Trading as a company in Australia

Pretty much any company of any sort these days requires directors guarantees before allowing an account particularly any account that may involve credit. I wouldn't get too caught up on that fact. They are asking you to guarantee the standing of the account when operated under normal circumstances, when extraordinary things happen like the chf, the question then gets asked if this is normal trading conditions.
Personally, I think you may have got caught up in some of the hype caused by sections of the media, commentators with undisclosed interests and some on this site that are clearly out of their depth. I am unaware,but may be proved wrong, of any Australian account holder with Australian brokers being caught up in this. Some smaller "shopfronts" that farm their trades out may be, but I think the broking industry here has it covered. Certainly I , nor any of the other traders with whom I network, have changed in any way the way we trade or operate because of this. In fact, I think most have moved on and not given it a second thought. If trading is how you make your bread and is your passion, please, take a break, clear your head a bit and get back into it...with a reputable Australian broker. I don't know if you have lost anything in this debacle, but given how it's playing out it looks increasingly likely that a few big houses are going to get the responsibility for it all and you will be a good chance to get recompense, particularly if you are an Australian account holder with a local broker. Before anyone has a crack at me, I have no interest in any broking or banking business, just been doing this in various forms for over 20 years.
No Cold Chisel puns this time, just serious encouragement to get back on the horse...if that is what you want to do. It's Friday, go for a long lunch, have a few laughs, enjoy the weekend, get some fresh air and get back into it next week. There is likely to be a few pips to be had locally next week, don't get caught up in the quagmire of self pity and conspiracy we are seeing from some online, hopefully it hasn't mortally wounded your account, take it as a loss, move on chin up, there are new trades every day.

Thanks Greeny. I haven't lost anything I even gained 4k out of it. BUT. I was using Australian IC Markets and they had a bearish candle on the USD/CHF pair on the 15th of January On 1 hour time frame which extreme was as low as 0,06460. The previous candle closed at 1,01224. The fall was more than 93%, so if I had 4 lots with leverage up to 1:500 open long at the close of the previous 1 hour candle (that's what I usually do, but on a different pair), and was stopped out at the bottom or at the best price available (that's what brokers usually say) my account would have faced a probable loss close to 400k in the worst case scenario. That is 10 + times more that I plan to make a year with this system.
Here is a print screen from IC Markets ECN account.
So believe me I have something to worry about.

And believe me it happened once, it will happen again. I saw a lot of that when I was trading CFDs, and that's why I moved to forex in 2005, but now I see it on forex two. Yes forex is my passion, I really and truly love it, but I'm not a suicide blonde.

I would be surprised if this ever happened again. I think you will find there will be collars in place now to ensure that, as with most other markets. CFDs are an entirely different scenario as liquidity can be a real issue. I too have seen similar things on options markets, I remember 87 and 97 vividly.

Here is the one hour chart from my live account from that same point in time. You will see that the spike is not, and never was , there. So see, it doesn't have to be a terrifying issue, and we are completely comfortable trading this market, with much larger sums than you mention at stake, and many have much larger again. This has been my "business" for a very long time and I am the ultimate "devils advocate", if I thought my account was at risk in any way, I wouldn't be here...but I am. I'm not here to convince you, just give you the facts. Roughly five trillion dollars goes through this market every day, the amounts we are talking in this stuff up are miniscule , but a good lesson, keep away from the "department store" brokers/educators.

You mentioned you are with IC Markets, i believe they had about 50, give or take , accounts affected, not large in the scheme of things. Most of them were offshore as well, so slightly different recourse rules. They refunded large sums pretty quickly and I think will go the rest of the way shortly, ASIC are onto it. Their beef will be with their LPs. Calling yourself a retail trader doesn't mean you have to go with a mainstream retail broker, just saying. There are alternatives.

I understand you Greeny loud and clear. So what you are saying is that IC Markets is a department store broker? Maybe but they were quite good and reliable before this.
I know I'm a small fish in this pond, but believe me 400k is enough money to make me worried. I will take your advice and sleep it over for a week, probably work out a way to find myself a new broker, of course I'm not coming back to IC.

For what it's worth, I don't think you would ever be liable for the 400k. Have a good look at brokers, don't just get names from related websites, look at "real" financial publications and resource areas even check with ASIC. I don't want to label any broker anything, but make some comparisons. Price isn't everything. Remember, the number one rule on investment...is return of investment, not to be confused with return ON investment. Keeping your pesos is the chief priority in this business. Size of your account doesn't matter, the point I was making is that we are all playing by the same rules, just make sure you don't have a third party putting their spin into it.

Greeny, Copernicus.

I appreciate you sharing your experience and insight.

Enjoy the weekend all!

Thanks FxLester. :-)

No probs, always happy to offer if I'm able. Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Copernicus - in this online era of a paper free environment your image is surprisingly real!

That's what they promised with computers but look what I've got. :-)

Have a great weekend guys.