FxPro Blog

Dear members,

In this thread I would like to share with you the views and takes on the FX industry from our Founder, Mr. Denis Sukhotin, and our CEO, Charalambos Psimolophitis.

To begin with, below is the take on Negative Balance Protection from our Founder and Chairman, Mr. Denis Sukhotin:

[B]Why Negative Balance Protection is so Important[/B]

The recent CHF debacle has been quite instructive for a number of reasons. We all agree that low volatility is a bad thing in retail forex, but too much of it can be catastrophic. However, it’s precisely when the markets stray from that comfortable middle ground that we get a unique insight as to who’s who in this industry. The confusing acronyms and contradictory marketing copy fall away and we see brokers through their actions. This is exactly what happened in January when the SNB removed its 1.20 floor.

Many market-making brokers not only appear to have been unaffected by the unprecedented EUR/CHF move, but also seem to have done quite nicely out of it by passing on huge amounts of negative slippage to their clients, proving once and for all that their interests are diametrically opposed to those of their clients.
But aside from this we also learned that it’s not as clear-cut as market makers vs agency brokers. The hot topic since January 15 has been that of negative balance protection, or lack thereof. So, not only do we have a subset of brokers who remain completely insulated from the market by keeping their clients’ orders on their own books and profiting from their losses, we also have agency brokers pursuing their clients for negative balances when the market stress-tests their business model. The result? Thanks to the actions of a number of brokers the entire industry comes out of this black swan event looking bad.

At FxPro negative balance protection has [B]never[/B] been something that you just put on your website in order to reassure newcomers. For us it’s a guarantee that you as a broker are sufficiently well capitalised and have all the relevant risk management protocols in place to weather any storm. It’s a watermark of professionalism and credibility that must be honoured, no-matter how steep the cost.

When the news of certain brokers’ insolvencies was followed by announcements that several had already begun pursuing their clients for negative balances, the scene became reminiscent of the ‘too big to fail’ banks during the 2008 crisis, that bankrupted themselves and then demanded for taxpayers to bail them out. It’s hilarious how we love the free market while we’re benefitting from it, but want a safety net when it turns around and bites us.

It’s absolutely outrageous for brokers that profited from the trading of their clients for so many years, to now resort to hounding them for these negative balances. When your clients routinely blow up their accounts are you expected to refund them? Why, then, are you now attempting to have them cover what are essentially your own losses? If their margin calls are their own responsibility then, surely, you too are responsible for yours.
This ridiculous idea of private profits and public losses is perhaps one of the most venal aspects of our current economic system and it breeds a sense of contempt in the general public, who are usually left to foot the bill. We as an industry could have come out of this event united and honourable, rather than some of us trying to climb back up on the backs of our clients.

The fact remains that if you are offering highly leveraged products that can amplify losses as readily as they do gains, you ought to build some protections in, so that if the market moves against your clients they don’t end up losing more than they initially invested, even if you’re not strictly obliged to. It’s a complete no-brainer. By reneging on that commitment, or not offering it in the first place, not only do you lose the confidence of traders, but you also give the industry a bad name.

We as FxPro have made our position clear. Our negative balance protection policy stands. We will continue to ensure that clients do not have to contend with losses that exceed their invested capital.

You see, this is more than just an issue of differing company policies. It’s an essential aspect of the services we offer. When you remove that safeguard or throw it into question you fundamentally alter the relationship that we as brokers have with our clients. We are not debt collectors. The onus is on us to ensure that we can offer trading facilities in a variety of market conditions, without going after our clients when it’s us that has to take a loss. If we are unable to do so, then there is obviously a deeper problem at work, and perhaps some of us should consider switching to a different industry.

So true, I find it admirable that you at FXPRO protect you clients balances in such a way, it must give your traders a sense of relief especially after black thursday that the worst that can happen is they lose all of their deposit. Alpari uk was one of the brokers that were affected by the SNB removing the euro peg and clients who have a negative balance have been instructed to pay it back but this was an event that was almost completely unforeseeable whereas the spreads us traders have to pay to the brokers to conduct business is something that is seeable. The spreads at alpari uk were great, they were half as much as what you at FXPRO charge. I have not found a broker that as a fair spread like Alpari uk had, myself as a quick trade scalper I rely on a low spread to make money, How about lowering your spread?

Dear Mrquickbuy,

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for your question. We actually have reduced our spreads, and now they are one of the best in the market. So for the EURUSD on the MT4 you are looking at 1,4 - 1,5 pips on average. Or, we also offer fixed spreads at 1,6 during the day time and 1,9 during the night as well.

Otherwise, we offer raw spreads from 0 plus reduced commission of $45 per million dollars traded on the cTrader.

Shall you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,

FxPro Team

Dear Members,

I would like to share with you the interview of our CEO, Mr. Charalambos Psimolophitis, given to ForexMagnates, discussing the events and the aftermath of the Black Swan event.

[B]Could you provide a timeline of how the Swiss franc price action unfolded on what the industry now calls Black Thursday?[/B]

It all happened so quickly that I don’t think it would be a very long timeline at all. At 11:30 on January 15th, the SNB removed its 1.20 floor on EUR/CHF. Around 47 seconds later the pair dipped below 1.20 and was trading just above 1.17. Ten seconds after that it tumbled harder and faster than any major pair in the history of FX. Due to the fact that most positions in the market were long, the artificial floor having represented an easy money trade for so long, a lot of people got burned when it moved the other way.

[B]Where did client stop losses get executed?[/B]

As an agency broker all of our flow necessarily went to the banks. All of our clients’ stops were triggered and executed but due to the illiquidity the banks were experiencing they found it increasingly difficult to handle this flow. Our clients’ orders were all executed from 1.19 down to 1. Despite the exceptionally difficult market conditions we managed to get our trades covered at an average price of 1.11. All this at a time when many other brokers were filling their clients at prices below 1.

[B]What caused the big loss at FxPro, what could have been done better?[/B]

Our losses were of course entirely down to us being an agency broker. As to what could be done to avoid such events in the future; the big discussion in the wake of Black Thursday has centred on leverage, quite erroneously in my opinion. I personally don’t see this as a situation that could’ve been managed any better with lower gearing. For example, even with a book composed solely of 1:100 orders, with 100,000,000 exposure (i.e. 1,000,000 margin) a 30% move would’ve caused a loss of 29,000,000. With 1:50 leverage the loss would’ve just been 28,000,000 rather than 29. The only thing that could’ve really been done differently is to force clients to close their positions, which is completely against FxPro’s philosophy of non-intervention. In future, if forced to choose between interfering in clients’ trades and hybridising the order book (taking on some of the flow internally) I’d say that we would be more inclined to opt for the second option.

[B]Looking at the book of the EURCHF on the positioning graph on FxPro’s website, there has been an overwhelmingly one-sided exposure. Do you think that using out of the money options could protect brokers from massive losses at a reasonable price?[/B]

Of course hindsight is always 20/20, isn’t it? I don’t believe it’s possible to ever be completely protected from such unforeseen events. I don’t see how out of the money options would have been of much use without having a rough time window on when the SNB was planning to remove the floor. Those in the know could certainly have placed some ludicrously profitable Puts. For us it would have been a lucky bet, and we’re not in the business of bets, lucky or otherwise. We were hedged to a point, but as I say, there are no foolproof solutions when it comes to eliminating risk.

[B]What could be the long term implications of the Swiss franc debacle on the industry as a whole?[/B]

One of the implications may be that regulators start placing an undue amount of attention on leverage as a way of protecting clients. In my view this would be a mistake as it runs counter to the demands that traders themselves have made on the industry. They vote with their trading account balances and what they seem to be choosing is regulated brokers who offer high leverage but also protect them from negative balances. I can’t stress enough that leverage was not the real issue here; even with 1:30 leverage the loss in the previous example would’ve been 27,000,000 rather than 29. Not to mention the fact that even though we do offer high leverage ratios to our clients, this in no way means that the majority of EUR/CHF positions were utilizing maximum leverage, they simply were not.

One thing I would personally like to see is for regulators to start looking a little closer at the way market makers execute orders, especially during such volatile conditions. According to our calculations there was more than enough time for them to fill their clients’ stops at or around 1.18, which means that a significant amount of unnecessary negative slippage was passed on. If the move had gone the other way would they have passed on the positive slippage? Or would they have just filled orders at the declared price? I think we all know the answer to that question.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the events of January 15 have shown us that 100% agency model brokers are exceptionally vulnerable in certain market conditions. The move to agency execution was predominantly an attempt create unimpeachable business models where solidarity with the end client is a given. On Black Thursday the market exacted a huge toll for this luxury. As a result I think some sort of hybrid arrangement, where we can continue to guarantee no conflicts of interest while also mitigating the impact of such outlier events, is ideal.

[B]Is the decentralized way in which the FX market is structured the right way, or do we need a centralized approach? Why?[/B]

If you’re talking about taking FX exclusively on-exchange, I think the notion of a centralized global market is a huge contradiction in terms. It would be impossible for FX as it currently functions to be completely centralized. If anything the overarching trend is for increasing decentralization, rather than the other way around. Decentralized systems have repeatedly proven themselves to be more efficient and transparent, as well as anti-fragile. In contrast, overly-centralized systems tend to be opaque, inefficient, and highly vulnerable to attack.
Do you think that client funds reporting mechanisms with the FCA are adequate?
I do think they are adequate, but it’s important to stress that company culture is probably the most important factor here. In this respect I think the regulators often find themselves in an uphill struggle with certain companies that are unwilling or unable to change. At FxPro we have strict rules and procedures, for us transparency has always been paramount, so we try to go over and above our regulatory requirements to ensure that clients know they are dealing with a broker they can trust.

[B]How do you feel the industry should tackle any incoming regulatory backlash?[/B]

FxPro has always held that the only way forward for the industry is increased transparency, fair trading practices, adequate capitalization, negative balance protection and complete segregation of client funds. With these things in place and the appropriate company culture to support them, we feel regulatory backlashes wouldn’t have to occur in the first place.

[B]What losses did FxPro sustain from the event?[/B]

I’ve seen wildly differing reports in the media. I’d like to take this opportunity to state that none have been accurate. The most important thing is that our operations have not been affected in the slightest. We are sufficiently well capitalized to be able to weather such storms and our clients can still enjoy the most professional conditions in the industry. In addition, we have honored our commitment to negative balance protection, fulfilled all of our regulatory requirements, both with CySEC and the FCA, and have rapidly moved to consolidate our position in the market.

[B]Have you changed your risk management policies in the aftermath of the event? How?[/B]

A company should never take on more risk than it can afford to. This, of course, hasn’t changed, if anything the recent CHF debacle has demonstrated that many brokers were not sufficiently well capitalized and many will now have to rethink if they can compete at this level. At FxPro we have made several changes in the way we monitor currencies, particularly those that are either pegged to EUR or USD.

[B]There is an ongoing debate about prime brokers using pre-trade risk management checks instead of post-trade in order to avoid a repeating of the debacle which caused so many industry wide losses. Do you think that would solve the bulk of the issues?[/B]

I think that just as risk management will change in the retail space, it will also change among the prime brokers. Having said that I feel that the only thing we are likely to see is increased margin requirements until a sense of risk-tolerance returns. It’s unlikely that we will see abnormal requirements continue for very long after the underlying market conditions have returned to normal. This is another reason why I think hybrid models will come further into play. In the current climate they make as much sense from a competitive standpoint as they do from one purely concerned with risk management.

Hi, I have a bit if an issue with you as one if my short trades was closed before it hit my stop loss.
And guess what happened, it then fell down below my TP level within 15 minutes.
It wasnt a huge trade but I am very angry about it and would like an explanation and reimbursement

They wont reimburse you, they will say its part of the general trading conditions unfortunately.

Thats their choice, same as I can choose to close my account

Had same issue with IG a couple of times eddieb. Wonder if there are any brokers out there that don’t stop hunt.

I say that because I had a live-chat with them and asked about a pending order being opened before it actually strikes the price you want. They said They wouldnt reimburse anyone because its part of the general trading conditions, I would definitely try and get a refund tho im not saying dont try.

Dear Eddieb,

If you could please let me know more details on the trade on my PM, I will check it for you with the dealing.

Kind regards,

FxPro Team

Hi,
Just pm’d you but im having problems with babypips at the moment so can you let me know if you’ve got it ok

Hi, there is a problem with the PM indeed, so I sent the reply to your email.

Kind regards,

FxPro Team

Keep us updated eddieb, if your trade was closed by a technical fault I think all reasonable adults would determine that you deserve a full refund.

I just wanted to say hello to everyone. I’m adding ForexPro to my brokers to do business with. They have active threads in at least 2 forums that I visit. If someone has a problem the company seems to get right back to the traders. So far so good. I will start trading in my demo account tonight and see where it goes
Gp

Dear Gp00053,

Thank you very much for your kind comment, and shall you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us either through this forum, and our support directly!

Kind regards,

FxPro Team

How is your demoing with fxpro going? Any problems?

Hot so far. What is the commission charge for ECN accounts?

in the uk its £6.60 a lot. not sure about america. whether $6.60 or $9.75 i dont know.

Thank you it’s competitive with other ECN accounts I’ve looked at
Gp

Dear Mrquickbuy and Gp00053,

The commission for the cTrader is a fixed 45 US$ per 1 million USD traded.

Kind regards,

FxPro Team