Rollover/Interest Policy
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In the spot forex market, trades must be settled in two business days. If a trader sells 10,000 euros on Tuesday, the trader must deliver 10,000 euros on Thursday, unless the position is rolled over. As a service to our traders, FXCM automatically rolls over all open positions to the next settlement date at 5:00 PM New York time. Rollover involves exchanging the position being held for a position expiring the following settlement date. The positions being exchanged are usually not valued at the same price. The amount of the difference varies greatly based on the currency pair, the interest rate differential between the two currencies, and fluctuates day to day with the movement of prices. On any given day, the rollover is approximately $1 per lot.
Note: On Wednesdays, the amount added or subtracted to an account as a result of rolling over a position tends to be around three times the usual amount. This "3-Day" rollover accounts for settlement of trades through the weekend period.
Why does rollover take place? At 5:00 PM New York Time, funds are subtracted or added to accounts with` open positions because of the automatic rollover. For accounts that have a margin requirement of 2% or more, funds are added to the account for positions in which the client is long (holding) the currency bearing the higher interest rate. Funds are deducted in the opposite circumstance. For accounts that do not have a 2% margin requirement, the rollover amount is deducted from the account for each position regardless of the account's holdings. This 2% margin requirement is the most generous policy available to traders in the forex industry, as many firms require 3-5% minimum margin before traders can benefit from rollover.
