Where Should You Open Your Forex Account?

There are three main reasons traders cite as to why they would prefer to open a forex account outside of the United States. Outside of the United States: 200:1 or more leverage is available, hedging is permitted, and FIFO accounting rules are not required. Let’s address these one at a time:

1. Our argument against the use of excessive leverage is clear: profitable traders don’t need more than 50:1 leverage. Traders using more than 50:1 leverage are susceptible to wild swings in their account balance and will most likely blow up their account.

2. Under our solution, the customer's trading experience in terms of hedging does not change. In order to abide by the CFTC no hedging rule, the counter party offsets the positions as they receive the orders. When orders are placed on the MT 4 platform, the hedging feature remains available. For example, if you buy and sell a contract on the MT4 software, you will notice your positions are hedged on the interface, however, the orders that have been sent to the counter party have been offset with each other. Your net position remains the same on the MT4 and the back office. When you close your hedge positions on the MT4 software, the new buy and sell orders placed will be offset with each other by the counter party and again your net positions on the MT4 and the back office remain the same.

3. In order to abide by the CFTC FIFO rule, the counter party offsets the positions on a First In First Out basis. On the MetaTrader 4 platform you have the ability to close the positions as you see fit. For example, if you buy a contract and buy another contract at a later time and you decide to close your most recent buy position, you can simply close this position on the MT4 interface, however, the order that is sent to the counter party will be offset with the FIFO rule in place. Your net position remains the same on the MT4 and the back office.

Now, considering that the three cited reasons can be easily addressed, let’s talk about the one main reason in favor of opening your forex account in the United States. This single reason for opening a forex account in the United States overwhelming trumps any reason(s) for not doing so.
Where you deposit your money is incredibly important. You need to know that it’s safe and that the brokers holding it are the most regulated and under the heaviest scrutiny in the forex industry. Trading is hard enough as it is, why expose your funds to unnecessary risk?

The United States is the most heavily regulated Forex industry in the world. All brokers must register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and are members of the National Futures Association.

Brokers have daily, monthly, and quarterly operational reporting requirements, detailing customer funds on deposit, # of retail and ECP forex customers that are active, whether they are US or foreign domiciled, and the percentage of non discretionary accounts that were profitable vs non-profitable - among other things. Unaudited financial statements are filed monthly and audited financial statements are filed annually. Failure to comply with these NFA requirements can result in severe disciplinary actions as well as substantial fines and penalties.

The complete regulatory history of all NFA brokers as well as key personnel is available online at http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet. Simply search by name or NFA ID# if you know it.

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