Darren Lee

Risk management is often discussed as though it were a universal discipline, a set of principles that applies equally across any financial market. In practice, the structural differences between markets force investors and traders to adapt their frameworks significantly. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the contrast between the fixed, regulated hours of traditional stock exchanges and the continuous, never closing environment of cryptocurrency markets.

In online forex and CFD trading, pricing transparency has become one of the most important concerns for retail traders. While platforms often advertise tight spreads and competitive fees, the structure behind those costs is not always obvious. One concept that frequently appears in broker pricing models is “no markup fees.” But what does that actually mean — and why does it matter? To understand this, it helps to first break down how spreads work.