Hello,
I was wondering if the DJ FXCM USD Index was available on the USA demo and live accounts? For the last several weeks, I’ve been trading on a demo account and I didn’t see the ticker for the USD Index in the symbols list.
Hi Tophatzombie,
While trading in the Dow Jones FXCM Dollar Index (ticker: USDOLLAR) is available to our clients living outside the US, the regulations of the CFTC prohibit forex brokers from offering currency indices (or stock indices for that matter) to US residents.
However, FXCM offers a solution for American traders with our currency baskets for USD, GBP, EUR, JPY and AUD, as well as baskets designed to take advantage of interest rate differentials.
Welcome to the forum! 
Jason
Open a demo account as a UK resident.
Hi Tophatzombie,
As FOREXunlimited mentioned, you can open an FXCM UK demo that will allow you to view the USDOLLAR index for charting purposes.
However, if you choose this option, I would advise only using this demo for charting and not for practice trading. That’s because the settings of UK demos don’t comply with the CFTC regulations that would apply to you as a US resident if you decide to trade a live account.
For example, UK demos allow hedging and up to 200:1 leverage, while US regulations prohibit hedging and limit leverage on forex trades to 50:1. Furthermore, US regulations require FIFO (first-in, first-out) trade execution. If you set up a UK demo, you will also see many CFD products for oil, metals and stock indices which are also not available under US regulations.
An FXCM US demo would comply with all US regulations, and so would be the better choice for practice trading for US residents.
Thanks Jason for your response. I checked out Mirror Trader and the currency baskets today. Although, there are no charts for the currency baskets, would it make sense to use the US Dollar Index on the UK demo for charting purposes on mirror trader’s USD currency basket since both represent an aggregate value of USD against the EUR, GBP, JPY, & AUD in four equal parts?
The USDOLLAR chart on your FXCM UK demo can serve as an approximation for your USD currency basket trades. That’s the approach I use myself. However, I want to make sure you’re aware it can only be an approximation. That’s because USDOLLAR is an equally weighted index basket. It is…
[ul]
[li]25% EUR,
[/li][li]25% JPY,
[/li][li]25% GBP and
[/li][li]25% AUD.
[/li][/ul]
CFTC regulations prohibit forex brokers from offering such indices to US residents, so FXCM constructed the Mirror Trader currency baskets with existing currency pairs. For every unit of the USD currency basket you buy (sell), you are…
[ul]
[li]selling (buying) 1k EUR/USD,
[/li][li]buying (selling) 1k USD/JPY,
[/li][li]selling (buying) 1k GBP/USD and
[/li][li]selling (buying) 1k AUD/USD.
[/li][/ul]
Since the base currencies are different in each case, GBP/USD and EUR/USD are over represented relative to USD/JPY and AUD/USD.
[ul]
[li]1k EUR/USD is $1362.40 at EUR/USD exchange rate of 1.3624
[/li][li]1k USD/JPY is $1000.00 always
[/li][li]1k GBP/USD is $1675.10 at a GBP/USD exchange rate of 1.6751
[/li][li]1k AUD/USD is $925.30 at an AUD/USD exchange rate of 0.9253
[/li][/ul]
It’s interesting to note that the EUR currency basket in Mirror Trader is perfectly weighted, since all 4 components have the same base currency: EUR/USD, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP and EUR/AUD.