FXCM Discussion

You got it

Jason,

Given it's been two weeks since this, has the investigation team come up with any conclusions on this case? Thanks!

Hi
Somebody must have done something about something...I has been fine in the last week
Thanks
Fxarcher

Hi Kanzler,

I just followed up on this. It turns out those orders were triggered by a new liquidity provider that was added to the platform but hadn't yet been fully integrated into the chart price history. We applied a credit for the affected trades, and our techs are working on those charts right now.

Jason

Hi Fxarcher,

The tech that I'd forwarded your inquiry to didn't get back to me yet, but I'm glad to hear he's already addressed the issue. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Jason

Jason,

Excellent to hear of the cause, and thank you for the transparency on the issue. Take care,

Kanzler

Smart Margin for FXCM US Clients

FXCM US has introduced a feature called Smart Margin designed to notify you in advance of margin calls, which can give you more time to take action to potentially avoid them. This replaces the old setup where your trades would immediately be liquidated the moment your account fell below the 2% margin level required by US regulations to open forex trades.


How does the Smart Margin Watcher work?

The Smart Margin Watcher is based on two important levels: Initial/Maintenance, and Liquidation Margin. If your account equity falls below this level you will receive a Margin Warning at which point you will no longer be able to place new trades.

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/5884/lycj.png

Initial/Maintenance Margin

This is the amount that is required to open a new position. It is also the minimum amount required to maintain your open positions.

Liquidation Margin

If your account falls to the Liquidation Margin level, all of your open positions will be liquidated immediately even though you may be in the three day grace period offered by the Maintenance Margin Warning.

How is margin represented in the Accounts window?

http://www.fxcm.com/assets/img/pages...in/preStep.gif

1. [Equity] is the "floating" value of funds in the account, including profits and losses on open positions.
2. [Usd Mr] is Used Margin, the Liquidation Margin Level.
3. [Usbl Mr] is Usable Margin. All positions are automatically liquidated when this reaches zero.
4. [Usbl Mr %] is [Usbl MR]/[Equity] X 100%. As above, all positions are automatically liquidated when this reaches zero.
5. [Usd Maint Mr] is the Usable Margin, the level when a Maintenance Margin Warning is issued.
6. [Usbl Maint Mr] is Usable Maintenance Margin. This is the margin deposit available for opening new positions. A Maintenance Margin Warning is triggered when this reaches zero.
7. [Usbl Maint Mr %] is [Usbl Maint Mr]/[Equity] X 100%. As above, a Maintenance Margin Warning is triggered when this reaches zero.
8. [MC] The letters in the "MC" column denote the status of the margin call:

"N" means there is sufficient Maintenance Margin.

"W" means a Maintenance Margin Warning has been issued.

"Y" means a Margin Call has been issued and positions have been liquidated due to insufficient margin.

When will a Margin Warning or a Margin Call be issued?

If your usable maintenance margin is exhausted, your account locks. Meaning, you can't open trades until you have usable maintenance margin again; you can only close trades. You'll be notified when this happens via the Trading Station.

What are my options after I receive a Margin Warning?

1. You can close a losing trade so that it stops draining margin from your account, giving you the opportunity to improve your margin level overtime from the returns on your profitable trades.
2. You can deposit funds into your account; and if time is of the essence, debit card deposits are probably your best option since those deposits are credited the quickest.
3. Finally, you can opt to do nothing. You might think that the market is going to turn around and that your losing trades are going to recover their losses. But do not forget, if your trades do not improve and your equity falls below the liquidation margin requirement or if your equity simply remains below the maintenance margin requirement for three days or more, a margin call will occur.

How do I enable Smart Margin on my account?

Smart Margin is enabled by default on new FXCM US accounts. Accounts opened prior to June 14, 2013 may enable the Smart Margin feature by logging into MYFXCM.com and selecting "Change-Margin Request". Similarly, you can disable the feature via MyFXCM.com if you prefer the old setup. Smart Margin Watcher is only available on FXCM US Trading Station accounts at this time.

No matter what you do, Smart Margin gives you more options, and usually more time, to manage your losing trades. You can visit the FXCM US website for more information on Smart Margin including specific examples.

Hi Meng,

We won't be netcasting the event, but I'll let you know if a recording is made available afterwards.

Jason

Well, meta quotes is enough. other platforms for charts are not in consideration because of indicators created for mt4 and mt5. I am sure you know that already.

Jason R, how come the swap information is not available on the terminal. When I use MarketInfo, I get 0 for both swap long and short.

Hi JM,

If you're using the MT4 platform, you won't be able see the swap information there. However, your MT4 login will also work on the Trading Station platform where you can see this info displayed as RollS and RollB under the Advanced and Simple Dealing Rates tabs as shown below.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/6706/1gf8.png

You don't have to download Trading Station Deskstop, if you don't have it on your computer already. There is a web version of Trading Station with the same information available: https://tsweb.fxcorporate.com/

Jason

Sigh, I'm building an MT4 EA that uses swap information. No chance getting the swap info there too?

There are currently no plans to add swap info directly on the MT4 platform, because it's already available on Trading Station Web using the same account login. However, you can use our free ForexConnect API as a data source for your MT4 EA. You can find more details about this and get support for your API related questions on our FX Programmers site.

I wanted to follow up my post from last week about Smart Margin with a specific example of how it works. To recap, Smart Margin provides FXCM US clients with more flexibility in meeting the 2% margin required on forex trades by CFTC regulations.

Under the old setup, trades were liquidated once an account fell below the 2% margin requirement, but now with Smart Margin, if your account falls below the 2% initial margin requirement, your trades will not immediately be liquidated. Instead, you will have 3 days to bring your account back above the 2% initial margin requirement. Your trades would only be liquidated in the interim, if your account fell even further to drop below the 1% liquidation margin level.

1. For example, let's suppose the following:

1. Your account equity is $2,000.00.
2. You place a long 10K EUR/USD position, requiring $300.00 in initial margin. Note, up-to-date rates can be found in the MMR column of the Simple Dealing Rates Window.
3. Your liquidation margin (Usd Mr) is set at $150.00.

http://www.fxcm.com/assets/img/pages...rgin/step1.gif

2. If your account equity falls to $500, that leaves you with $200.00 in Usable Maintenance Margin. While that's not enough to open another 10K EUR/USD position (since that would require at least $300 in Usable Maintenance Margin), you still have enough Usable Maintenance Margin to open a smaller position if you wanted.

http://www.fxcm.com/assets/img/pages...rgin/step2.gif

3. If your account equity falls to $300, your Usable Maintenance Margin will fall to 0, and you will receive a Margin Warning. When a Margin Warning is initiated you will see a "W" in the MC column on the trading station and you will not be able to place any additional trades.

http://www.fxcm.com/assets/img/pages...rgin/step3.gif

Once you receive a Margin Warning, you will have approximately three days after 17:00 on the day of the Warning to bring your equity back above your Used Maintenance Margin Requirement of USD 300.00 (also thought of as bringing your Usable Maintenance Margin back above 0). Keep in mind that if at any time your Usable Maintenance Margin falls to 0 again, you will receive another Maintenance Margin Warning and the process will begin again.

I searched on fxcm website but couldn't find the deposit option information, does fxcm accept paypal and if yes, can I withdraw the profit via bankwire ?
Thanks in advance

Your forum profile mentions that you live in Vietnam. While we don't accept paypal, you can deposit and withdraw funds via credit card, debit card or bank wire transfer. FXCM clients can find complete deposit and withdrawal instructions by logging into the MyFXCM.com website with their account username and password.

Jason, my history is back. Thanks FXCM.

Glad to hear it. I was told it might take a few days. Thanks for the update

SUI30 will be closed for trading on Thursday, August 1st for Swiss National Day.

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8691/eoi3.jpg

All other CFDs and forex will trade as normal.

Hi Jason,

You have responded to my concern on a recent price spike that was found only on FXCM's data feed. Fortunately at the time, I did not play an order with any stop losses, or I would have been taken out. I understand that spreads can change, but not like this. In fact, all other traders here verified that other broker's did not have this in their feed. In fact, I received confirmation from other's who was with FXCM that did in fact have this spike also. So it's not just my trading system. It's the FXCM data feed.

I reference the time, location, and pair in this thread post (http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...47#post6856547).

And this is something I would never actually noticed. In fact, the senior trader of that thread noticed this because he uses a different broker and his price feed did not have this. Otherwise, I would never know. Now I need to either switch brokers or have multiple price feed up just to make sure I don't misread my charts (which I would have in this case, and could cost me a wrong analysis that lead to wrong trading decisions that could turn into losses).

In addition, I don't even have a reason to complain as this was not a losing trade for me as I did not use a stop loss. So this is not a case of me losing money b/c of this spike. It's something that got noticed because we do analysis on the M1 time frame, which revealed this with other trader's looking over the same charts and comparing.

I wanted to trust FXCM. That's why I chose to do trading with you. Your company is big, and well known. But to be the only one with the spike? In fact, the spike had no volume associated with it. How does that happen?

Spread at the time was 3.2. Normal spreads during illiquid hours are 7-8pips max. That was a 10 pip spike. Plus, what the chart shows is bid price, so it has nothing to do with spreads anyways. And why was the spike conveniently lower than the previous low (which showed gradual increase). Only a news event could create anything close to this, but still would have fluctuations before and after the fact (to a much greater extent).

I don't have to spend time to write this up, but I feel it is important as these anomalies are not left un-noticed. And since you responded to my post, maybe you actually care. Especially by people of my thread as they read nothing but M1 time frames. So maybe your company will realize that these actions will cost them customers. But we'll see. If you want to keep me as a customer, be consistent with other feeds, don't have random spikes like this.

At any rate, I hope to not find any more of these anomalies. It's not hard to find. Spikes with little to no volume. Spikes not found on other reputable market data feeds. Spikes in places that don't make sense. I hope FXCM does indeed improve their quotes from now on and prevent these from happening anymore.

Regards,

-qFish