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  • #7,561
  • Apr 15, 2015 10:53am Apr 15, 2015 10:53am
Quoting PoundTrader
{quote}what if i had a bahamas resident card but stll a u.s. citizen would i be able to open account with the u.k. branch with my bahamas company
The requirement to trade forex under US regulations is based on US residency, not US citizenship. A trader wanting to set up a forex account with one of FXCM's non-US entities (FXCM UK, FXCM AU, etc.) must establish proof of residence outside the US as outlined here: http://bit.ly/1Ht2dKI

If you have specific questions regarding your documents, please contact our Operations department directly at [email protected] as they ultimately review your account application.
  • #7,562
  • Apr 16, 2015 1:39am Apr 16, 2015 1:39am
Jason hi,

So we all know FXCM forgave the debts of retail gamblers' , I mean traders, wrong swiss franc bets. But they also announced they are going after Institutional gamblers' ( my bad again , traders' ) debts. And if I remember correctly this was 60% of the total loses. So 60% of $225 million is $135 million owed to FXCM by institutional traders.So whats going on with this debt, it is 3 months since the SNB crash, is there any update about the collection debt or any amount collected so far , could you give us any number?

Thank you

PS. I do trade stocks as well as currency trading and Because I am using fxcm as my fx broker and love FXCM's spreads (it is undeniable they have the best spreads out there) So ,Do FXCM have any plan to offer stock brokerage service in addition to their FX business as a growth area.I would love to move my stock brokerage account to FXCM if they do and combine my both stock and currency accounts. I believe Interactive brokers have both but their service pretty much suck so I would love fxcm to get in to this . Do management have any future plans or this is just my wishful thinking?
  • #7,563
  • Apr 16, 2015 5:55pm Apr 16, 2015 5:55pm
Quoting ExpertFxMan
So whats going on with this debt, it is 3 months since the SNB crash, is there any update about the collection debt or any amount collected so far , could you give us any number?
As far as I'm aware, no such numbers have been released. Just to be sure, I double-checked our Investor Relations website. This is where all publicly available data are published: http://bit.ly/ZOCB0Y

Despite the events of January 15th that resulted from the Swiss Franc movements, FXCM today remains in a strong competitive position:

  1. $303 million in consolidated operating cash
  2. $1.0 billion in customer equity
  3. 195,000 active retail FX accounts
  4. Global regulatory capital of $252 million versus $93 million minimum requirements (an excess of $159 million)

Since we are a publicly-traded company (NYSE ticker: FXCM) the details of our finances including the loan from Leucadia are well known. In fact, in our most recent quarterly earnings presentation, we clearly outlined how we plan to repay this debt. By contrast, most other forex brokers are privately-held companies, so it's hard to know how much debt they have on their books or the state of their finances.

Over the past few years, FXCM has spent over $250 million dollars making strategic acquisitions building up our non-core businesses, mainly the institutional side as we tried to diversify the firm. We are now looking to sell some of those non-core assets; But, we are not in a rush and are looking to get the highest valuations for these assets. We are considering closing or selling smaller regulated entities that require large sums of capital requirements, but that offer increasingly low return on capital. In fact, just recently we announced this news: FXCM to Sell FXCM Japan to Rakuten Sec for $62 Million


http://i.imgur.com/SjOCUih.png



The latter move allows us to free up significant amounts of cash that is currently trapped. We believe that in the near term we can pay down a majority of the loan. That's our goal. We have now repaid $66 million under the credit agreement, and as of April 1, 2015, the outstanding Leucadia loan balance is $244 million.

FXCM is pleased with how our debt reduction plan is proceeding. We are ahead of plan and the results of the FXCM Japan sale exceeded our expectations. With all the increased attention to our other properties, we are expecting robust and competitive auctions for the other non-core assets we have targeted to sell. We anticipate making an additional repayment of approximately $12 million towards the credit facility in the coming weeks.

Quoting ExpertFxMan
I do trade stocks as well as currency trading and Because I am using fxcm as my fx broker and love FXCM's spreads (it is undeniable they have the best spreads out there) So ,Do FXCM have any plan to offer stock brokerage service in addition to their FX business as a growth area.
Your forum profile mentions that you live in the US. We don't currently have plans to offer stock trading in the US, but I'll let you know if that changes. For traders outside the US, we will soon be offering single-share CFDs. While I don't have specific dates at this time, I'll post updates here as I receive them.
  • #7,564
  • Apr 16, 2015 8:12pm Apr 16, 2015 8:12pm
Quoting Jason Rogers
{quote} ...
We don't currently have plans to offer stock trading in the US, but I'll let you know if that changes. For traders outside the US, we will soon be offering single-share CFDs. While I don't have specific dates at this time, I'll post updates here as I receive them.


Jason this is just yada yada yada stuff.

How about putting some really serious effort into displaying the correct currency prices on your MT4 platform charts.
Then your long suffering customers can see what price action they are trading at, not looking at some little figures off chart.


cheers scalpz
Target 2 : Stoploss in the green
  • #7,565
  • Apr 16, 2015 11:20pm Apr 16, 2015 11:20pm
Quoting ExpertFxMan
Jason hi, So we all know FXCM forgave the debts of retail gamblers' , I mean traders, wrong swiss franc bets. But they also announced they are going after Institutional gamblers' ( my bad again , traders' ) debts. And if I remember correctly this was 60% of the total loses. So 60% of $225 million is $135 million owed to FXCM by institutional traders.So whats going on with this debt, it is 3 months since the SNB crash, is there any update about the collection debt or any amount collected so far , could you give us any number? Thank you PS. I do trade...
I don't know about other countries, but in Australia, FXCM is still trying to collect negative balances from retail clients. This is the coverage done by ABC news where the journalist interviwed one of the victims, and in it, you'll also find the promotional video that FXCM made which guaranteed no-negative-balance policy. This video is no longer on the internet as it seems FXCM has removed it, but the journalist appears to have saved it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-0...s-bank/6369382

Looking at this video, it's clear that FXCM is lying about forgiving retail clients for negative balances.

I bet you Jason Rogers can't comment on this fact...
  • #7,566
  • Apr 17, 2015 2:13am Apr 17, 2015 2:13am
Quoting scalpz
{quote} Jason this is just yada yada yada stuff. How about putting some really serious effort into displaying the correct currency prices on your MT4 platform charts. Then your long suffering customers can see what price action they are trading at, not looking at some little figures off chart. cheers scalpz

Yes, still waiting.....
  • #7,567
  • Apr 19, 2015 11:26am Apr 19, 2015 11:26am
Hi Jason,


sorry for letting you wait so long for a reply.

Quoting Jason Rogers
... With a real trade, there are actual audit reports the Trade Services Team can review to determine what happened. That's not the case with your hypothetical example.
So far so fine. You're basically saying, that the event on March 19th was hypothetical.

A 100 P spike on no news in the US30 on FXCM only? This spike was pretty un-hypothetical.

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthre...16#post8150916

The trade figures (Entry, Stoploss and stopout) were hypothetical.
That's what I said. The event was pretty real and I wonder who else got bitten by that.


Quoting Jason Rogers
Furthermore, I'm not a member of the Trade Services Team, and it is only they who are authorized to make determinations regarding trade audits.
No need to ask them about the calculation on a reimbursement? Better speculating? Which you clearly must not!

But to get back from black rethorics to the question:

"...7. How are reimbursements due to a rightful complaint calculated?..."


Found the answer myself, so there's no need to ask the Trade service Team (TST) for you. Except you want to confirm. Which would be great.

The TST determines what the last valid tick was (R). It then subtracts the stopout price (S) from this last valid tick (R) and multiplies the result with the tick value (T) and the lot size (L).

For my hypothetical trade parameters on this very real event the reimbursement would have been:
O=17950, S=17810, R=17974, T=0.0939, L=?

(17974 - 17810)*0.0939*L

The only weak point in this business process step is the determination of the last valid tick and the fact that MT4 does not receive the correct tick value.


Which brings me right to the next point:

You were saying, that the missing trade information parameters (Commission, Swap, Tickvalue) in MT4 were due to limitations of the single sign on (SSO) process of FXCM.

At least the MODE_SWAPLONG/MODE_SWAPSHORT information is filled on FXCM Demo - which also has a single sign on functionality to TS-II:

FXCM, EURDemo01:
Attached Image


FXCM, EURReal01:
Attached Image


And on other brokers to rule out a programming error:

OANDA, Real, has SSO tech enabled.
Attached Image


FINFX, Demo, Don't know about SSO tech.
Attached Image



So: The issues and their states are as mixed as before and no one is any wiser nor happier. ;-)


Best regards

Naddmr
  • #7,568
  • Apr 21, 2015 5:55am Apr 21, 2015 5:55am
For people interested in withdrawing money from FXCM: for me and my clients I closed 4 accounts and asked for a broker to broker transfer from FXCM to FxPro. Withdrawal request sent to FXCM on Monday, funds received and ready to trade at FxPro on Friday. Quite fast if you ask me, both brokers did a good job.

Some say withdrawing larger amounts can be an issue. In this case account size was $184,000, $39,000, $36,000 and $89,000.
  • #7,569
  • Apr 21, 2015 7:35am Apr 21, 2015 7:35am
Quoting MonsterMind
For people interested in withdrawing money from FXCM: for me and my clients I closed 4 accounts and asked for a broker to broker transfer from FXCM to FxPro. Withdrawal request sent to FXCM on Monday, funds received and ready to trade at FxPro on Friday. Quite fast if you ask me, both brokers did a good job. Some say withdrawing larger amounts can be an issue. In this case account size was $184,000, $39,000, $36,000 and $89,000.

Got a friend WHO has traded fxcm for +4 years. He takes out 15-30K usd every month. - And he never had withdrawal problems.
MY SITTING, NEVER MY THINKING!
  • #7,570
  • Edited 1:45pm Apr 21, 2015 1:00pm | Edited 1:45pm
Howdy,


anyone trading XAUUSD on MT4 at FXCM and experiencing this:

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Screenshot_094.jpg Size: 51 KB


Note the price (which is 1202 by now) and the message "waiting for update" in the part where the ticks are shown normally.
Same seems to be true for XAGUSD and USOIL.

Those pairs simply are currently not tradeable because MT4 receives no chart updates.

TS-II receives ticks - but a bit late compared to the demo account. Hmmm ... time lag arbitrage comes to my mind ;-)

Edit: MT4 on Android is not affected. Other CFDs (GER30, BUND) receive ticks as usual.

Edit2: Note the date on the balloon help of the market view of MT4:

Attached Image


It says April 17th, 2015! Note the unusual spread and the update times of the both NZD pairs which work as usual.
  • #7,571
  • Apr 21, 2015 6:11pm Apr 21, 2015 6:11pm
Quoting Naddmer
You were saying, that the missing trade information parameters (Commission, Swap, Tickvalue) in MT4 were due to limitations of the single sign on (SSO) process of FXCM. At least the MODE_SWAPLONG/MODE_SWAPSHORT information is filled on FXCM Demo - which also has a single sign on functionality to TS-II: FXCM, EURDemo01: {image} FXCM, EURReal01: {image}
Hi Naddmer,

I'm following up with our tech support team regarding why the swap info works on your demo account, but not the live.
  • #7,572
  • Apr 21, 2015 6:15pm Apr 21, 2015 6:15pm
Quoting MonsterMind
For people interested in withdrawing money from FXCM: for me and my clients I closed 4 accounts and asked for a broker to broker transfer from FXCM to FxPro. Withdrawal request sent to FXCM on Monday, funds received and ready to trade at FxPro on Friday. Quite fast if you ask me, both brokers did a good job. Some say withdrawing larger amounts can be an issue. In this case account size was $184,000, $39,000, $36,000 and $89,000.
Quoting merrygold
{quote} Got a friend WHO has traded fxcm for +4 years. He takes out 15-30K usd every month. - And he never had withdrawal problems.
Thanks for sharing this feedback regarding how you and your fellow traders have received timely withdrawals. I know this is a question that comes up often on this forum when traders ask about different brokers.
  • #7,573
  • Apr 21, 2015 6:24pm Apr 21, 2015 6:24pm
Quoting Naddmer
Howdy, anyone trading XAUUSD on MT4 at FXCM and experiencing this: {image} Note the price (which is 1202 by now) and the message "waiting for update" in the part where the ticks are shown normally. Same seems to be true for XAGUSD and USOIL. Those pairs simply are currently not tradeable because MT4 receives no chart updates. TS-II receives ticks - but a bit late compared to the demo account. Hmmm ... time lag arbitrage comes to my mind ;-) Edit: MT4 on Android is not affected. Other CFDs (GER30, BUND) receive ticks as usual. Edit2: Note the date...
Hi Naddmer,

Check in the Market Watch window of your MT4 platform to see how many symbols are displayed. If there are more than 40, right-click on the the Market Watch window and select Symbols from the pop-up menu. Then, from the Symbols window, select the symbols you do not trade and hide them to get the total number of shown symbols to 40 or fewer. You should find that the remaining symbols are now updating in your Market Watch window.
  • #7,574
  • Apr 21, 2015 8:13pm Apr 21, 2015 8:13pm
Quoting Jason Rogers
{quote} Hi Naddmer, I'm following up with our tech support team regarding why the swap info works on your demo account, but not the live.
Also keep in mind that it seems to not work on FXCM's USD or GBP demo servers, but it does work on all other FXCM demo servers...
  • #7,575
  • Apr 22, 2015 3:41am Apr 22, 2015 3:41am
Hey there I'm just an FX newbie hoping to open an account somewhere, sometime soon. As a US resident I'm having some difficulty choosing a safe and trustworthy broker. The only thing that has caused me to question whether I should go with FXCM is the recent swiss currency bomb that seemed to hit them really hard. As a layman with very little knowledge in these matters, should I be concerned about FXCM's stock price going from $16 to $2 overnight? I thought this was kind of a really bad sign of the health of a company.. if recovery is assured, wouldn't investors price that in, and FXCM wouldn't be stuck sitting so low at $2? These are not rhetorical questions mind ya'll, i'm seriously asking, as a newb... Also, is anyone worried about something bad happening with the loan and not being able to recover what you deposited in your FXCM account? Is there any type of guarantee that even if FXCM went belly up, folks could still get their accounts back? I liked everything about FXCM when I was shopping around, just trying to understand the risks involved after what happened with the Swiss. Thank you!
  • #7,576
  • Apr 22, 2015 5:23pm Apr 22, 2015 5:23pm
Quoting Aad
{quote} Also keep in mind that it seems to not work on FXCM's USD or GBP demo servers, but it does work on all other FXCM demo servers...
Hi Aad,

Thanks for sharing these additional details. I've relayed them to our techs and will let you know what they say.
  • #7,577
  • Apr 22, 2015 5:44pm Apr 22, 2015 5:44pm
Quoting bobbyspider
As a US resident I'm having some difficulty choosing a safe and trustworthy broker. The only thing that has caused me to question whether I should go with FXCM is the recent swiss currency bomb that seemed to hit them really hard. As a layman with very little knowledge in these matters, should I be concerned about FXCM's stock price going from $16 to $2 overnight? I thought this was kind of a really bad sign of the health of a company.. if recovery is assured, wouldn't investors price that in, and FXCM wouldn't be stuck sitting so low at $2? These...
Hi Bobbyspider,

While I'm not authorized to comment on our stock, you are welcome to contact our Investor Relations department with related questions.

Quoting bobbyspider
Also, is anyone worried about something bad happening with the loan and not being able to recover what you deposited in your FXCM account?
Since we are a publicly-traded company (NYSE ticker: FXCM) the details of our finances including the loan from Leucadia are well known. In fact, in our most recent quarterly earnings presentation, we clearly outlined how we plan to repay this debt. By contrast, most other forex brokers are privately-held companies, so it's hard to know how much debt they have on their books or the state of their finances.

Despite the events of January 15th that resulted from the Swiss Franc movements, FXCM today remains in a strong competitive position:

  1. $303 million in consolidated operating cash
  2. $1.0 billion in customer equity
  3. 195,000 active retail FX accounts
  4. Global regulatory capital of $252 million versus $93 million minimum requirements (an excess of $159 million)

Since we are a publicly-traded company (NYSE ticker: FXCM) the details of our finances including the loan from Leucadia are well known. In fact, in our most recent quarterly earnings presentation, we clearly outlined how we plan to repay this debt. By contrast, most other forex brokers are privately-held companies, so it's hard to know how much debt they have on their books or the state of their finances.

Over the past few years, FXCM has spent over $250 million dollars making strategic acquisitions building up our non-core businesses, mainly the institutional side as we tried to diversify the firm. We are now looking to sell some of those non-core assets; But, we are not in a rush and are looking to get the highest valuations for these assets. We are considering closing or selling smaller regulated entities that require large sums of capital requirements, but that offer increasingly low return on capital. In fact, just recently we announced this news: FXCM to Sell FXCM Japan to Rakuten Sec for $62 Million


http://i.imgur.com/SjOCUih.png



The latter move allows us to free up significant amounts of cash that is currently trapped. We believe that in the near term we can pay down a majority of the loan. That's our goal. We have now repaid $66 million under the credit agreement, and as of April 1, 2015, the outstanding Leucadia loan balance is $244 million.

FXCM is pleased with how our debt reduction plan is proceeding. We are ahead of plan and the results of the FXCM Japan sale exceeded our expectations. With all the increased attention to our other properties, we are expecting robust and competitive auctions for the other non-core assets we have targeted to sell. We anticipate making an additional repayment of approximately $12 million towards the credit facility in the coming weeks.

Quoting bobbyspider
Is there any type of guarantee that even if FXCM went belly up, folks could still get their accounts back? I liked everything about FXCM when I was shopping around, just trying to understand the risks involved after what happened with the Swiss. Thank you!
All of our regulated entities except the US provide clients with segregated funds. All of our global client base in our regulated entities minus US clients would be protected under a bankruptcy. Our UK regulated entity through the FSCS even offers clients 50,000 per person in protection. Canada has similar insurance for retail traders of up to $1 million CAD. And for US traders like you and me, below are the net capital figures for US forex brokers as reported to the CFTC after January 15th.

http://i.imgur.com/tGVPOpx.png

  • #7,578
  • Edited 5:28am Apr 23, 2015 2:56am | Edited 5:28am
Hi guys,
I want to open live account with FXCM Australia. I tried the demo first, I found that FXCM MT4 often freeze (not responding to orders) during the News release. I want to ask, is it just problem of Demo Mt4, or your guys experience the same problem on live MT4?

I compare the FXCM Demo to other Demo and live MT4, it shows only FXCM demo has this freeze problem. thanks

the version I have
Attached Image
seeing through
  • #7,579
  • Apr 23, 2015 4:00am Apr 23, 2015 4:00am
Hi Jason, hope you're doing well... I have a question regarding linking my account with myfxbook.com - this is what they recommend one should do to link trading station platform with them:

https://www.myfxbook.com/help/tradin...blisher-wizard

Is it safe to give them the login and password information? I really like using trading station marketscope and don't really want to switch to using MT4 but it'd also be great if I can use many of the third party services that need to access your records - but many of them can't really connect with trading station and require MT4 investor password. Perhaps FXCM can start issuing investor passwords for marketscope too, if connecting with myfxbook as I mentioned earlier isn't safe.
  • #7,580
  • Apr 23, 2015 11:45am Apr 23, 2015 11:45am
Hi Jason,


you left me speechless for two days. Feel honored, please.

Quoting Jason Rogers
{quote} Hi Naddmer, Check in the Market Watch window of your MT4 platform to see how many symbols are displayed. If there are more than 40, right-click on the the Market Watch window and select Symbols from the pop-up menu. Then, from the Symbols window, select the symbols you do not trade and hide them to get the total number of shown symbols to 40 or fewer. You should find that the remaining symbols are now updating in your Market Watch window.

First: Thank you for the swift and correct reply. It was indeed so that I had 42 symbols selected in the live account and as soon as I've deselected 2 symbols XAUUSD and USOIL were getting chart updates again.

But then: As it worked unchanged until April 17th 20:44 Etc/GMT then some configuration change made by FXCM over this very weekend during the maintenance window is very likely the cause of this issue.

As repeated at least twice this year, no information neither beforehand nor after the change was officially issued by FXCM via mail or any other information channel I know - except this forum entry via your answer. While I really appreciate your efforts here, I have formally to protest against those operational risk increasing changes in a live environment.

As every EA and order management on MT4 relies on received ticks to perform the calculation work it is obvious that turning off ticks by imposing such a limit is a heavy nice risk increase burdened on the customers of FXCM using MT4.

On top of that, I currently have 66 symbols selected in demo working like a charm and there was no real test case there before going live on top of the missing information about the limit.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Screenshot_099.jpg Size: 396 KB



Same holds true for the stocks CFDs introduced this week.
Until now there is no possibility to test those things in a demo environment before going live as those symbols are not selectable currently in MT4.

Attached Image (click to enlarge)
Click to Enlarge Name: Screenshot_098.jpg Size: 92 KB


This is not what I would call a "best practise of config change management" and I'm sure the regulators share my point of view on issues like that.


Best regards

Naddmer
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