Three popular financial instruments to trade the FTSE 100 include ETFs,futures and CFDs. Stock Index futures are complex financial instruments that were initially developed as a hedging instrument for institutional traders to protect against a reversal in stock prices in a portfolio. However, with technological advances and tech-enabled trading, retail traders that have the required capital to trade futures have entered the market and speculate on Stock Index Futures like the FTSE 100 Future on The Ice Exchange. CFDs offer retail traders much smaller contract sizes and therefore a smaller capital requirement. For example, a minimum trade of a UK 100 future, a derivative of the FTSE 100 would require a trader 14.57 at the current 7286 index points with a broker like London Capital Group compared to a single contract on the Futures exchange of 72,860. Unlike trading on an exchange, trading CFDs involves buying and selling the instrument from the broker, therefore find a trusted and regulated broker like London Capital Group is an important step for traders. *All information collected from LCG, see website for full terms and conditions. Example is for illustrative purposes only. Your capital is at risk. Last updated on February 21, 2017. ETFs or electronic traded funds are investment products made of a group of assets designed to track the performance of the underlying asset, for example, the FTSE 100. ETFs can be bought from share dealing brokers like IG.