Well, the biggest thing that you have missed, in the time that you were away, is the CFTC crackdown on retail forex here in the U.S. Here are the new “rules” (as the CFTC likes to refer to them), as printed in the Federal Register —
If you can read three or more pages of that crap, without your eyes glazing over, then you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.
Here’s my (highly opinionated) version of what the CFTC has done:
[B]1.[/B] All U.S. forex “brokers” must re-register with the CFTC under a new designation: Retail Foreign Exchange Dealer (RFED). I put “brokers” in quotes, because the CFTC denies that they are brokers. The CFTC insists that they are “dealers”; that they ALL are market-makers; and that there is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST between every retail forex customer and his/her “dealer”.
The CFTC has neatly summarized all those particulars in a DISCLOSURE STATEMENT which all U.S. forex dealers are now required to furnish to their customers, and customers are required to sign before opening an account. You can read all the legalese in Section 5.5 of the .pdf (above).
[B]2.[/B] The maximum leverage which your U.S. dealer can offer to you is now 50:1 on most pairs (referred to as major pairs), and 20:1 on “exotic” pairs. There’s no way to get around this new limitation, if your account is with a U.S. forex dealer.
[B]3.[/B] The CFTC says that foreign forex dealers may not accept U.S. residents as customers. And here’s where the plot thickens — here’s where it gets good!
Many offshore forex brokers (“dealers”) are saying to the CFTC, ‘Who the hell do you think you are, telling us who we can deal with?’ And these brokers are continuing to open accounts for U.S. residents, offering at least 100:1 leverage, and in some cases up to 500:1 leverage.
(Many other offshore brokers don’t have the guts to face down the big, bad CFTC, and these brokers are refusing to deal with U.S. residents.)
Here on this forum, some of us have made it a project to identify and advertise those offshore brokers who WILL open new forex accounts for U.S. residents. You can read our results, to date, on this thread — 301 Moved Permanently That’s a link to the first post in that thread. Once you get on that thread, flip to the LAST page of the thread; our list of offshore brokers consists of three consecutive posts on the LAST page of the thread.
[B]4.[/B] There’s some good stuff in the new CFTC rules: crackdowns on various forms of fraud and abuse on the part of dealers, and requirements for greater transparency in certain areas.
Here is another thread you might want to catch up on — 301 Moved Permanently