I (along with our Traders Association) am on this story too.
In a Webinar we did with Rockwell Trading on Wed 10/27, their CEO was complaining about forex trading platforms. He compared trading forex with a computer versus futures trading where buyers and sellers are matched on exchange. He complained about price slippage and more (mentioned below).
On our podcast yesterday, we discussed this CEO's concerns and other problems with American's being forced to repatriate foreign forex trading accounts back to the U.S., as required in the new CFTC forex rules effective on Oct. 18, 2010.
Here's an excerpt from our podcast page (being editing tonight). Sorry, we can't do links to our own site on Elite, but maybe someone else can for us. Thanks.
Oct. 28, 2010 Podcast
Click here for streaming mp3 file (75:00 length).
Subjects: Is forex safe? Year-end planning & tax changes, trader tax, investment management and more. Additional topics per email invitation.
Here are some of the highlights.
* Is forex trading safe in the U.S. even with RFED or FCM duly-registered brokers with the NFA/CFTC? U.S. forex brokers don't have "segregation of asset" money protection rules, whereas futures brokers are subject to those rules. The new CFTC forex rules call for higher minimum net capital requirements for RFED forex brokers versus futures brokers, so that helps cushion the concern about money protection issues. We compare forex trading with currency futures trading in several ways.
For warnings about hidden problems with forex brokers, see Erskine vs. CFTC 06-3896
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1106725.html . The CEO of Rockwell Trading brought up this court case and discussed his concerns about forex brokers and their platform-markets on our Webinar featuring Rockwell on Oct. 27. The CEO focused in on this quote in the case towards the top. "This forex market, which is central to this case, is not a public market, but is instead a ânegotiated market,â in which-according to the parties-foreign currency prices (the prices used for the trades in this case) are âconstructedâ by the FCMs using âsoftware to process and distill currency prices offered by numerous banks and come up with an indicative market price.â"
As I said on that Webinar, keep in mind that this court case is before the new CFTC forex brokerage rules went into effect on Oct. 18, 2010. The retail forex industry should be run better with the new rules. Later in the call, we circle back on the "segregation of asset" rules and we will try to do more research on it for next week.
Update: We just noticed a troubling NFA news release dated Oct. 28, 2010 "NFA orders $459,000 monetary sanction against New Jersey forex firm Gain Capital Group LLC." Read the text of the entire Complaint included in the release.
Here's another similar NFA fine with release dated Oct. 28, 2010 "NFA orders monetary sanction of $320,000 against New York forex firm **** Global Markets." Per the NFA release, "The Complaint alleged that **** engaged in certain price slippage practices on the MetaTrader platform that were favorable to **** and caused disadvantageous trading conditions for certain customers. The Complaint also charged that **** failed to supervise the MetaTrader platform used for their forex business, and failed to supervise the firm's operations." I wonder if "slippage practices" are Rockwell Trading CEO is warning us about?
The CFTC and NFA are scrutinizing forex brokers more now after their Oct. 18, 2010 effective date for their RFED-registrations in accordance with their new CFTC rules for forex transactions, sanctioned by Dodd-Frank Fin Reg too. The NFA website has several good new guides including this one Updated "Forex Transactions: A Regulatory Guide.
American forex traders are being forced to trade with no more than 50:1 leverage on the major currencies (20:1 on minors), FIFO (no hedging rule) and without any form of money-protection. The point is that the leverage with currency futures is not far off 50:1 - you can get 30:1 on the CME - hedging may be easier with futures, and futures brokers must segregate assets for some protection. We will compare tax treatment between forex and futures next week. More forex traders may want to consider trading currency futures too.