The European Union has published new regulations applying to retail Forex, CFD, and the few remaining binary options brokerages in its territory. If you have an account with one such brokerage, the regulations will affect you when they come into force during the late spring and summer. This article will outline how the new regulations will impact your bottom line.
Details of the New ESMA Regulations
In March 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the financial regulator and supervisor of the European Union, announced new regulations concerning the provision of contracts for differences (CFDs) and binary options to retail investors. It is unclear exactly when the regulations will come into force, but some time in May or June 2018 looks to be the most likely date, and Forex and CFD brokerages located within the European Union (including the United Kingdom, for the time being) will be forced to comply. The regulations will need to be renewed by ESMA every three months to remain in force over the long term.
The regulation concerning binary options is very simple: they may not be sold. In simple terms, this is the end of binary options as a product sold from within the European Union.
The regulations concerning CFDs are more complex but still relatively straightforward. Firstly, there is some confusion as to what exactly is a CFD, with many traders thinking that spot Forex is not considered a CFD and will therefore be exempt from the new regulations. They are wrong: spot Forex is technically defined as a CFD. In fact, every asset you see available for trading at Forex / CFD brokers will most likely be subject to the new regulations.
The new regulations will implement the following changes for retail client accounts (more on who is a retail client; later).
-
The maximum leverage which can be offered will be 30 to 1. That will apply to major currency pairs such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, etc.
-
Other currency pairs, major equity indices, and gold will be subject to a maximum leverage of 20 to 1.
-
Individual equities cannot be offered with leverage greater than 5 to 1.
-
Cryptocurrencies are subject to a maximum leverage of 2 to 1.
-
Brokers will be required to provide negative balance protection, meaning it will be impossible to lose more money than you deposit.
-
Brokers will be required to close a clients open positions when the account equity reaches 50% of the required minimum margin by all open positions. This ;margin call; provision can be tricky to understand, so will be explained in more detail later.
-
Bonuses or any other form of trading incentives may not be offered.
-
Brokers will be required to display a standardized risk warning which will include the percentage of their clients who lose money over a defined period.
Understanding the ;Margin Call; Regulation
The best way to understand the 50% margin call provision is to use an example. Imagine a client opens an account with a Forex broker, depositing ;100 in total. The client opens a short trade in EUR/USD, by going short one mini-lot (one tenth of a full lot). One full lot of EUR/USD is worth ;10,000, meaning one mini-lot is worth ;1,000. To find out the minimum margin required to support that trade, we divide the size of the trade (;1,000) by 30, which comes to ;33.33. This is the minimum required margin to maintain the trade. Half of that amount is ;16.67. Now assume the trade goes against the client, with the price of EUR/USD rising above the entry price. As soon as the price rises far enough to produce a floating loss of ;83.33 (;100 - ;16.67), the broker must close the trade out, even if the trade has no stop loss or has not yet reached the stop loss. In theory, this means that a client;s account can never reach zero. Examples involving multiple open trades will be more complex, but will operate according to the same principles.
What Will This Mean for Traders?
The regulations will only apply to ;retail clients;, so you might try to apply to be classed as a professional trader. To get a broker to classify you as anything other than a retail client, you will have to show you have financial qualifications, a large amount of liquid assets, plenty of experience trading, and usually that you also trade frequently. Most traders will be unable to qualify, although it is worth noting that one London-based brokerage, IG Group, has stated that their proportion of clients now classified as recently increased from 5% to 15% of their total customers.
The major impact these regulations will have on traders is simple ndash; the maximum trade size they can possibly make at brokers regulated in the European Union will shrink. Many will say that the maximum leverage limits still offer far more than any trader could need, and I agree. I am wary of leverage and I hate to see anyone using leverage greater than 3 to 1 for Forex under any conditions, or any leverage at all for stocks and cryptocurrencies. Commodities can also fluctuate wildly in value. Too many people forget that the biggest danger in leverage is not overly large position sizing, it is that a ldquo;black swan rdquo; event such as the CHF flash crash of 2015 could happen and wipe out your account through huge price slippage. However, there is another factor that is widely forgotten: why assume that a trader rsquo;s account at one Forex broker is all the money they have in the world? For example, a trader might have $10,000 in the bank. If they deposit $1,000 at a broker offering maximum leverage of 300 to 1, they can trade up to $300,000. At a leverage limit of 30 to 1, that trader will have to deposit their entire $10,000 fund to trade at the same size. In a real sense, that trader might now have to take on more risk to operate in the same way, because if the broker goes bust, while beforehand they might lose $1,000 now they could lose $10,000! Even without negative balance protection, that broker would still have to come after them to try to get an extra $9,000 which they theoretically risk. Yet we saw after the CHF crash that brokers don rsquo;t come after every single client whose losses exceeded their deposit, due to legal costs and reputational issues. This shows that although the stated purpose of the regulation is to protect traders from excessive losses, the story is not as simple as you may think.
Beyond having to deposit more margin, and automatic margin calls, the other major change for traders will be that they will enjoy negative balance protection. This is a positive development which hopefully will make brokerages focus more heavily on the risks they are taking with their business model in the market. At the same time, a possible side effect of the new regulation is the potential increase in average deposits, leading to brokerages being more stable and better capitalized with client funds. Two final notes: brokerages will have to report on their websites the percentages of clients who are losing and making money, although the period over which the statistics must refer to is currently not clear. This will help to shed light on the debate over what percentage of retail traders are profitable, although some brokerages have already released what they claim to be accurate statistics showing that clients with larger account sizes tend to perform better as traders. Additionally, bonuses and promotions will be banned. I welcome this, as not only do they trivialize the serious business of trading, they are almost always a trick offering the illusion of free money whilst preventing traders from withdrawing any profits until a large number of trades are made (read the fine print the next time you squo;).
What If Yoursquo;re Not Happy Remaining in the EU?
Traders with accounts at affected brokers who cannot obtain professional status classification and feel they really need higher leverage than the ESMA limits outlined above might look for a solution by opening accounts with brokers outside the European Union. The most obvious destination would be Australia or New Zealand, where it will still be possible to find reasonably well-regulated Forex brokerages offering leverage in the range of 400 to 1. A recent development that is not talked about much is the growing difficulty of transferring funds to and from Forex brokerages in less tightly regulated jurisdictions. You might decide to open an account with a brokerage in Vanuatu, but you may find that a bank within the European Union might just refuse to send your money there for a deposit. This means that going far offshore, depending upon where you live, may not be a feasible option. In any case, the new regule impossible to live with, and overall there is a compelling case that they are a net benefit to any trader, so why migrate?
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
True Leverage | Trading Forex
The related subjects of leverage, margin and position sizing are not only widely misunderstood, they are also usually the key reasons why traders “blow up” their trading accounts. That’s why it is very important to make sure you understand the basics, which can be explained quickly and simply.
What is Leverage in Forex?
Leverage is your total maximum possible borrowing ratio.
Let’s say that a trader deposits $100 with a Forex broker who allows a maximum leverage of 100 to 1 (this would usually be written as 100:1).
This means that the broker will allow the trader to control maximum funds totaling 100 times his deposit of $100, i.e. $10,000.
Many people trading Forex don’t even understand there is a nominal value to the trades they make. For example, 1 lot of USD/JPY is worth $100,000. Your broker offering maximum leverage of 100 to 1 will not let you buy or sell 1 full lot of USD/JPY unless you have at least 1% of that nominal value deposited in your trading account (1% of $100,000), which is $1,000.
Depending upon market conditions, brokers may require even more than the advertised maximum leverage, which is just the furthest they are ever willing to go under the best circumstances. If conditions are very volatile, brokers typically lower the effective maximum leverage available.
Going back to our example of the trader depositing $100 with a Forex broker giving a maximum leverage of 100:1, that trader could buy or sell at most 0.1 lots of USD/JPY. This is because $100 X 100 = $10,000 and that is worth one tenth of a lot of USD/JPY.
What is Margin in Forex?
Margin is the minimum cash deposit required by the broker to cover any open trades. It is sometimes expressed as a percentage.
Using our previous example, a trader who wishes to buy or sell 0.1 lots of USD/JPY with a Forex broker offering a maximum leverage of 100:1 must deposit at least $100 as “margin” to cover that trade. Margin can be calculated as follows: Trade Value divided by leverage. Here, that is $10,000 divided by 100, equaling $100. Expressed as a percentage, the broker requires a margin deposit of 1%.
What is Position Size in Forex?
“Position size” is the quantity of what is being traded. Every currency pair is quantified by a standardized amount known as a “lot”. The value of a lot fluctuates between currency pairs. For example, as already mentioned, 1 lot of USD/JPY is always worth $100,000 while 1 lot of EUR/USD is always worth €100,000. Note that this means that unless EUR/USD is trading at 1.0000, the real values of 1 lot of USD/JPY and 1 lot of EUR/USD are going to be at least a little different. All lots are not equal!
Most brokers’ platforms express position sizes in terms of lots. Some display other measurements such as nominal value or their own unitary system. It is important to understand how your broker is quantifying position sizes. Traders tend to think in terms of how much cash and how many pips they wish to risk on a trade, making a quick mental calculation of value per pip, and then translating that into lot size. It is a good idea to use a position size calculator, as the cash value per pip fluctuates with market movements.
What is “True Leverage”?
A trader might open an account with a broker offering maximum leverage of 100:1. If you ask the trader how much leverage he or she has, they may reply, 100 to 1. This is true in a sense, but it is not their “true leverage”, which can fluctuate from moment to moment. True leverage is how leveraged you are from your trades open in the market at any given time.
As an example, let us imagine a trader opening an account and depositing $10,000. His broker offers him maximum leverage of 100 to 1. He opens a position (a trade) in EUR/USD with a nominal value of $10,000. How leveraged is he? Not leveraged at all! He has no true leverage, because his total exposure to the market is not more than his cash deposit. Even if his trade were to fall to a value of zero, he could not possibly lose more than he deposited.
True leverage is calculated as the total nominal value of all open trades divided by account equity (i.e. how much in cash the account would be worth if all open positions were closed).
Going back to our example, let’s imagine our trader opens another position with a nominal value of $10,000. He is now leveraged at 2 to 1 (we can ignore the small difference that might occur due to the first trade being in floating profit or loss), because he has two open positions, each worth $10,000.
Risk of Margin Call
A “margin call” is when your broker tells you that you do not have sufficient funds in your account to cover all your liabilities. The expression dates from the days before the internet, when trades were made over the telephone. If your margin was not enough to cover your losing trades, your broker would call and require that you either deposited more margin, or gave up on your account and accepted it as empty.
The same thing happens today, instantly and electronically, without the call.
You can use your true leverage to understand your risk of having your account wiped out, or subject to catastrophic losses from which recovery is usually extremely difficult or even impossible.
For example, if your true leverage is 2 to 1, then an adverse total price movement over all your open trades of 50% will wipe out your account.
Here is a table showing maximum adverse movement until wipe out for various amounts of true leverage:
Consider also the following table, showing how much percentage gain is required to recover from various losses to a trading account:
While these numbers might look frightening, you might think that your stop loss orders will protect you from a catastrophic loss.
This is not necessarily correct. Most of the time stop loss orders are triggered with no slippage or with a very small amount of slippage. However, consider that during the Swiss Franc uncoupling of January 2015, most traders who had a true leverage against the Swiss Franc of more than 3 to 1 were completely wiped out, as most Forex brokers ended up quoting enormous price fluctuations without allowing any traders to exit for about an hour or so after the surprise announcement.
The interplay of risk and leverage is a complicated and controversial subject and I will turn to that in the second part of this article, to follow soon.
Source
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