Cheated by broker?

Just before the market closed at midnight last friday, I had a SELL order open at a price of 13.043 HKDJPY and 0.78 volume . I didn't realise I had left the order open and when the market closed I had a floating loss of -16$, and my equity was 84$, don't remember the free margin

All this is mentioned in my trading account statement and daily confirmation emails I receive from FXOPEN(my broker)

At 12am today, when the market opened, i was shocked to see my account showing a negative balance of -16$, meaning a loss of -117$!!!! The opening price was 13.037 HKDJPY

I emailed FXOPEN and this is what they replied

<<<<<<<<<<<
Please be advised, we can definitely understand your frustrations, however, the reality right now is such, that your view, while being 100% accurate in theory, does not precisely work all the time in real world conditions. It happens due the presence of another crucial factor - bank liquidity.

As Ask price reached 13.118 level - the request to close your position was sent to Liquidity Provider. But LP has executed your order at 13.196. Note, your order was closed at market opening - period of low liquidity and high volatility.

Aslo we would like to add, that in your case, order execution was performed 100% according to terms of business.

Best Regards,
Trading Desk
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From past experience, I can surmise that the widening of spreads which happens normally between 12-1am is responsible. What i don't understand is how did my equity reach a negative balance??? Stop-out, as stated by FXOPEN, occurs at 50% of margin, and that should have happened before my equity zero'd out, but here it's in the negative!!!

Can someone help me make sense of all this? I'm trying to calculate the at what point the stop-out occurred and what my equity was then?

Was I cheated by FXOPEN??

They probably were not actively trying to cheat you for $100, thats pocketchange. And it may be in accordance with their T&S.

None the less, 13.1960 for sunday open was way off market when looking at a chart. There must have been like a 1000 pip spread? Even Oanda had maximum 75 pip spread - and they are known for being wide when it suits them.

Is this FxOpen.co.uk ? Read the T&S, look for things like "erroneous fill" and such. Send a complaint to the official complaint contact email of FxOpen - then someone else than level 1 support has to deal with this.

They did not cheat you, this was your own fault. Go have a look at the spread some days for HKDJPY when this pair has low volatility. And lol, if I'm not mistaken, with 0.78 lot with $84 dollar equity the spread didn't need to widen much to get you a margin call. Hope you learn something from this.

All the best

0.78 lot with HKD/JPY (78K units) is like 8 cent per pip - so it takes ~1200 pips for a loss of $100. And a fill 800 pips off the midpoint is not just a widened spread, you could drive the spanish armada through that one. The fill should be canceled or amended to a rate near the actual market.

Exactly!! I'm still trying to figure out what exactly happened..

This is FXOPEN NZ. I have emailed their complaint department regarding this matter, just waiting for their reply

Need I say more after shrike's last reply?

To you 100$ is nothing substantial, but it's not that. Today it's 100$, next week 10,000$, and perhaps this has happened to other traders as well. It's the ethics of conduct here that matters. Sure i could let this go, just a 100 bucks, but this kind of conduct reflects badly on a broker. And i have been trading HKDJPY for about a month, so i'm well aware of the spreads anytime of day. And as i mentioned, stop-out occurs at 50% of margin, which would entitle a positive balance, not a negative one

And how is a spread larger than the spanish armada my fault? If only it was narrower than your understanding of this situation..

I have never traded this pair, so apologies if I wrongly summed this situation up. I might have mixed up my zeros . In this case you should definitely ask them how this was possible. (If you were down $16 @ 0.78lots, you would be down around 800pips? What was the price area at that point?)

Thanks..

I have attached a screen shot of my account history.. AS you can see from the graph, where the price closed friday and opened monday is no where NEAR 13.196.. I remember a floating loss of -16$ and a widening of the spread, which was normal at that time of day, to about 40pips, but this is just crazy!

Below is a reply a got from FXOPEN today

"
Dear Hamza Khan!

In the case of ECN platform, where Spreads aren’t fixed and can fluctuate, there is a dedicated Ask chart. In other words, HKDJPY chart displays BID prices and HKDJPY_Ask chart (located towards the bottom of the Market Watch window) displays ASK prices respectively.
Sell orders are opened at Bid quote, so they need Ask to be closed. Hence, Take Profit and/or Stop Loss instruction triggers once Ask quote reaches that level. Same is true for Buy Stop orders.

Please be advised, according to Terms of Business for ECN accounts:
2.5. Trading operations are conducted in pursuance of "Market Execution". Execution occurs immediately
at the available volume and market execution prices can differ from the currently displayed quote.


Best Regards,
Trading Desk"


They're just giving me the run around the bush!

Actually it makes sense. The spread at that time for a very unpopular pair can be extreme, probably is every new daily session.

I've been trading that particular pair for a month, the max spread i've seen was nearly 600pips, and this was double that, which is insane!

xm.com freezes for about 10 mins when us market opens or when volatility kicks in. Their reply: we did not receive prices from our liquidity providers. It costed me 2 big losses. They wont reimburse and wont close my account as requested. Please think twice and dont get fooled by their deposit bonus.