Could 10:1 be the new leverage in US Forex?

No news is good news.

I've an acct with oanda ( an american broker) but i'm not a us national. Will this affect me as well

Most likely, yes. The rule governs the broker/dealer, not the trader. All accounts under that broker will be affected unless they have a business setup in another country which is not CFTC regulated.

All the larger; well established, brokers are in the process of doing this very thing. Apparently, retail FX is so profitable, if you're a broker -- guarantied success/high profit [thanks to our our collective market donations], no one in their right mind would let this business model go.

Well, our old buddies, Gensler's alma amter, Goldman Sachs, got busted today.

Gee, I wonder what wrist slap they'll get for their egregious crimes against humanity.

Meanwhile, Gensler, grifter that he is, is cooling his heels.

As Taibbi says, " In con man lingo, this is called the 'Cool Off' which is calming down the mark (us) so that we don't call the cops. "

So we wait to learn of our fate.....have we sent the petition yet?

Can anyone put this petition on the Forex News section of this FF site?

And anywhere else you can think of? Just copy and paste the announcement below to any forex sites or threads that you care to.

I don't know how to do it on Forex News on the front page of FF....

Just say:

Folks,

Here is a petition calling for the resignation/ousting of Gary Gensler of the CFTC.

If you agree, please sign it

http://www.petitiononline.com/gensler/petition.html

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-59.htm
OH what a bunch of nice people work at Goldman, and they got Gensler doing the cooling off, cause "transparency is what he wants". Same guy that did not want CDS to be regulated...what a regulator we have, he should resign now, has no credibility.

Joseph Trevisani on the political timing of these charges (excellent analysis).

http://www.forextv.com/Forex/Video/V...,1241,249,1314

Gensler's days are numbered. The trading public must have confidence in the Chair of the CFTC - it's as political as it gets. Completely inappropriate for Gensler to be in that job.

This is good.

I hope the link opens....this scum won't ever get what's coming to them, but at least the ad campaign that Blankenfeldt is working on to polish up the GS image will never see the light of day.

But how about that SEC, sitting on this info for two years and now unleashing it just in time for the BO financial reform push.

Gosh, they really are the bowels of the universe.....

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi165.html

Where are we at with the petition?

You look good, darlin!

I think the look says it all and with the petition as a subscript, it's all goin' on!

I had a better one, but FF does not allow animated avatars.

"...too big and too politically powerful to be regulated..."
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/articl...-sins/19445099
and it helps when the Devil is on your side

Congress will now need to re-visit the exemptions for the big end of town in the proposed changes to retail forex, and indeed the whole of the proposal.

It was so deceitfully crafted to give Goldman et al a huge free kick. If only Gensler had been able to nail pushing business through the exchanges. Oops Gary, caught with your gold finger in the pie..... again.

Counting down the days to Gensler's resignation - he is in a completely untenable position. No-one can trust anything that comes from his hand.

Jill Sommers gets my vote to fill the Chair's seat.

More on our beloved GS....insider trading tips from a director
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/in...%2F19443812%2F

GS won't be the only casualty. Looks like the SEC is spreading its wings to do the job it should have done in the first place. The vampire squid and friends free-rein party may be coming to an abrupt end. About time.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/SEC-is...2&asset=&ccode=

Goldman Sachs CEO and Fabrice Tourre summoned to Capitol Hill to testify on Tuesday, big secret supposedly

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-sou...2&asset=&ccode=

if they are crooks then they should do jail time....this is the same Goldman that was bailed out by taxpayers' money upon being reclassified as a bank by Paulson w/i 24 hours of applying, against all the rules...and now Gensler wants to screw the little guy that bailed his firm out...what an ingrate this little weasel has turned out to be.

I love Gary Gensler! He's so damn sexy! Here's his latest article from the WSJ:

Clearinghouses Are the Answer
Complex derivatives should be regulated like commodity futures

In September 1998, I travelled to Greenwich, Conn., to meet with Long-Term Capital Management, which was on the brink of failure. The highly leveraged hedge fund was dangerously interconnected to numerous financial institutions through its $1.2 trillion derivatives book. I was sent by the Treasury secretary to figure out the answers to two questions: What would the contagion from LTCM's failure mean for the broader economy? And was there anything the federal government should or could do?

The truth was that I did not have good answers for the secretary on either of these questions.

Ten years later, another Treasury secretary faced the same questions. Taxpayers ultimately put up $180 billion to bail out AIG, which was cancerously interconnected to other financial institutions through its $2 trillion derivatives portfolio.

A central lesson of LTCM, AIG and the financial crisis of 2008 is that not only do we have institutions that have become "too big to fail"—but also that some have become too interconnected to fail. This interconnectedness is a direct result of the unregulated over-the-counter derivatives market where financial institutions are contractually obligated to each other through trillions of dollars of derivatives contracts.

To protect the American public from future bailouts, financial reform must address this interconnectedness. No future Treasury secretary should be told that his or her decision not to bail out one bank might bring down other financial entities due to contagion brought on from over-the-counter derivatives.

Derivatives themselves are not new: They have existed since the Civil War, when farmers and grain merchants began using them to hedge against future changes in the price of corn and wheat. So they entered into derivatives contracts with other parties to lock in the price of corn or wheat for harvest time.

These first derivatives—called futures—have been comprehensively regulated since the 1930s. Futures markets functioned largely without incident during the 2008 financial crisis in part because these contracts are cleared by regulated clearinghouses. Clearinghouses act as middlemen between the buyer and the seller of a futures contract, guaranteeing the obligations of both parties. They value positions on a daily basis and require both parties to post collateral to ensure that there is sufficient cushion in the event that any party defaults. And they minimize the risk and interconnectedness brought about by derivatives transactions.

But in 1981 a new type of derivative was developed to allow corporations to hedge risks outside of the regulated futures markets. These unregulated derivatives—commonly referred to as over-the-counter derivatives—are not yet required to be cleared by clearinghouses. This has created a system where financial institutions are deeply interconnected. If a derivatives dealer fails today it can have severe economic implications across the entire financial system.

A key measure included in the financial reform bill currently being debated in the Senate would require standard over-the-counter derivatives to be cleared by central clearinghouses. This will greatly reduce risk, interconnectedness and the need for future bailouts. Financial institutions would be freer to fail with limited effects on the broader economy.

Though Congress has taken great strides toward a comprehensive clearing requirement, various groups in the financial industry are appealing for one exemption after another. Firms that transact with derivatives dealers are concerned that clearing would raise their costs and are lobbying to be exempt from such a requirement. Additionally, as a result of the 2008 bailout, many believe that if their dealer fails the government will bail them out again, and thus there is no need to lower risk. The fundamental debate over exemptions boils down to deciding who should stand behind a derivative if one of the parties fails: a well-regulated clearinghouse or taxpayers.

Roughly 90% of over-the-counter derivatives transactions are between two financial entities such as banks, hedge funds, finance companies, pension plans and insurance companies. As long as financial entities remain interconnected through their derivatives, one entity's failure could mean a run on another financial entity and a difficult decision for a future Treasury secretary. Every exemption for financial companies creates a link in the chain between a dealer's failure and a taxpayer bailout. Every slice of the financial system that we cut out through an exemption could allow one bank's failure to spread like fire throughout the economy.

We know from LTCM and AIG that bailouts will be ever more tempting if we allow derivatives dealers to remain interconnected with large financial entities. Thus it is essential that financial reform does not allow loopholes that leave interconnectedness in the system. Such exemptions will only come back to haunt us in the future.

Mr. Gensler is the chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and served as assistant secretary and later undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury Department from 1997 to 2001.

What is the difference if there is a clearing house middle man or not. The issue is not and has not been guaranteeing that the transaction clears (that the seller receives the funds and that the buyer receives the security, that was never a problem), the issue is the real value of the instrument traded. If you own the same amount of derivatives and they become worthless, it does not matter if you bought them OTC or thru a clearing house, your loss would be the same...what this guy does not understand is that the type of derivatives that brought down Lehman are not tradeable instruments, they were CDS insurance contracts, not traded but bought and kept. So he wants to make these type tradeable, hmm...maybe he wants the little guy to buy them when they are becoming worthless so the little guy is the one stuck with the loss instead of a big institution...so a Lehman type entity would not go under they would be selling these bad instruments to many many little investors who would untimately lose all their investment in the CDS, while the big entitly would have shifted the loss to the general public little investor...same crap...the little guy bailing out the greedy wall street firm. The only difference is that Goldman Sachs would not go under but 1,000,000 small investors would share the loss, and since the loss is spread among the ones who have no voice, it does not make news. The new IPO to sell to many many small investors, the Goldman Sachs make millions in IPO fees, the Company takes in the IPO proceeds and give out big salaries and bonuses to the top brass, eventually the company goes under, and millions of little investor owning stock lose all their investment...the same story with a different name.

...simply that the presence of a clearer who demands collateralization of all positions (within whatever allowable leverage constraints) would ultimately limit the overall volume of these derivatives traded. If the institution of requirements for clearing opens up trading in these types of derivatives to the retail speculator, so what? - as always, caveat emptor.

Of course, the banksters would simply find another way to deal in the dark.

LOL,that is what Gensler wants, open up these type of instruments to the retail speculator, therefore, 1,000,000 speculators take each a $10,000 loss and the big institution make the profits from the losses, to the tune of $10 billion.
It does not look that Gensler wants to protect the public does it? He wants to curtail retail forex, where a currency may go up or down but will always have a value, and then wants to open up to the retail speculator a security that would become worhless, now that is having the retail investor in mind, not to protect, but to be left holding the bag for the benefit of Goldman Sachs.