How to buy and short Darktrace shares

How to buy Darktrace shares: investing or trading

You can either buy and own physical Darktrace shares (investing) or speculate on its share price, predicting whether it will rise or fall (trading).

Investing in Darktrace shares

Investing in Darktrace’s shares gives you direct ownership of them, making you eligible to receive dividends if the company happens to grant them. Plus, you’ll have voting rights as a shareholder.

To buy and own Darktrace shares, your initial outlay must be the full value of your investment. With a possible rise and fall in the share price, you may get back less than the amount you committed. However, potential losses are capped at your total initial outlay (excluding additional fees).

You’ll make a profit if the company offers dividends or if you sell the shares when the share price is higher than the original buy price, or both.

Trading Darktrace stock

Trading Darktrace stock means that you’re speculating on the price movements of the company’s share price without owning the underlying assets. If you think that the share price will rise, you’ll ‘buy’ (go long) and if you think it will fall, you’ll ‘sell’ (go short).

With us, you can trade Darktrace shares in these steps:

1. Create an account or log in
2. Search for ‘Darktrace’ on our trading platform
3. Select ‘buy’ to go long or ‘sell’ to go short in the deal ticket
4. Set your position size and take steps to manage your risk
5. Open and monitor your position

When trading with us, you’ll use leveraged derivatives such as CFDs.

Trading with leverage means that you can get full exposure while only committing a deposit called margin. It’s vital that you manage your risk as leverage can magnify both your possible profits and losses to the full value of your position.

Discover more about the impact of leverage on trading

See our full trading costs and charges

How to short Darktrace shares

You can short Darktrace shares using CFDs with us. Short-selling is a way for you to potentially profit (or make a loss) from a drop in share price by selling (going short on) the underlying shares rather than buying (going long).

With us, you can short-sell in these steps:

1. Create an account or log in
2. Search for ‘Darktrace’ on our platform
3. Select ‘sell’ in the deal ticket
4. Choose your position size
5. Open and monitor your position

If you think that the Darktrace share price will drop, you’d take a short position. If your prediction is correct, you’d make a profit. If incorrect, you’d make a loss.

Remember, CFDs are leveraged, meaning you’d pay an initial deposit that’s a percentage of the full value of your position, but both possible profits and losses are magnified to the full value of your trade.

Learn more about short-selling

How to sell or close your Darktrace position

You can sell your Darktrace investment in these steps:

Selling your Darktrace investment

1. Log in and go to the trading account where you placed the trade
2. Go to the positions tab and select ‘Darktrace’
3. Select ‘sell’ in the deal ticket
4. Choose the number of shares you want to sell
5. Close your position

A brief history of Darktrace

Darktrace, launched in 2013 by cyber experts and mathematicians, is the first company to have implemented the application of artificial intelligence to cybersecurity.

With ground-breaking technology in its first few years, Darktrace expanded on that in 2016. Darktrace Antigena, another first, enables surgical precision reaction to attacks in real time, allowing security teams to act faster.

The company has been particularly successful during the Covid-19 lockdown period, as millions of people switched to remote working. As of 2021, Darktrace has 44 offices worldwide and employs more than 1200 people.

The company listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) on 30 April 2021, with a valuation of £1.7 billion.

What’s the Darktrace business model?

Darktrace’s business model is based on the company’s cyber security platform. Its software helps to detect threats on the networks of companies, governments and other organisations around the world.

The company’s customers get protection against threats in real time. In turn, Darktrace charges its clients according to the number of IP addresses or networked devices it manages on a per-client basis.

Darktrace share price: how to analyse Darktrace shares

You can analyse Darktrace shares using two methods – technical and fundamental analysis – however a combination of the two is usually more useful.

• Technical analysis comprises of chart patterns, technical indicators and historical price action that can help you predict future price movements
• Fundamental analysis entails elements such as a company’s net revenue, profit and loss statements, as well as wider macroeconomic factors, that can help you in determining likely share price movements