The realisation usually hits during a portfolio review. A trader has held a CFD position for three weeks, the price moved exactly as expected, and yet the profit is far smaller than the spreadsheet predicted. They check the numbers twice. Then they find the column they ignored — overnight fees, stacking up quietly, every single night the position stayed open.

Overnight fees, sometimes called swap rates or rollover fees, are the cost a broker charges for keeping a leveraged position open past a set daily cutoff — typically 5pm New York time. Because leveraged products like CFDs and forex positions involve borrowed capital, the broker effectively lends the trader money to control a position larger than their actual deposit. That loan doesn't come free, and the overnight fee is how that borrowing cost gets passed on.

CONCEPTOvernight fees are a daily borrowing charge on the full leveraged position size — not just your deposited margin.
WARNINGHolding a leveraged position for weeks or months can see fees erode profits even when the trade direction is correct.
KEY IDEAThe carry cost compounds over time — short-term trades and long-term holds have fundamentally different cost structures.

Here's a concrete example. Suppose a trader opens a long CFD position on a share with a full market value of $50,000, using 10:1 leverage — so their margin deposit is $5,000. The broker charges an overnight fee of 0.025% per day on the full $50,000 position. That's $12.50 per night. Over 30 nights, that's $375 in fees — before a single cent of spread or commission is counted.

$0 $100 $200 $300 $87.50 7 nights $175 14 nights $375 30 nights Overnight fee accumulation — $50,000 position @ 0.025%/night

The rate itself is usually tied to a benchmark interest rate — such as the RBA cash rate or SOFR — plus the broker's margin. When interest rates rise, overnight fees rise with them, which is why a trade structure that looked cheap in a low-rate environment can become meaningfully expensive in a higher-rate one. Traders who hold positions for days rather than hours often build this carry cost explicitly into their profit targets before entry, treating it as a guaranteed headwind that the trade must overcome. For deeper reading on how these costs are calculated and compared across brokers, Investopedia's overnight rate explainer is a solid reference, as is the Wikipedia entry on carry in investment and the detailed breakdown of swap rates on Investopedia.

The fee itself isn't the problem — the surprise is. Once a trader prices carry cost into every leveraged position from the start, it stops being a leak and becomes just another known variable in the equation.

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