Well that’s one way to look at it… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
So that would mean all USD pairs are out also. The most artificially controlled currency in the world.
Artificial yet fluid unlike the CHF pairs before the SNB move.
By your definition you would be unable to trade JPY and EUR (assuming the ECB will commence QE on Thusday) as well.
The other question that should be looked at is the total market share of traders/account balances that each of these companies carried when compared to other companies? How many of those customers had opted for the broker not to take the other side of trades?
In the case of the broker being the other party then I’m sure there would be some close attention to the need to offset risk if one side of the trade was getting a lot of trades stacked on but for customers who don’t want a broker on the other side there may have been less notice taken as in normal conditions any loss would be the customers risk only.
It might be that the brokers who handled this well are the ones who watch the customer accounts and positions like hawks…
I’m just pointing out that to try and have that rule is flawed from the start. You can’t find a currency that is not controlled or manipulated in some way. Some are pegged, some are financed out of thin air (I mean a printing press), others are propped up by someone else buying the debt to disguise the real buyer and the list goes on. If you run with the rule of no pegged currencies then you will be caught out badly when the US problems finally hit home or the EUR problems come to light fully because they are different problems not covered by the rule. The take away is asses the unique risks each currency carries, not look for band-aid rules for the PAST which is already gone.
This is all part of trading currencies. They are manipulated, controlled and directed. It is our task to try and divine what will happen with the limited information at hand. So instead of looking at what has happened in the past and trying to avoid that, the better option would be to understand what risks are still out there in the future and how to minimize your exposure to those. So instead of not trading XXX pairs, it should be what risk do those pairs carry in each and every trade and how do you control that risk.
As an example if TRADER A’s normal trade was $10/pip = 2% account/trade, looking back on things now do you think that having a CHF pair trading at $10/pip was a good risk idea? Or should it have clicked that because CHF was so artificially controlled it should have included a extra risk profile when working out the risk exposure? Certain brokers even forced this risk control on the customers who wanted to trade it with decreased leverage on certain CHF pairs. When people talk about managing risk per trade it is not just limited to a 1-2% account rule. Each currency has a unique risk profile that should at least be understood in the broader picture against all other currencies.
So CHF pairs might have carried a further -50%/pip because of the increased risk exposure.
With CHF, traders would have become complacent over time, the level has always been defended in the past so why not load up on lots at the solid bottom of the cycle. It has always paid in the past, its a safe BET. So instead of keeping the possible risk under control it might have gone the other way and all risks are put out of mind because the level is ALWAYS defended so why not do 5%/account trades on CHF when it hits bottom defended level.
Looking forward the real question all of us should be asking is WHY unpeg it now? What are they seeing in the future with the EUR that they want to get away from it now after fighting so hard to keep the peg in place? This should be a clear warning for your risk profile for the EUR going forward. Something can be seen by those that control these markets that they are trying to distance themselves from before it drags them down also.
Imho, there is Nothing strange in SNB move. Eur will face a long way to lower levels, SNB has already burnt a lot of money defending the peg and this took the country to face unforeseeable problems that Made swiss quite nervous and that they were probably not ready to face (the gold referendum was a good example of a financial system’s suicide even for a noob, but they took that risk anyway ). The real surprise was about how they did it, a central bank cannot behave this way…it would not surprise me if it will be found that someone’s wife in SNB has got a lot of money on thursday
About what will happen to forex, i don’t think they will limit account minimum size. There is ppl on other forums i’m in Who had 100.000€ in their account and now they are down with six digits numbers, so account minimum size is not the problem. The problem is leverage.
Just my two cents
Everybody makes mistakes!
A smart person learns from those mistakes.
Like you said:
“I have learnt a very bitter lesson. Time to shake off the dust and move on.”
:44:
Hey guys i feel your pain and lossed from the chf , a good rule of thumb is not to trade too many exotic pairs they are seen as currency crosses and not pairs a mere reflection of what a dollar is worth in another currency. I would stick to the major pairs that people trade and work a lot better from a technical stand point , i have been trading for about 9 years now and i only trade usd/cad eur/usd gbp/usd usd/py . These pairs usually have more liquidity and a lower spread and If you cant make pips from trading those pairs then switching to the exotics wont help much . good luck with the trading …
Sorry to see this. Just for me though, I always live by the saying to only invest on something where we can afford to lose. 
Wow I am sorry for your loss. I feel your pain also I was down $50,302.00 from the de-pegging. heard a couple of Hedge Funds loss $829 million and went out of business. Cheers