Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

I can't remember -do IG send you monthly statments by email?

I forget as I withdraw all my money from them after they made my account untradeable about 3 years ago.

If so I would expect it to show the detail of each currency balance and it's translation into gdp each month

pth,

I don't know for sure what a "ledger transaction" is, but it sounds a little bit like the carry trade charges which are being charged to your account monthly or quarterly rather than on a daily basis.

They should apply when you hold a position overnight, not when you close out within the same day.

Take the example of a GBP/JPY trade. If you are long, you are effectively borrowing money in JPY at 0.5% interest plus say an extra 0.5% for your broker's Xmas lunch fund (ie at 1%). You are then depositing that money in GBP at 5.75% interest less 0.5% for the same lunch fund (ie 5.25%). The net result is that you earn interest at a rate of 5.25% - 1% = 4.25% per annum. As GBP/JPY is currently trading at around 241.00, a small 1 per pip position is worth around 24,100, so your 4.25% interest will equate to 1,024 per annum or 2.80 each day.

If, on the other hand, you hold a short GBP/JPY position overnight, you will effectively be borrowing sterling at 5.75% + 0.5% (ie 6.25%) and depositing it into JPY at 0.5% - 0.5% (ie zero!!!). This equates to a debit from your account of around 4.13 for each night that you hold the GBP/JPY 1 per pip short.

It can soon add up!!!

You will notice that the CME quarterly contracts for high yielding carries are priced quite a way off spot at the start of the quarter and the price then converges towards spot as the contract moves toward expiry. Quarterly contracts are not subject to nightly carry charges, so they make the carry costs up in a different way.

Hope that explains things.

Glad the pills are working and you're feeling better, Chocopops.

Some of the "plants" in my greenhouse have been struggling this wet summer, so I might be interested in taking any surplus pills off your hands if they're as good as you say.

:o)

Hils. Goforit and CC many thanks for taking the time to respond, here is the explanation from IG Markets. I understand what they are saying (I think), but I cannot find any 'warnings' of what are effectively underlying positions on their web site. This ledger business seems to be a secret. I did point out in my email to IG that I was not aware of the whole ledger business and the lack of available information, this observation has not been addressed in their reply.

"However, it is important to note that your account is multi-currency and has a ledger for each currency in which you transact.

For example, your USD/JPY trades have a base currency of JPY and thus profits and losses are realised in JPY, and similarly trading in Cable produces P&L in USD. This is shown on the statements you receive.

I note that you have funded your account in GBP and have chosen GBP as your base currency. Your account is therefore summarised in base currency at the top of the statement in GBP equivalent, but at no time are the individual currency balances physically converted without your express instructions. This is evident from the individual currency ledger balances on the statements we send to you.

I understand that you removed funds from your account based on the GBP equivalent sum of the underlying currencies but that the account went into negative territory due to the fact that you still had balances in other currencies which caused the account value to fall. I can see that you have now cleared this with a transfer yesterday, but please do note that you still have currency exposure to USD, CAD, CHF and JPY. If you would like us to convert the balances in these currencies then please let us know."

Any thoughts or views?

pth

2 things.

Get all that foreign currency exposure converted to gbp right now to stop any more losses (or profits) occurring.

I'd have a bit of a go at them if they let you remove all the funds from your account but didn't ask you at the time whether you wanted the currencies converted. You can't be the first person this has happenned to and I think a respectable broker would have asked you if you wanted this done when you withdrew the money.

Of course you have weakened your case now you have sent them the money to cover the debt and if the statement shows the ledger for each currency and you didn't notice over a period of nearly a year that your gbp balance was reducing that doesn't help.

I'd offer to split the loss in half with them but I don't expect you'll get very far. IG are legally right and and any reduction of the loss would be purely a gesture of goodwill on their part.

Of course if you starting putting some trades through again they might be more acccommodating.

Hope that helps

CC

Thank you for the advice. Now I am aware of what is going on I can monitor the exchange rates and convert to sterling to my best advantage, effectively I will be trading my ledger, so it comes down to 'closing' at the best possible time, hopefully I'll get it right.

As to the time scales, I have only traded multiple currencies during the last fours months or so, previously just Cable and I didn't seem to have this problem then. I must admit I feel rather foolish for not noticing the fluctuations in my trading balance, but I usually trade positions over a short time scale and the balance changed up to 20 times a day. I had assumed the ledger transactions were a reflection of the accumualtion of trades, a kind of summary.

I will raise the other points you have raised in my response this evening.

Allthough I can see what has happened, it seems nuts to me, because it would appear for every trade I open, I have an underlying trade to worry about as well. IG claim it is my responsibility to convert to Sterling, so do I have to do that for every trade? There certainly isn't a facility to do that online, so would mean a telephone call every time!!

pth

pth,

If your USD/JPY trades are influenced by the movement of GBP/USD, then I can't see any point whatsoever in trading USD/JPY. To my way of thinking, you might as well cut out the middle man (ie USD) and just trade GBP/JPY.

Fwiw, I opened an account with IG about 6 years ago. I funded it which allowed me access to their secure area. Once there, I didn't like what I saw so I rang them up straight away and asked that they gave me my money back and close the account.

why not close the cfd account and open a spreadbet account instead with ig. I bet the spreads are the same. You will be betting in pound per point then and you won't have these problems.

Hils,

Now I understand what has been happening I fully agree with your comments re pairs, Im now having to watch four GBP pairs to try and exit at the best time - good grief!

CC

Fully intend to close the CFD account when I have extricated myself from this situation, no more FX CFDs for me, SBs instead.

pth

Cable... 2.0450-60 might be enough of a rebound for a while..

:-) quess so....

he posts to himself...

f, got that area spot on

fx fairies on holiday?

Sorry FXers, been travelling back from California over the weekend (business, not holiday), haven't had time to update the calendar. I also need to work out how Hil has imported this new format . . .

On edit: sorted -- new Calendar imported.

Who's a clever little fairy :)

choccy....glad you are posting here...

looking fwd to you picking those tops/ lows again
(5-10 pips divergance allowed...as a special concession lol )

Hey! Ladies!

Check out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/....senility stuff

Just off for a coffee, then......now....where's the kitchen?

Well should have hled onto that Cable short for longer....

USD / Yen looks like getting ready to retake 120..

seems to be alot of divergence on 4 & 1 hourly charts