What is share dealing and how does it work?

Share dealing is the act of buying and selling shares. A share represents a unit of ownership in a company – when you buy a share, you become a part owner or shareholder of that company. The more shares you buy, the more of the company you own.

Traditionally, investors will buy shares in a company (e.g. Apple) in the hope the company’s value will rise. If it does, so will its share price and the shares the investor owns can be sold on for a profit.

With IG, you can buy and sell shares in this way using our share dealing service. Or, if you’d prefer, you can take a position on thousands of share prices using one of our leveraged products – spread betting and CFD trading.

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

Shares can normally be bought and sold when the designated stock exchange is open. For instance, shares on the LSE are traded between 8am 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 share dealing 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 deal shares either ‘at quote’ or ‘on exchange’ in the platform. Select ‘at quote’, 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 deal will be entered into an order book in the underlying market. It will only be filled once a counterparty offer is also entered on said order book. You have a range of order types to choose from, giving you control over how much of your order needs to be filled, and how long you’d like to hold it for.

To learn more about share dealing, you can find informative courses at IG Academy.