That is the silver lining for me I guess. I was short EUR/AUD, EUR/CAD, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, and EUR/USD going in to today.
Today’s move in the GBP/CHF was bigger than the price range for all of 2012, 2013, and 2014.
It was crazy today. I was short on AUDUSD which had “only” 65 pips spike ,trailing stop locked in +25 pips. I got email from broker 3h ago:
[I]
Please note that with immediate effect the below currency pairs are on close only until further notice:
EURCHF, AUDCHF, CHFJPY, CADCHF, GBPCHF, USDCHF and NZDCHF.
[/I]
Wow, CHF hits fresh highs late in session.
The interesting thing to me is that on January 5th and January 13th the Vice President and the President of the SNB reiterated that they will not remove the 1.2000 floor against the EURCHF and that it will remain a pillar of their monetary policy. Talking about misleading the markets as two days after the last reinsurance that they will keep it in place they decided to remove it. The moves in the CHF made 2008 look like a little, unimportant event.
Yeah. The markets are not manipulated… …accept by the government bureaus which “keep things fair”.
I had long positions in EUR/CHF but my stop losses held. I got stopped out at 1.1980. For those who had the misfortune of having the price gaping over your stops, may I ask where your stops were placed? I’m worried that my broker may re-quote or amend my trades, even though they have officially stated that they won’t. Therefore I’m trying to figure out if my stop losses were put in a place where others experienced gaps, or if they were perhaps above were the price started gaping. Feedback very much appreciated since this very much worries me.
Yes I did pretty good out of it with being short eur/chf but my broker has only honoured 10% of what I made, has anybody else had this happen to them?
I use FXchoice and i had several accounts that had sold the CHF as many others had. I had usdchf and eurchf. As well as CHFJPY. All my trades got stopped out at the appropriate levels, there was some slippage but nothing major. I Guess i weathered the storm and so did FXChoice.
Just curious what do you guys think he should have done instead?
If he had made even the slightest hint that they were looking to unpeg the currency the flood gates would open and everyone and their mother would have been piling on the trade.
When you say they only honoured 10% what do you mean exactly? they are only credited your equity with 10% of the trade, they will only let you withdraw 10% or they screwed you on your exit level?
The price floor could have been avoided in the first place. But given that it was put in place, a pre-announced change from 1.20 to incremental levels approaching a free-float over time could have prevented a 2000 pip move in less than an hour and its accompanying bankruptcies.
I agree they shouldn’t have done it in the first place but not much point discussing that at this point in time 
Say they came out and announced they would move the peg to 1.10 instead you would then instantly see people shorting the CHF in anticipation of a further decrease which would mean the SNB would have to dramatically increase their purchases to keep the new level. Everyone would be going short speculating on further decreases and in the end the SNB would either give away for to the pressure or be forced to spend HUGE amounts of money to defend the level which would ultimately have led to colossal losses for them.
They chose their own balance sheet over people speculating in the CHF which I guess is understandable as their job is to do what is best for Switzerland and not for you and me lol
Whether this was good for Switzerland is in debate: "Nick Hayek, the chief executive of the Swatch watch group – which owns brands such as Omega, Longines, Tissot and Calvin Klein watches and jewellery – said: “Words fail me …today’s SNB action is a tsunami; for the export industry and for tourism, and finally for the entire country.”
Swiss bank’s currency U-turn hurts watchmakers, skiers and traders | Business | The Guardian
Swiss equities did not respond well to this news.
I would never expect a central bank to do what is best for the society in which it operates.
Businesses would at least have a chance to respond within the liquidity of an incremental transition.
I was saying it would have been bad for the SNB balance sheet which ultimately would be bad for Switzerland.
I completely agree the move itself is bad for their exports but no matter how the central bank would have handled the situation a fast move or a slow move the situation would be the same in the end for the exporters as there was no way the SNB would be able to keep the 1.2 peg to the EUR with the ECB commencing QE.
Those businesses may have suffered instant losses that could have been avoided with a structured incremental change. Suppose these exporters held euro denominated receivables on the day of the announcement. Ouch. One of the U.S. businesses I do accounting for has opted to go back to single currency accounting because of losses incurred by their euro denominated receivables this last year. A Swiss business holding euro denominated recievables for products with 40% margins would have seen a 33% loss of the profits for those invoices last week. And a swiss supplier running margins under 16% on open receivables denominated in euros would have actually incurred business losses.
The long term effect on exports would be negative, but at least the businesses would have time to restructure.
They Credited me the 100% of the trade at the time but the next day (i’m in NZ so it happened my night time) took out 90% and only gave me 10%, I went from over the moon to gutted.
Mine went the other way around on CAD/CHF. I finally had to cut the loss yesterday and ended up losing about close to $300USD altogether. 
Lost all my profits that I gain a few weeks prior plus my asset. I am down but not out. Hopefully I’ll regain my losses back. It will be tough though.
What a bummer, you have my sympathy. Still, I suppose we can look at the long game and get back on track
Thanks. It is a bummer, wished it went the other way thou. It would have been nice to catch the ride like you did.
Definitely, I am already starting to gain a little momentum back to the positive side. Slowly but surely. But it will be a while to get back where I was at.