Disliked
But every time the no SL group makes a comment, it always comes from experience, unsubstantiated claims, unprovable math or simply fuzzy, unclear explanations.Ignored
Interesting comments from NFA on the subject of 'hedging'........
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The other trading practice NFA believes must be addressed involves a strategy that FDMs refer to as “hedging,” where customers take long and short positions in the same currency pair in the same account. NFA is concerned that customers employing this strategy do not understand either the lack of economic benefit or the financial costs involved.
Several of the FDMs told NFA that they had not offered the “hedging” strategy until their customers requested it. Although many of the FDMs admit that customers receive no financial benefit by carrying opposite positions, some FDMs believe that if they do not offer the strategy they will lose business to domestic and foreign firms that do.
NFA has two major concerns about this strategy. First, it essentially eliminates any opportunity to profit on the transaction. Second, it increases the customer’s financial costs in several ways. One way it increases costs is by doubling the expense of entering and exiting the transactions. In the on-exchange markets, a customer who carries opposite positions will normally pay twice the commissions.
Similarly, a forex customer will pay the entire spread twice (buying at the high end of the spread and selling at the low end) rather than paying half on entry and half on exit.
Additionally, the customer pays carrying charges that always exceed the funds it receives. In a normal transaction, a customer receives “interest” on the long position and pays “interest” on the short position. Since the two transactions are mirror images, you would expect the receipts and payments to zero out. In practice, however, the amount a customer receives on a long position is always less than the amount a customer pays on a short position. Since these transfers occur daily when the positions roll over, the loss increases continually over time.
The costs described above are integral to the strategy, but there is an additional cost that could occur in certain circumstances. FDMs typically determine the equity balance in the account by calculating the liquidation price of the individual positions using the bid rate for long positions and the offer rate for short positions. If the customer holds contemporaneous positions long enough, the carrying charges will bring the equity below the required security deposit. Furthermore, if the bid-ask spread on the currency pair widens, as may happen when volatility increases or the FDM anticipates major market events, the customer’s account equity may fall even faster. If the account falls below its security deposit requirement while the spread is wider than normal, the account could be liquidated at unfavorable prices even though the customer has no currency exposure risk.
NFA solicited comments on banning the practice, and two commenters agreed with the proposal, stating that the practice serves no economic purpose. A third supported the ban without discussing the reasons behind it. One commenter that operates an institutional forex platform as well as a retail one indicated that institutional investors never use this strategy.
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