I agree with poundtrader, I think it looks too much spaced out, it should be more compact for an easyer overlookso what exactly is an easyer overlook? by one glance, you should be able to see the intire picture. just my opinion though
{quote} Thanks for the feedback, RT
{quote} I am refering to the new one, I like the older one better to be honest
I had a VERY GOOD experience using FXCM as one of my brokers. At some point I considered making them my main broker. Now that said, lets be honest. A company which does not fire its CEO after such a big fiasco IMHO does not deserve my trust ( money). Drew Niv is a complete IDIOT.
What happened on January 15th after the SNB announcement? What was the immediate impact of the SNB announcement on the companys systems?
At the time of the SNB announcement over 3,000 FXCM clients held slightly over $1 billion in open positions on EUR/CHF. Those same clients held approximately $80 million of collateral in their accounts. As you know this was the largest move of a major currency since currencies started floating 1971.
The EUR/CHF move was 44 standard deviation moves, while most risk management systems only contemplate 3-6 standard deviations. The moved wiped out those clients account equity as well as generated negative equity balances owed to FXCM of over $225 million. We believe that the FXCM system operated properly during this event.
The caveat of our no dealing-desk execution system is that traders are offset one for one with a liquidity provider. When a client entered a EUR/CHF trade with FXCM, FXCM Inc. had an identical trade with our liquidity providers. During the historic move, liquidity became extremely scarce and shallow, which affected execution prices. This liquidity issue resulted in some clients having a negative balance.
While clients could not cover their margin call with us we still had to cover the same margin call with our banks. When a client profits in the trade FXCM gives the profits to the customer, however, when the client is not profitable on that trade FXCM Inc. ends up having to pay the liquidity provider.
FXCM ended with a regulatory capital shortfall. Accordingly, FXCM needed to get a loan to cover this balance, which it did. For anyone that still thinks FXCM is running an FX dealing desk, we have now demonstrated that such is not the case.
Why do you think many people traded EUR/CHF with FXCM?
Because we are a no dealing-desk broker and offset each trade one-for-one with our liquidity providers, and only make money on trades not customer losses. We published a study a few years ago called traits of successful traders that looked at FXCM traders over a long period of time and their general behavior to find what was destructive behavior to stay away from and what worked for clients.
The study focuses on what the majority of profitable traders did to increase their odds of success. What the study found was that traders who traded during quiet range-bound market hours like Asian hours OR that traded rang- bound low volatility currency pairs tended to be more profitable.
Obviously many of our competitors who are on the opposite side of their clients trades did not find this trade to be helpful to their bottom line, as they lose money when traders profit. We saw many of the dealing desk firms begin to increase overnight rollover cost as well as raise margin requirements to get these trades off their system and thats why FXCM and other STP brokers had much bigger exposure.
Why did FXCM require an emergency loan with such tough terms?
As a regulated broker we are required to notify our regulators in a timely manner when any event occurs that may be deemed sensitive to clients.
When we notified the regulators, they required FXCM Inc.s regulated entities to supplement their respective net capital on an expedited basis.
We explored multiple debt and equity financing alternatives in an effort to meet the regulators deadline. The deal we ended up doing with Leucadia was the only deal that could and would happen in the very short timeframe we were given by the regulators. The CEO and the president of Leucadia were here in the office working on the deal.
It was a tall order for someone outside of the FX industry to come in and write a $300 million dollar check. This was the type of thing only top management could do. But they see the sustainability of FXCM, and that was everyones end goal. We really are very thankful to Leucadia. The deal enables us to live and fight another day and gives us time to build shareholder value in the future.
"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."
Holiday Trading Hours for November Here's a link to the CFD holiday trading hours for November: http://bit.ly/1MF8d2l Forex trading hours remain unchanged. Note that there will be 4 days of rollover interest earned or paid on all currency trades open on Tuesday, November 24th at 5pm New York Time (22:00 GMT). You can view the complete holiday rollover interest schedule here: http://bit.ly/1OTyZK6
Logically if a broker is "genuinely" non dealing desk with all trades going to market, no matter what occurred in the market could affect the broker........unless they were running A and B books and got caught out......Or am I just being too simplistic and naive???
