Hi. This is all on a practice account. Yesterday, before 5pm EST some time, I set up four trades (from a daily chart) and accidentally bought 10 x 100k each, rather than 1 x 100k. With a required margin of $40k, I received a margin call very quickly.
I reset all of the same trades, with 100k positions this time, so that I’d need only a $4000 margin, with over $30,000 in the account. Ten hours later I opened the software again and there was another margin call message window. I didn’t take note of its date and time, though, but just closed it. Now, sure enough all of those four positions had been closed. Here is a screen shot:
You’ll notice that I have only one message, and it’s the old margin call from yesterday, time-stamped as [I]before[/I] I even started the four trades that are now closed. So what I saw thismorning might have been that same message reminding me again, perhaps. Could that happen?
So, why were those four trades closed? You can see that I was at a loss of only $93.82, with plenty of margin that should have been available. I had stop-losses set but none were at the points that the positions closed at.
I had a similar problem with FXCM software. I had several trades closed on me while I watched the price action. The price action never came close to my stop loss and I was nowhere near using up all of my margin (all were closed for a loss). I think it might be a software issue, as everyone seems to think FXCM is reputable.
I don’t think they are reputable and if you check around other forums you will find versions of this problem all over the place with FXCM as broker. They were my first broker and I was constantly losing money until I figured it out (with help from posts on various forums), I switched brokers (to FX Solutions) and have never had a problem since. Executions are swift and accurate, stops are honored, no more games. FWIW.
I know a lot here are also with Oanda and are happy as well. Check the Rate my Broker section, it may be time to move.
