Help!!! US Traders, We Must Stand Up and Fight

In major financial centers around the world, retail forex is regulated by many of the same government bodies that oversee other financial markets. For example, in the US, we are regulated by the CFTC and NFA, the same two bodies that oversee futures trading on the CME. Furthermore, in compliance with rules regarding price slippage and price re-quoting that were finalized in 2012, retail forex brokers in the US provide daily trade reports to the NFA which monitors and supervises our activity including information on the price where all client orders are filled and the corresponding price where those orders are offset with our liquidity providers.

http://www.investopedia.com/news/fxc...oSA&yptr=yahoo

....the equivalent of busting up the furniture to throw in the fireplace to keep from freezing to death in the winter. Will FXCM exist in 5 years?

I apologize Jason but, "progress" will only be made if and when the US gvt stops meddling in the lives of the middle class.

jason, first of all love the service, but Im going to be worried about fxcm until they pick up their stock value. I mean, it dropped to 7.35, i've seen it from $150 dollars drop down to 7.35?? with that logic I should keep my blockbuster card... lol seriously tho hope you guys can stay in business

FXCM strongly believes in the value of education, trading tools and resources, so we take great pride in having built DailyFX.com into one of the most popular forex news portals. (Alexa rankings show it is ranked 4th in the world in terms of forex sites ahead of Fxstreet, Babypips and even FXCM itself.) While we believe DailyFX will continue to be a top resource for traders, it is not a critical part of the company. FXCM's priorities are to repay the Leucadia loan and focus on our core business which executed $875 billion in retail customer trading volume in the third quarter of 2016.

While I'm not authorized to comment on our stock personally, I can refer you to comments from our CEO Drew Niv in an interview with Profit & Loss Magazine:

"Financially, we lost $300 million and then we got $300 million from Leucadia, so by Monday 19th of January, the company was fine in terms of balance sheet. Yes, because were a public venue you can see that our stock is a fraction of what it was, but people need to understand that the size of the pie hasnt changed, its just that the ownership of that pie has. So the stock implies that the legacy shareholders of FXCM only own a small piece of the firm and Leucadia owns a much bigger piece, although the final determination on that will be made later this year once we've divested the assets were selling. This is about the economics to the owners of the firm, it has nothing to do with customers.

We have always stated our plan is to pay back the loan with proceeds from the sale of non-core assets:



Drew is quoted in another article reaffirming our commitment to this plan to repay our debt:

"FXCM together with discontinued operations, had $236 million in operating cash as of 3/31/16. We currently believe in the strategy we have laid out regarding asset sales to pay off our debt. Customers of FXCM are safe and should know that we are financially secure and remain a market leader with some of the best execution and technology in our industry. We generate enough cash to make our interest payments and all client money is secure. As we have stated publicly before it will take years for shareholders to see any returns. Our priority is to repay our debt."

That's all the more reason for US traders to reach out to our local representatives and let them know what is most important to us when it comes to retail forex.

Good Luck Brother, may the Great Pumpkin smile down upon you and all the rest of us poor speculators.

Although I'm not aware of the current volume numbers at LMAX Exchange, can this (what you've written about predatory environment vs. quality pricing and high liquidity) be a reason for that the volume at LMAX is smaller than at FXCM? If smaller at all, cause I'm not totally sure.

Is volume (much) bigger at FXCM compared to LMAX (or other venues for that matter)?

Any comment regarding this?

OK, UK traders, time for you to chime in as well. I just learned they are proposing very similar restrictions in the UK.

Another great by-product of the ridiculous regulations in the US. Nobody even trades anymore. Are the markets open today? EURUSD range is 40, GBPJPY is 70!!!!lol. Thanks CFTC

Fear not Pipmaster, President Donald Trump is about to do great justice to the Dodd-Frank Regulation. The iron curtains are sure going to be brought down soon...

An easy solution would be to find a foreigner friend who can you trust. Create an account with his/her credentials.

Sure hope so. I hope he delivers on ALL of is promises.

Yes, but what I'm saying is due to what the CFTC has done to the US forex market, volume is way down, pairs do not move like they used to. Just another way of screwing the average person trying to survive. Typical government bullshit.

Once again, today is more evidence of how the US government has destroyed the forex market. Range on EURUSD today is 33 friggin pips, are you kidding me. GBPJPY is 83 pips. These numbers are 30-35% of what they were 2-3 years ago. THANKS FUCKING CFTC!!!!!!!!!! Maybe we should reduce leverage some more or better yet how about we ban the 2 remaining brokers???

Sorry I'm late getting around to posting on this thread, but it looks like it is still alive. I think I can add some insights from my research and some of my opinions. I don't even know where to start, to be honest. This thread has covered many subjects, but I think the main theme is the oppressive nature of the US government. I'll start there.

I'm an American. I was born here and so were my parents and grandparents. I was raised to believe that America is the promised land, god's land, the Land of the Free, that we have the most rights and that our government is righteous. It ain't. I know that now. The US government has long ceased to represent the people. Now, it represents corporations. It promotes monopolies (which are supposed to be illegal.) It promotes war and instability in the world. It actively suppresses both US citizens and all governments/people around the world. It spies on everyone!!!! It is pushing for World War 3. China and Russia both have shown remarkable restraint. The average soldier in any country does not want war. It is always the politicians that want war. The politicians are supported by the big money. They get elected that way. They lie to the people while serving the big money.

The average person wants peace and prosperity. They want the freedom to enjoy both. To some extent, freedom means being left alone by your government. It also can mean the government should protect against forces trying to take freedom from its citizens. We now have more laws in the US than have ever existed in the history of the world. We have more people incarcerated. We have been at war longer than at any point in history. We have been in a continual state of war most of my life. Most people agree the war on drugs has been a horrific failure. It has caused a civil war in Mexico. It is highly unpopular, yet the federal government persists in its madness. The FBI did not stop the Chicago gangsters during the prohibition. Repeal of prohibition did stop them. With major cities begging for an end to gang violence and murder, how come more voices are not for ending the war on drugs? The American left has ignored the plight of minorities in this regard. Speaking of the American left, when did they stop being peace advocates and start being warmongers?

Put in perspective, the oppression of US traders is relatively minor. It is a symptom of a US government that controls every single aspect of our lives, generally against our wishes and best interests. Dodd-Frank has done nothing to change the risk to the US/world financial system. Risk is much, much worse now. FATCA is an abomination. It shows how the US is controlling most of the world. It actually costs more than it has made the government. It is very expensive to banks around the world. Many have found it easier to avoid US citizens. US citizens are being shunned in both the trading and banking world. Even though we can trade with a few brokers now in a few countries, the list is becoming smaller all the time. Cyprus used to allow US traders. I don't think there are any more brokers accepting US citizens now in Cyprus.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more trolling of FXCM? Like all US brokers, they were gaming their customers. The only difference between them and all the rest is that they lied and said they were not. LMAX is an interesting company with superior technology, to the benefit of the trader. Of course, I can't trade with them even though they have servers in New York. One interesting point about US brokers is that they combine customer funds and company funds, a practice shunned in more civilized parts of the world. If the company goes under, so does the customer funds. A shocking set of new laws actually promotes the legal idea of "bail ins". In 2008 it was all about the bailout. The next financial collapse, which I believe is coming soon, it we be a huge bail in. We have seen this already in Cyprus and Greece. Broke governments colluding with broke banks (both of which are horribly mismanaged) to steal money from the common man. The rich usually get their assets elsewhere prior to the bail ins.

The best solution to the problem of being an oppressed US trader is to leave. Vote with your feet!!!! One thing I love about the free market is that it is the ultimate democracy. Everyone votes with their trades. There are many countries around the world whose actions are much closer to their citizens wishes. The only way to survive the coming financial/war disaster is to be internationally mobile with both person and assets, and to diversify both. Many countries allow dual citizenship which might just be a really good idea soon. I cannot begin to tell how sad it makes me that the tax dollars I have paid have caused the destruction of Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, etc.

Unfortunately for me, most of my family is here, so I cannot physically leave. I do trade with offshore brokers. I do like high leverage, hedging and no FIFO. One interesting trend is two brokers I can think of who offer anonymous trading using Bitcoin. One nice thing is having your deposit currency rise exponentially Several offshore brokers are now allowing deposit in Bitcoin, which is awesome I think. I've been an advocate of Bitcoin since I was buying them for $50 It is a tool for libertarians to actually control their wealth. One of the first rights of liberty is control of your person. The second is control of your assets. Here in the US, we control neither.

Of course, none of my libertarian rant gets to the main subject of the post, which is what can we do about the ultra oppressive US government actions towards US traders. I don't think we can do anything, really. If becoming an expatriate is not an option, we are hosed. I have seen one option bandied about which is to establish an offshore corporation to trade with offshore brokers. I have never done this, but I have researched it. I don't think it is a practical option for a very small trader. First of all, it is expensive to start and to maintain. It is much extra work. It opens a quagmire of international law and finance, which is best left to professionals. Then, you still need one person who lives in another country (not the US!!!) and who is the primary trader/owner to upload their documents to the broker for Know Your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering laws. One option I have considered is giving money to a friend that lives offshore to open an account in their name, then use a trade signal/copier to trade that account with some type of agreement. I'm not sure of the legality of this arrangement or the prudence (best to check with an international finance lawyer.) If I had 10k for the lawyer, I would have already. I don't. There are technical problems also. One problem is latency, which negates the whole wish to get better latency from better brokers. One benefit is security of funds which could be negated by a flaky friend

For me, it is the best option to have money in offshore brokers using high leverage. At 500:1 leverage I only risk 200$ to buy a lot compared to $2000 with a US broker. The absolute risk of loss is the same with either leverage. You still risk/make 10$ a pip. That does not change!!! With the prevalence of black swans and laws favoring bail ins, money at any broker is at risk. Any broker. There is no true hedge; only varying degrees of risk. One solution to lousy spreads, especially in a fast moving market is to trade on higher time frames.

One mostly ignored factor for the US government oppression of CFD's and forex, is that the US government cannot control either. Ever notice how the NYSE has "technical" problems during a sell off? A centralized trading market is much easier to simply turn off. Futures and the stock markets are very centralized, and the individual governments control them. Forex and CFD's are sold on the open market. One problem with that is it is difficult to accurately track volume, although I think tick volume does a pretty good job. Proponents of volume in centralized markets conveniently ignore dark pools. HFT is just legalized theft, in my opinion. Oppressive governments always try to absolutely control the markets. It always fails. China recently imprisoned people for selling positions in a collapsing market. I have never understood how we can have a truly just and fair market when even the forex market shuts down during the weekend, the banks trade among themselves and ignore retail traders. We come back to losing positions over which we had no control. I do not leave positions on over the weekend. One excellent example of how controlled the markets really are by governments is illustrated perfectly by central bank ownership in the markets. They don't exactly advertise this, but a few minutes on Google can shed some light on the truly dark underbelly of the market. Central planning never works!!! There is nothing like freedom, democracy, the free market and an educated and responsible populace to both enjoy and protect these things. Most Americans are oblivious, much more concerned with shallow things like bread and circuses.

The entire structure of the market is basically against the common man. It is ruled by the rich, for the rich. It is their ball park, their rules, their game, their referees, they own both teams and the coaches. All we can do is try to play to win. BTW, all of this is not just an American problem. These same issues are worsening in most countries.

Why don't you like FIFO?

FIFO is BS in the Forex market. Traders should be allowed to sell what they want whenever they want.

No one prohibits to do that in Forex.