Swiss currency shock

Hi. I see FXCM lost some $225m today because of the Swiss currency shock. What really happened? How can we avoid this in the future? Does it mean traders didn’t have good money management in terms of stop losses?

What they should have is client segregated funds meaning your deposits should have nothing to do with their trading pnl. It also means that those funds are protected against the trade business’s liabilities. I don’t know if fxcm does this though. Does anyone know if its likely anyone will get their capital back?

I know you can get a segregated account with FXCM at $500,000 level with BoA. I don’t know if that all changed with the peg change. I believe previously they didn’t have to separation between funds. I should look into that now and see what is there policy.

Hi Copper,

What you’re referring to is called a custodial account, and it is still available to traders with a balance of 500k. Those interested can email inquiries to <[email protected]>