It has been brought to our attention that the original link we published to the page on the CFTC website that allowed you to download the 193 page document detailing its newly released proposals to limit leverage in the retail forex industry in the United States to 10 to 1 now simply says:
More on New Download Location for CFTC 10 to 1 Leverage Proposals
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Fresh from his onslaught on retail forex traders, Barack Obama today took aim at another target instead. Those nasty, greedy bankers. According to Bloomberg Mr. Obama said in an interview with ABC that:
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The CFTC has now published details of how to comment on its new ten to one leverage proposals for retail forex accounts. If you click the link at the bottom of that page you can also read the initial comments that the CFTC has received.
More on CFTC Publishes Public Comments on Ten to One Leverage Proposal
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When I started writing this blog in the Spring of 2009 I put forward the proposition that thanks to the advent of the internet and online retail forex brokers it had become possible for anyone possessing an entrepreneurial spirit, and prepared to put in the required effort over a number of years, to learn how to turn $1000 that they were willing and able to lose into a business that could support their family and themselves. I didn't say it was easy, but I did suggest it was possible. All that is about to change. It never was easy, and it looks like it's going to get ten times more difficult, for US citizens at least.
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The BBC reports this morning that Lord Myners, the UK "City minister" and former head of fund manager Gartmore, has his doubts about the development of high-frequency trading (or HFT for short). He told the BBC that:
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In a recent letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the National Futures Association commented on proposed further increases in net capital requirements for Futures Commission Merchants and Introducing Brokers.
Whilst the NFA:
More on NFA "Respectfully" Criticizes SEC Capital Requirements
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently released its latest report on financial data for Futures Commission Merchants. This contains the numbers as of May 31st 2009, "from reports filed by June 30th 2009". This report is particularly interesting because on May 16th the NFA's minimum net capital requirement for Forex Dealer Members increased from $10,000,000 to $20,000,000. The CFTC helpfully allow you to download monthly data going back to 2002 too. It's interesting to discover which brokers have fallen by the wayside over recent months as successive increases in regulatory capital requirements have weeded out the weaker players.
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An email from the Forex MegaDroid team was waiting for me in my inbox this morning. It seems they will be releasing a new version of their robot before the end of the month, which is when the first-in first-out provisions of NFA compliance rule 2-43(b) finally come into force.
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In the second of our series of interviews with senior figures from the Forex industry, I spoke earlier today with Marc Prosser, Chief Marketing Officer of Forex Capital Markets. I started off asking the question on everyone's lips these days about the new "hedging" ban. We then talked about the relative merits of "straight through processing" versus "dealing desk" business models, and then briefly touched on the regulatory aspects of transatlantic transfers of client cash.
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I've just put the phone down after a long conversation with George Tchetvertakov, head of market research at Alpari UK. We started off talking about the new NFA "hedging" regulations and their effects on the retail foreign exchange business. Eventually we moved on to discuss some other topics, including using hedging as a means of reducing risk, and George's opinions about markets in general.
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