in a way the first one does not.

The longer write-up is on my site.

What a CFD actually is, and what you own when you trade one

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I keep a page in the back of the notebook for money in and money out. It started as a way to remember amounts. It has turned into something more useful than that, because the columns I added later are the ones that actually explain where the money went.

The first column is the method. That matters more than I thought, because money normally goes back the way it came. Deposit by card and the refund goes to that card first, up to the amount deposited. Fund by transfer and the withdrawal follows the same route. So the entrance decides the exit, and I now choose the entrance with the exit in mind rather than picking whatever is quickest on the day.

The second column is the conversion. If the account currency is not the currency I am funding in, there is a spread on the conversion at both ends. Twice. That has been larger than the visible fee more often than not, and it never appears on any fee page because it is not a fee.

The third column is the date the money was usable in my own bank account, not the date the platform said it was sent. The processing time is only part of the wait. The last stretch is the one that ruins plans, and it is the only number worth recording.

One thing I do before any of this: verification first, then funding. An incomplete profile does not stop the deposit. It stops the withdrawal, and it gets discovered at the worst possible moment.

Which methods appear at all depends on your profile and on what the payment providers are doing that week, so the list on my own page is a description of how it usually looks rather than a promise.

Funding and withdrawing in Naira: how it actually works

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Most of what people search about this broker in Nigeria is either the app or logging in. Neither is complicated, but there are a few places where you lose time and one where you can lose money.

Start with where you install from. Use only the official app stores, or a link from the broker's own website. Search results for well-known broker names attract copies, and a fake trading app is an efficient way to hand over your details. Two checks before installing: the developer name on the listing, and the review count. A brand-new listing with a handful of reviews for a well-known broker is a warning sign, not a discovery.

The thing that cost me the most time was simpler than that. The Personal Area and the trading platform are not the same thing. The Personal Area is where you manage the account — verification, deposits, withdrawals, settings. The trading platform is where you place orders. They can be separate apps and, in some setups, they use separate sign-in details.

So when a sign-in fails, the first question is not what is wrong with the password. It is: which of the two am I actually trying to enter. I spent an evening blaming my connection for what was me typing the right password into the wrong app.

Reference: The Exness app and sign-in: what trips people up

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A small habit, started this week, entirely on the paperwork side.

When money moves into or out of a trading account from Nigeria, there are two records: the one the platform shows you, and the one your bank or wallet shows. They rarely match to the naira, because the conversion and the transfer charge sit between them. For a long time I only kept the first one.

That is the wrong one to keep. If anything is ever queried — by the bank, by the platform, or by me six months later trying to work out where a difference came from — the useful record is the one showing what actually left the account and when. The platform record shows what arrived.

So now I write both down in the same line: date, amount sent, amount that landed, and the reference from whichever rail carried it. It takes about fifteen seconds and removes the argument entirely.