I guess this news deserves a thread of its own. After yesterday’s shenanigans…
Alpari UK just declared insolvency.
FXCM staring down a $225m black hole too.
Yes, I was just busy trading on my demo account with Alpari when all of a sudden trading was disabled. I hope this doesn’t affect peoples postions and their funds are secure in a seperate account.
Submitted on Fri, 16/01/2015 - 12:00;
The recent move on the Swiss franc caused by the Swiss National Bank’s unexpected policy reversal of capping the Swiss franc against the euro has resulted in exceptional volatility and extreme lack of liquidity. This has resulted in the majority of clients sustaining losses which has exceeded their account equity. Where a client cannot cover this loss, it is passed on to us. This has forced Alpari (UK) Limited to confirm today, 16/01/15, that it has entered into insolvency. Retail client funds continue to be segregated in accordance with FCA rules
The Beginning of the new world crisis…
I came here to submit the same news…
Even I was surprised at the sudden increase in volatility and fumbled through the net trying to figure out what news came out. I was not expecting any major economic event.
When I couldnt find anything I decided to trade with the momentum… All was well for the first 5 mins and I made a whopping 30% return! Then Greed set in… I continued… as the volatility just would not die down… Soon lost it all and now I’m sitting on a +40% drawdown.
Guess we all learnt an important lesson yesterday…
Yes, particularly the many many people who were long on what they considered an ‘unloseable’ trade. After all, the SNB had said time and time again that it would do whatever it took to defend 1.20. When the drop came, stop losses were useless in most cases. Just reading around, there are an awful lot of blown accounts out there - and people looking at negative equity.
so what happens with my money that is in my trading Alpari account?
I did not have any short positions on CHF or anything like that.
Is there a chance for me to take out my money?
A part of your funds are protected.
The percentage depends on FCA guidelines.
Usually its between 80%-100%.
As far as I am aware, as long as you have £50,000 or less in your account, it is protected. I believe that the FCA is to issue a news release over the next day or so. It will appear at News - Financial Conduct Authority
im in the same boat as you. the fca will hopefully make sure we get our money back. very shocked today, i was trading late last night with them. now my account is frozen with a long usd/jpy position open at minus £56 will i get that money back because i tried to change the take profit to 118.050 but it said trade disabled and then about 3pm they froze it. lets keep this thread updated with the latest news. its a shame because alpari uk were a good broker. hopefully we will see our money soon.
Now its back , prices no longer frozen. hope i can close my trade if usd/jpy gets above 118
Anyone been in this position before? no idea what to do
At the moment, nothing can be done.
All there is to do, is to wait and see what happens over the weekend.
the only thing i can do is close trades. what with the gap on sunday, now say there is a positive gap for me on sunday would alpari uk actually say that it counts would they pay me the profit?
I noticed that they have exited my trades, I had 2 open.
For me it actually worked as +30 pips or so on each of those trades compared with where I wanted to exit but was not able due to system not allowing it.
Yeah they closed my long usd/jpy position at 5:30pm at 117.500 so £30 loss for me which im annoyed about but i know a lot of people have lost so much over the last two days. im glad i didnt have a long usd/chf thats what im thankful for. now to get the balance of my account from then. They havent sent any emails out yet. the website still wont let us log in. so i guess we have to wait for them to contact us.
Alpari say this “This has resulted in the majority of clients sustaining losses which has exceeded their account equity. Where a client cannot cover this loss, it is passed on to us.” but then they also say this on their website “Margin trading is high risk as losses can exceed your investment.” so which one is true? just interested for the future if i continue trading its something id like to know anyone?
Well, Given the issues I had with alpari in the past, I had downgraded my account to just about one grand, but when things went to dogs, had only four hundred sitting in my account. All I can say is that there’s news and then, there’s news…the move by the Swiss NB was unexpected by all…
both. in the short term alpari is responsible to the banks. in the long term alpari will go after those who owe them significant amounts.
The two statements you quoted are not conflicting. “risk of losses can exceed your [B]investment[/B].” The account balance is not the investment. The money used to open the trade, along with the potential triggering of the stop, would be the investment.