Going offshore to escape the CFTC

[charlie.afl]

The idea is nothing new. What i am not sure is whether high leveraged scaled up method is better or the normal leveraged method. And being a pro really matter or such strategies make you one. Anyhow, thanks for the suggestion and i feel money management is the key always rather than profits

[MasonPorter]

Hi all. I have been reading this question in many forums as people always seem confused with high leverage to high risk concept. Most of us even don’t completely understand leverage. Though I’m not a dedicated pro trader but I do trade on an off in my leisure time or after work. The divergence trading on high or low leverage is very clear to me. No confusion there. Say like trading on 500X or 1x-

If I trade 1 lot of AUDCAD with suppose 500X.I will have to give a lower margin to broker than I would while using 1X lower leverage. Whenever using a stop loss, I would get back the margin from my broker that enables me to predict my risk with the help of margin requirement. Practically speaking, if the trade goes in my favor and I get 100 pips with a volume of 1 lot, then $1000 is my profit. Weather I use leverage of 10:1 or 500:1, my profit would be the same 100 pips or $1000.

So my point is why to risk higher leverage when the ultimate profits remain 100 pips?

[scalpingjack]

I agree @HyperScalper , when I do the trading on algo or technical strategies I usually target 20-40 pips in each trades. Usually looking for a quick profit with breakout momentum. I use almost 60-70% of the equity to create the positions. With leverage we can make more than $2000 in day that help me to take the equity out in couple of weeks.

I usually work on 8 pairs most of the day and it is very easy to make that amount only with leverage broker only as sometimes almost all the pair start moving simultaneously. While doing such trading strategies, it is very difficult to put more trades with low leverage brokers. And it is a opportunity loss most of the time.

[audrey_collins]

Well, I would first like to clear the concept of “real leverage”.
It is your position size divided by the account size.

I have seen traders with a much clouded judgment on the concept of leverage as they generally get all excited about some broker offering N:1 leverage to its clients, thinking that the account leverage matters after all. But they fail to understand that the risk on any trade is hardly affected by the leverage available in the account. Instead, leverage can be increased without increasing the risk as it is the percentage at risk which actually matters i.e. the positioned leverage. The position leverage will have no value if the actual amount at risk is not taken into consideration. There is a need to differentiate between account leverage and position leverage.

REMEMBER- The ultimate target for any trader is to hit hard the positioned leverage without putting your account at risk.

[rushilsmith]

Was pondering over, how FX choice is. Just opened a demo account with them and looking for some feedback on their trading conditions. It seems to be fine with me with their maximum leverage as 200x. Has anybody done any deposit or withdrawal yet, as deposit and withdrawal timing is matter of concern for me. They do support cryptos and bank wire for deposit and withdrawal but seems like they charge bit of a fees while processing withdrawals. Also, I can see the VISA option on their website, do they support VISA deposits for US citizens as well? their commission charges are on higher side, I mean $7 per lot is a lot and that is also only for Major Pairs, not sure about their other instruments as I trade in major pairs only but the good thing is that they offer MT4 and MT5 both and I can access my account easily on Mac due as they do support web terminal. Was just wondering, is there any better way to install MT4 on Mac as wine application literally sucks. Your feedback will be really appreciated.

[Piper24]

Hey Rushil! I was associated with Fx Choice sometime back for around 8 months. I appreciated their trading conditions and platform and never had any issues with deposits via the wire transfers. They do offer tighter spreads and unlike many brokers they have exotic pairs to trade on. I just had some issues with my withdrawals and had trouble getting my money back. The huge fees associated with fund transfer also bothered me sometimes as there are brokers who offer competitive conditions at low fees and commission. And as far as VISA is concerned, I doubt they offer VISA option to US traders since I was never able to transfer through it. I see they have added cryptos in deposit/ withdrawals. Hope it makes things easy. And Yes even I like both MT4 and MT5 in one platform which is easily accessible and technically advanced. But I have not much knowledge about MT4 installation on wine or any application. I guess I was able to answer some of your questions. Good luck!

[Lucy_Warren]

Well, you have a genuine concern about installing MT4 on mac using Wine as MT4 was originally designed for Windows OS and most of the brokers do not have a Mac-friendly process. Instead they provide some lengthy tutorial explaining the use of wine application to install Mt4 in Mac. Just a few of the brokers in the industry actually offer Pre-emulated MT4 platform for Mac by which it takes just a few minutes to download and install the platform.

[Rayfordadam]

I was reading through this blog and thought if could find in NON ESMA details here. Good thread and should embrace ESMA stricken folks. But I need some advices reg my situation. I’m a European citizen working out of US… screwed from both ends

I have this really good high profitability strategy im using past 4 years and its giving me desired results. It works very well in Binary options. And with ESMA looming over my head, i will be unable to trade on my strategy. So after thinking hard i was wondering, can these “tweaks” help me fit the professional criteria. So far i can only check one of the 3 boxes.

So can I by making volume for volume by trading FX, meet an ESMA criteria and will be considered a pro trading after one year of trading on this ridiculous strategy. Or should i somehow find a way to fill the 500k criteria by sourcing money. Or leave US or give up my European citizenship. I hope you guys give honest suggestions without judging me. I have been asking this across diff forums. Thanks

[HyperScalper]

RESPONSIBLE USE OF LEVERAGE

I only mention the leverage advantages of offshore brokers
to illustrate how efficiently Forex could generate revenue.

@audrey_collins and others point out risks of using leverage,
and I just want to make it clear that Risk Management should
be your first priority. We could move much of this to a different
thread on Trading, but just to point out that unless you are
CONFIDENT that you have Risk under control… you would be
irresponsible to use the available Buying Power, which is
what Leverage offers…

As they say “Don’t try this at home, kids…” meaning that unless
you have strong Predictors of Price movement, and excellent
control over allocated resources, then don’t be tempted to
control huge size and suffer the downside losses which will almost
certainly knock you out of the game.

[EDIT] I think I posted an equity curve image, which seems to have
been deleted. Anyway, if you can generate a smooth monotonic
equity curve with no “surprises”… then you can consider increasing
leverage without excessive risk of losing everything…

hyperscalper

[HyperScalper]

ANONYMOUS BROKER USAGE

@Rayfordadam Well, there is Evolve.Markets and probably
others who, at the moment, are anonymously used. No
nationality or residence questions asked, I believe…

How long this anonymity could exist is anybody’s guess…
Regulation wants to close any such anonymity loopholes…

[EDIT] refer to this link on this forum:

Anonymous Forex brokers (bitcoin)

Here's a list of Forex brokers which allow Anonymous accounts so no verification is required and all transactions are in bitcoin and they are a have bitcoin dominated accounts. ( i don't know much about these brokers) 1 . 1broker.com features: CFD trading ,social trading (copy trades) platform: it has a pretty basic online platform 2 . evolve.markets features: STP platform: MT5 3 . simplefx.com features: i think STP platform: MT4 , Online 4 . coinexx.c…

hyperscalper

[HyperScalper]

COINEXX FUNDING CURRENCIES

Available account funding Currencies shown below. I am interested to
see whether comparable to Evolve.Markets. Both are using MT5 for
new accounts. Fortunately, that’s OK as I use NJ4X which covers both
terminal types.

At this time that’s quite a range of funding Cryptos available, as Evolve.Markets
offers only BTC (BIT) and LTC at this time…

May be the widest range of funding Cryptos available so far…
Hoping execution, spread and commish turn out to be competitive.

I’ll be reporting more later. [EDIT] added shot showing huge range
of deposit Currencies you can choose from…

[EDIT2] transferred LTC from Coinbase, elapsed time 15 minutes, and
now LIVE !! ya gotta admit that’s fast entire time from account creation to
live funded less than 1 hour… Miner’s fee cost to transfer LTC was 0.002%
and balance instantly shows up in Live MT5 platform.

[EDIT3] They Coinexx provide a 30 minute time window to complete the deposit, and
I was getting worried but the LTC transaction from Coinbase did work
within that time window…

[EDIT4] their chat guys say they are in Edinburgh, Scotland I guess…

hyperscalper

[ForExchange]

Hi Piper24,

Usually brokers help to pay your deposit fees, but do not give you back your withdrawal fee with the excuse “well you made enough money, it shouldn’t be a large sum of money from the winnings” This comes from a broker…

Anyway the withdrawal is quite good at FX Choice, you can expect to have 25USD cost on wire transfer.

Thats all I could help.

[A1lenTrader]

WINE “WineIsNotEmulator” it takes windows binaries and converts them to its unix equivelent code on linux/mac
You set up your wine so its win2008 + by using WineTricks.
obvioulsy MT4 will look prety on windows and a bit faster loading but i have pepperstone and admiral running through wine and have no problems.
Cant report any real difference apart from the Market tab is missing but i would just go on mql5 site and download of there if i waned EA Or Indicator but i dont.

[Clint]

RESPONSIBLE USE OF LEVERAGE

I only mention the leverage advantages of offshore brokers
to illustrate how efficiently Forex could generate revenue…

[EDIT] I think I posted an equity curve image, which seems to have
been deleted. Anyway, if you can generate a smooth monotonic
equity curve with no “surprises”… then you can consider increasing
leverage without excessive risk of losing everything…

Nope, it wasn’t deleted.

It’s still right HERE where you posted it.

[HyperScalper]

@Clint Thanks for that, I don’t know what I was thinking…
I’d like to have a cumulative equity curve like that one
I guess my point is that if such a curve can be achieved,
then drawdown is less of a concern and, therefore,
much more Buying Power can be used.

hyperscalper

[ShatnerReborn]

Well, shiver me timbers, the CFTC is at it again. Article posted on Leap Rate about what happened with the CFTC complaint about Tallinex.

Estonian FX broker Tallinex to pay $10M in restitution and $681K penalty

Apparently, part of this was a Utah-based business that introduced customers to Tallinex…

“The Consent Order finds that GTF, which was in the business of providing forex trading instruction, paid “coaches” to teach its customers forex trading using hypothetical accounts. The Order finds that at least one coach introduced U.S. customers who were non-ECPs, i.e., not eligible contract participants…”

Oh, the Humanity!

So the CFTC is happy to see newbie traders blowing their accounts trading full-sized FX Futures contracts. They are equally pleased to see the ICE price gouging with $110/month data fees to the newbies so they can blow their accounts on Dollar Index Futures that much quicker. But we Forex traders are assumed to be so mindlessly stupid, incapable of learning, unable to choose a suitable overseas Forex broker to trade even $1000 notional micro-lots unless we have a net worth of at least $10M, required for ECP status.

Also, there was some mention of “victims” and “restitution”. Funny, I don’t recall a single complaint on this site about Tallinex stealing from traders.

We’ve heard a lot about Fake News this year. If this isn’t Fake Regulation, I don’t know what is

Cheers to all

[Clint]

… the CFTC is at it again. Article posted on Leap Rate about what happened with the CFTC complaint about Tallinex.

Thanks for posting that, Shatner.

The World Forex Police (aka CFTC) have been bragging lately about the “awards” they pay out to “whistleblowers”.

See HERE and HERE

I suppose GREEN collected a bounty – er, I mean “award” – for ratting out Tallinex.

[ShatnerReborn]

Yes, Clint!

I plan to stay away from Mr. Green and his tax “advice”.

But this latest CFTC action also confirms what you’ve been saying for the past 8 years. We as individual traders are doing nothing wrong by seeking better trading conditions offshore. The CFTC rules are written against brokers/counterparties, not the traders themselves.

For now at least, in the all-seeing eye of the CFTC, we’re the “victim”.

[Piper24]

Hi ForExchange,

I totally agree with you. Initially I never cared about the rebate on withdrawal fees but then I made a few big withdrawals on my profits and I asked for fee reimbursement process but no action was taken and it then pinched me to pay that kind of charges on withdrawals.
But thanks for the information about FX Choice withdrawals. Happy to know they are doing well. I might consider going back if the wire transfer fees can be slashed a bit

[alchami]

Hi guys, been overwhelmed by all the great info. I am a US resident, simply looking for the best broker (most reputable, best in fees, safest) that will allow me to trade commodities like US oil. Does anyone mind steering me in the best direction? Finpro seems to look the most legitimate to me, but again I see a lot of info and a little push to the best option would be so appreciated!