Personal EURCHF losses

[gerryg]

Exactly !

Why those highway robbing bucket shops don't all and collectively get banned is completely beyond me.

They could do it in Livermores day.

Why can't they today.

Well ok CFD providers - effectively the self-same as spreadbetters or other bookies - are outlawed in the US for obvious reasons.

Coz, the prices those outfits quote have absolutely nothing to do with what real markets are doing.

Quite honestly, anyone here sharp as a stick enough to actually believe bucket shops are quoting inventive prices for the customers benefit to help em make a buck they couldn't with real prices ???

Ok, here and there are bucketshops, where to your mind should I and other thousands of retail traders go with lean pocket to try FX trading?
Currenex or other institutional entity will never open their doors to the real market with some miserable couple of thousands of bucks..:|
Sad but true..
P.S. There are still A book in the retail Fx market. Burn your fingers once and twice and you'll unerringly determine them from the ugly mass

 

[donjovi]

I'm surprised at the number of comments against IG as I was with them for 4 years before switching to FXCM. I switched because I was offered a HFT trading course as part of opening the account. I have made more pricing queries with FXCM in 1 year than I did with 4 years of IG. The real problem here though is understanding margin. It sounds good when offered 300 or 400 to 1 leverage but if you don't treat it carefully, it can bite, I had 2 trades with the CHF, and found myself 2000 pips down. It hurt but didn't kill me. The point I want to make though, is about leverage. I fell foul of the JPY 18 months ago and, although not on the same level as the CHF, it taught me a lesson. However, take a look at Dukascopy, look at the action they took
' As it was previously published, on 12.10.2014 Dukascopy had decreased leverage on EURCHF positions to 1:10, in order to protect clients from trading gaps related to the abolishment of the 1.2000 floor. With the measure in place Dukascopy group safely sailed through the dramatic raise of Swiss franc. Today this currency '
So should brokers have done more? I think so judging by how many went out of business.
I don't know if any of you have approached things this way but, when all other avenues have been exhausted, it might be worth a punt.
Best of Luck

 

[donjovi]

igeurchfloss, I agree that if you make a bet and it goes wrong then you pay....except for how it goes wrong. One of my trade with FXCM was finally closed on the Sunday opening after the SNB action. I could not do anything with that trade. It came back 500 pips in my favour and I couldn't move the stop or close the trade. I called them personally and all they would say was that 'action is pending' which is what the charts came up with. In the end, it closed at an even worse price than when the markets re-opened. I have put in a request to review the trade an have not had a reply yet. FxPro is starting to look interesting!

 

[gle101]

Interesting thread, but it all comes down to understand the impact of highly leverage products, and what it can actually do to you being on the wrong side of the fence. In this sense, the violent Swiss currency move have been an eye opener for many of us. From this FX turmoil occurence one can actually see and understand it from the company perspective. They are offering these highly leverage products and are actually taking a substantial risk, which in fact can jeopordize the entire company if things goes really bad.

There has been a lot of discussion about the T&C, but did I ever read anyone mention about the MiFID Financial Directives, I do not think so.

 

[al2001]

It's all a Scam

The ones to blame for the huge losses are the liquidity providers as they stopped giving liquidity which is their job and brokers themselves for not taking extreme risk protection measures. The brokers knew if their clients were net short or long and where all their orders were (I wonder what would happen if the Swiss reserve bank let's go of the floor? Hmmm)

Look at what for example Dukascopy brokers did to margins on EURCHF last year - their risk management team assessed a real risk of floor release and increased margins greatly. They managed their own and their clients risk. They and many others reversed negatives and great brokers even honoured filled stops.

I believe that no negative protection needs to be a key essence in all Brokers. This ensures that the brokers themselves do not expose their clients to undue risk as with the Swiss bomb of 15 Jan 2015. As such brokers would either not allow trade on pegged /floored currencies or only allow trades against the floor or peg.

If you look at how profitable and huge these brokers are they should sue the liquidity providers or take this hit themselves and not shaft their clients. So what if the owners take a little less profit this year? They're already billionaires.

And let's not forget the massive conflicts of interest. How many liquidity providers own shares in brokers?

This is a huge scam to transfer wealth from fx retail traders to the big players who made a killing on the right side of the market and as all their liquidity providers are banks/ financial institutions which trade in fx themselves for profit they may have had a vested interest in making the Eur/chf crash.

This is the biggest scam of the century in terms of how some major players made a killing. And shafted ordinary people of their savings or entire fortune. Reeks of a setup for massive profits!

Interesting thread, but it all comes down to understand the impact of highly leverage products, and what it can actually do to you being on the wrong side of the fence. In this sense, the violent Swiss currency move have been an eye opener for many of us. From this FX turmoil occurence one can actually see and understand it from the company perspective. They are offering these highly leverage products and are actually taking a substantial risk, which in fact can jeopordize the entire company if things goes really bad.

There has been a lot of discussion about the T&C, but did I ever read anyone mention about the MiFID Financial Directives, I do not think so.

 

[al2001]

Cmc markets adjusted tradrs to 1.00684 on Eurchf. My stop was at 1.1995 and this was executed at 1.1898.

So a massive adjustment!

 

[igeurchfloss]

Interesting thread, but it all comes down to understand the impact of highly leverage products, and what it can actually do to you being on the wrong side of the fence. In this sense, the violent Swiss currency move have been an eye opener for many of us. From this FX turmoil occurence one can actually see and understand it from the company perspective. They are offering these highly leverage products and are actually taking a substantial risk, which in fact can jeopordize the entire company if things goes really bad.

There has been a lot of discussion about the T&C, but did I ever read anyone mention about the MiFID Financial Directives, I do not think so.

Hey there....do you think there has been a failure by spreadbetting firms on MiFID guidelines? If so, would be great if you can help some of us and point out where....of course we'll do a bit of research too but it will help us to have a starting point

Thnx

 

[gle101]

Hey there....do you think there has been a failure by spreadbetting firms on MiFID guidelines? If so, would be great if you can help some of us and point out where....of course we'll do a bit of research too but it will help us to have a starting point

Thnx

Transparency and best execution directives is the key question. Did they execute trades on the first available price in the underlaying asset? The violent move in the Swiss currency was a shock and many traders were caught off guard, as did some of the brokers and banks that were hit extremely hard.

Sorry I don't have any more substance to contribute, but if I were hit badly I would certainly look into the MiFID Financial Directives for guidance. There are quite strict rules on trades and collection of data that might cast a light on what really happened.

 

[gle101]

The ones to blame for the huge losses are the liquidity providers as they stopped giving liquidity which is their job and brokers themselves for not taking extreme risk protection measures. The brokers knew if their clients were net short or long and where all their orders were (I wonder what would happen if the Swiss reserve bank let's go of the floor? Hmmm)

Look at what for example Dukascopy brokers did to margins on EURCHF last year - their risk management team assessed a real risk of floor release and increased margins greatly. They managed their own and their clients risk. They and many others reversed negatives and great brokers even honoured filled stops.

I believe that no negative protection needs to be a key essence in all Brokers. This ensures that the brokers themselves do not expose their clients to undue risk as with the Swiss bomb of 15 Jan 2015. As such brokers would either not allow trade on pegged /floored currencies or only allow trades against the floor or peg.

If you look at how profitable and huge these brokers are they should sue the liquidity providers or take this hit themselves and not shaft their clients. So what if the owners take a little less profit this year? They're already billionaires.

And let's not forget the massive conflicts of interest. How many liquidity providers own shares in brokers?

This is a huge scam to transfer wealth from fx retail traders to the big players who made a killing on the right side of the market and as all their liquidity providers are banks/ financial institutions which trade in fx themselves for profit they may have had a vested interest in making the Eur/chf crash.

This is the biggest scam of the century in terms of how some major players made a killing. And shafted ordinary people of their savings or entire fortune. Reeks of a setup for massive profits!

Yes I understand your frustration, but we are dealing with highly leverage products and must take personal responsibility of the risk involved. Many banks were hit hard as well, and how to fully insure one against loss if this occurs again must be up to the brokers and traders, the brokers must be willing to offset the risk somehow, this other than the possibility of hedging all trades.

 

[whselfinvest]

Is there any WHS / WH Selfinvest client with negative balance due to EURCHF positions?
Some of us are coming together to combine our efforts.
you can write e-mail here:
[email protected]

 

[igeurchfloss]

Whoever hasn't already, we urge you to sign this petition.

You can all fight individually or as a group all day long, but without the FCA involvement it could take some time. Why not help your case and make the FCA aware.

Please sign this petition and post it where you think others will see it too.

https://www.change.org/p/tracey-mcd...twitter&utm_campaign=share_twitter_responsive

 

[igeurchfloss]

Dear All....whoever has been affected by the EURCHF rug pull....please take 30 seconds of your time to sign up to the petition above.

If you are not affected, please help those that were....pls sign petition.

 

[tokyojoe]

Hi igeurchloss, I did sign the petition, mainly because I do agree the leverage amount allowed is totally out of whack with most peoples income. To be able to place say £100 per point position just because you have deposited the appropriate margin requirement is a little crazy imho.

I guess one of the key elements for all who enter this game is to trade with much much less than they can afford to lose.

The sooner people realise this is not a get rich quick scheme by over leveraging the better.
I had a taste of overleveraging & was burnt quickly enough, with a high but very manageable loss amount to realise the SB company will empty your coffers in a heart beat, well actually it is not just the SB co's, the market will empty your hard earned cash.

Good luck with the petition, I think it is too obvious & callous of people to say the poor buggers in this situation are solely responsible, change is needed !

 

[igeurchfloss]

The problem is...people looking in from the outside just think we deserve it. Well.....we deserve some losses...but the extent of the losses incurred were extortionate and not purely down to the retail customer.

How can there be so much discrepancy between brokers on pricing? Why should clients suffer all the losses due to either bad systems, bad processes, or unreliable liquidity providers.

There is not one other thing in the regulated world that comes close to this. Unlimited losses!

I hope you can push the petition out to as many people. We all have to do our bit to get the FCA to investigate. I hope it can make a difference for us.....but if not, at least it will safeguard other people going forward.

 

[highbury fx]

The problem is...people looking in from the outside just think we deserve it. Well.....we deserve some losses...but the extent of the losses incurred were extortionate and not purely down to the retail customer.

How can there be so much discrepancy between brokers on pricing? Why should clients suffer all the losses due to either bad systems, bad processes, or unreliable liquidity providers.

There is not one other thing in the regulated world that comes close to this. Unlimited losses!

I hope you can push the petition out to as many people. We all have to do our bit to get the FCA to investigate. I hope it can make a difference for us.....but if not, at least it will safeguard other people going forward.

if it had gone up 3000 points instead of down you'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

or would you say that you haven't made the money fairly and give it back to the broker?

you cant have it both ways and i'm pretty certain you wouldn't have given it back if the opposite had happened.

if you have established the move was genuine why would someone else take your loss? no one forced you to use the SNB policy as your free guaranteed stop and trade using too much leverage.

 

[Splitlink]

Unfortunately what you say is true. I know that I wish that I had been long!

But that does not make those who were caught out feel any better. Personally, I should have liked to be watching things from the dealers side, but such was not to be. I am sure that "panic" is not the right word to describe that!

 

[Splitlink]

BTW, the Aussi $ has gone down around 80 points over the past hour. No complaints, anyone?

Forex. is a dangerous game for the unwary.

 

[igeurchfloss]

There are many posts around where people managed to sell immediately after announcement by SNB. The brokers subsequently cancelled those trades.

This is not new and has been happening for a whole but with smaller moves.

Surely if you don't agree what the big losers in EURCHF are saying, why say anything? A lot of those with huge negative balances are effectively wiped out. Not just their account.....but their entire wealth.....family home, savings.

It's just not nice to kick people when they are down.

if it had gone up 3000 points instead of down you'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

or would you say that you haven't made the money fairly and give it back to the broker?

you cant have it both ways and i'm pretty certain you wouldn't have given it back if the opposite had happened.

if you have established the move was genuine why would someone else take your loss? no one forced you to use the SNB policy as your free guaranteed stop and trade using too much leverage.

 

[highbury fx]

There are many posts around where people managed to sell immediately after announcement by SNB. The brokers subsequently cancelled those trades.

This is not new and has been happening for a whole but with smaller moves.

Surely if you don't agree what the big losers in EURCHF are saying, why say anything? A lot of those with huge negative balances are effectively wiped out. Not just their account.....but their entire wealth.....family home, savings.

It's just not nice to kick people when they are down.

i'm not kicking anyone. you post on a public forum so take the good with the bad.

just because i'm not fawning all over you it doesn't mean I don't sympathise with you but that's not my point.

my point is no one forced you to trade but you did and if you had made 3000 points by having the reverse position you wouldn't be moaning about how unfair it all is, you'd be dancing a jig to the bank and telling people how clever you are.

you bet on FX, its risky and you got caught the wrong way and took a pasting. its very sad and very unlucky but that's the business you dipped your toes in to. its no one elses fault and that isn't kicking someone when they're down its just speaking the truth.

My biggest dilemma with this industry is sometimes peoples lives are changed for the worst and that effects me. its why I always try and do things properly so I know in my own heart that I haven't had a role to play in someones downfall. you're all adults, you know the risks and i'm very sorry to hear that on this occasion you've had a life changing moment but posting on here looking for support is also going to draw other comments from people that know what happened and understand that when spreadbet firms say quite clearly 'You may lose more than your initial deposit' it is true. they aren't just words, it is a red flag that should say to you "you could lose the lot"

I hope you get your life back on track and your family is ok, I really mean that. I hope IG look at you sympathetically and you reach a fair compromise. I also hope you walk away from risky investments and do things in future that are more suitable for your net worth and your risk appetite because clearly FX is the last thing you need to be doing.

 

[igeurchfloss]

@highburyFx - Point taken sir. We all knew the risks and the pitfalls. What we were not prepared for was the performance of our provider - IG Index in this case.

The issues are not that we lost, but how much we lost and why. The pertinent issues still remain unresolved

- Why did IG close out €100mn of client positions at the higher prices (>1.19) and leave €115mn of client orders to trade as an aggregate (using USDCHF) at 0.9250

- Why did IG take over ten minutes (for aggregating orders manually) to get their first phone order to the market?

- Why did IG still allow people to sell on the platform while they were aggregating trades in order to sell a block?

- We know they sold €115mn at 0.9250 (a derived price from USDCHF, USDEUR), but at what price did they sell the other €100mn and when?

I hope you see it's not as clear cut as the market moved lower and we lost.....there is a question of best execution and reliability of the broker's risk management (aggregation time), agreements with liquidity providers, and inconsistencies between client fills. How can one justify a stop of 1.20 not being closed until 0.9250 vs a stop of 1.19x being closed at 1.19x?

We are upset partly due to our poor risk management, but more specifically due to how we have been treated by a FTSE listed and FCA regulated broker.