Contracts for Difference (known as CFD's) are synthetic financial products that allow you to access the movement in price of shares and other instruments such as stock indices, commodities, currencies and futures contracts without owning the underlying product.

As a Trustee of a SMSF, you should be careful when trading CFD’s as these are leveraged products. It is, however, legal to trade CFD’s in your SMSF provided:
1. Your Trust Deed allows investment in CFD's; and
2. The Investment Strategy allows for CFD investments.

The Investment Strategy and Trust Deed we supply when setting up SMSF's in Superannuation Warehouse allows you to trade CFD's in your SMSF.

Two examples of companies froviding CFD trading accounts are CMC Markets and MFGlobal. 
There are two ATO interpretive decisions supporting buying CFD’s in a SMSF.

Conclusion

Investing is Shares or CFD’s are allowed as long as the Trust Deed and Investment Strategy accommodates this type of investment. Superannuation Warehouse covers these areas as part of the standard SMSF setup. Investment in CFD's are therefore allowed.