FxPro, a well-established European forex and CFD broker, announced it is temporarily hiking the margin requirements on some instruments ahead of the Japanese general elections on October 22. The outcome of the vote may affect the financial markets and the available liquidity.
For this reason, starting from Friday, October 20, 2017, at 18:00 (GMT+3) FxPro is raising the margin requirements for all JPY forex pairs and the spot metals to 1% (leverage 1:100) and to 2% (1:50) for indices (spot and futures). The changes will affect both new and existing positions.
FxPro does not say when the trading conditions will be reverted back to normal, but notes that it reserves the right to refuse the opening of new positions, by enabling the “Close Only” functionality in case of extreme volatility and lack of liquidity. Furthermore, FxPro may allow fixed spreads to float to reflect the market conditions. The broker also may make other changes to the trading conditions in the days prior and immediately after the elections in Japan.
Such temporary changes to the trading conditions ahead of important elections in major global economies are a standard practice employed by forex brokers, both big and small. This is done mostly in order to protect their clients, but themselves as well, from higher risk of loss. Similar changes have been made prior to the US presidential elections and the Brexit vote last year, the French presidential vote and the general elections in Germany this year.
FxPro is a major forex and CFD NDD broker that offers an extensive portfolio of instruments on the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms, cTrader and its proprietary FxPro Markets. The broker has two major European licenses – from UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), as well as a license from South Africa’s Financial Services Board (FSB). Recently it also got a license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).