零售货币贸易：它有多安全？

Trading firms specializing in retail foreign exchange are facing tougher leverage limits and may come under increased scrutiny from regulators as a result of hundreds of millions of dollars in client losses after the Swiss franc’s dramatic surge on January 15. At least three forex trading firms went belly up after that episode, and a U.S. player required a bailout.

“在这个市场上的人没有适用于其他投资者的相同财务保护，”商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）专员·鲍文（CFTC）。“让这些赌注的人能够负担得起损失。”Bowen认为零售外汇交易应具有与衍生品交易相同的保护。Dodd-Frank Wall Street改革和消费者保护法转移了大多数衍生品交易到受管制的交易所。

Retail forex had been enjoying healthy volume gains before the Swiss National Bank (SNB) yanked the 1.20 euro cap from the Swiss franc and sent the currency rocketing up 39 percent. According to Boston-based research firm Aite Group, the retail forex market has been growing steadily since 2007, when it registered about $132 billion in daily turnover. The company estimates that 2014 total daily turnover had mushroomed to $413 billion, a significant gain though still a relatively small part of the overall forex market’s $5.5 trillion daily turnover.

The largest portion of the retail market is in Japan, where Aite Group estimates investors trade an average of $145 billion a day, about 35 percent of daily turnover, thanks to the Bank of Japan’s quantitative easing program and Prime MinisterShinzo Abe’s economic policies那which have driven the value of the yen down against the U.S. dollar and other currencies. Japanese retail investors have a long history of foreign currency carry trades in which they use low-yielding yen to buy foreign investments with higher yields.

“The retail market is driven largely by volatility, plain and simple,” says Javier Paz, an Aite Group analyst. “Frequent movements in prices when they start to trend or break out are typically triggers for increased retail activity.”

与拥有银行家的电话仍然主要进行的机构外汇销售不同，零售销售几乎完全在线交易。

根据a 2014 study by Bapi Maitra, global head of forex bank sales at Citigroup, there are 4 million retail traders globally, predominantly male with an average age of 35. The largest group on broker websites hails from Europe, which has 35 percent of the market by number of users, followed by Asia, with 24 percent, 13 percent in the Middle East and 8 percent in the U.S. According to Citigroup, the average retail forex account is just $6,600.

The SNB crisis has driven up prime brokerage costs, which affects institutional investors that use currency markets. At the same time, activities of smaller brokers dealing in certain forex pairs have been curtailed. “Retail FX volume is a key component to the vitality of the $2 trillion-a-day spot FX market,” says Aite Group’s Paz. “Consequently, we are revising lower our 2015 spot FX estimate by 3 percent due to lower retail FX market [volumes].”

One reason figures for customers on American websites are small is that the U.S. has the tightest regulation of retail forex trading in the world, limiting the amount of leverage investors can use to 50-to-1, meaning a $100 investment can buy $5,000 of bets. Meanwhile, investors in the U.K. or New Zealand can invest with 200-to-1 leverage. Since there are no limitations on Americans using foreign websites, which often accept deposits by credit card, U.S. retail investors often place their bets overseas.

尽管有证据表明，大多数投资者亏损的证据表明，零售外汇的难题之一是其普遍性。根据ForexMagnates一位在零售外汇监管机构中抵御国内期货协会的经纪人报告的网站，只有35％的投资者账户在2014年第四季度下降了利润。即使多年来一直存在同样的赔偿模式，引用了一项民意调查由花旗集团表示，84％的零售投资者认为他们可以赚钱。

If losing money isn’t enough to deter investors, last November six big banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS — were fined a total of $4 billion for a “free-for-all culture” that led to price rigging in currency markets, raising fears that the market might be artificially fixed.

根据花旗集团的说法，85％的全球零售业来自十大经纪人，由于其规模，银行有更多的土拨队。有两种主要类型的零售商：校长和机构。主要经纪人采取客户交易的另一边，承担风险，而机构经纪人通过交易到流动性提供者，通常是一家作为主要经纪人的银行，并且表面上采取了很小的风险。但是，在瑞士法郎危机期间，这种假设证明了错误。

一些零售平台因素的可能性f such a huge move in one currency on a single day. Many retail investors who had bet that the euro or yen would move higher against the Swiss franc had taken out a form of insurance called a stop-loss order, which should have limited losses if the Swiss franc moved against them by more than a few basis points. Instead, when the franc soared in the largest single currency move since 1971, there was no liquidity and no buyers to execute trades at stop-loss points, and client accounts went into free fall.

FXCM，美国的第2号零售经纪人表示，3,000名客户有10亿美元的开放职位，欧元兑瑞士法郎在瑞士法郎采取行动时，但该公司在客户账户中只有8000万美元的抵押品。因此，该公司以其主要经纪人，花旗集团和德意志银行的“消费股票余额”为225亿美元。FXCM承认其“可能违反一些监管资本要求”，并从莱克萨国家公司借用3亿美元，以惊人的10％的年度利率为两年。

FXCM was not alone. At least three other retail traders plunged into insolvency during the crisis: Alpari UK, a subsidiary of a Moscow-based firm; Global Brokers NZ, a New Zealand forex dealer; and a U.K. firm called Boston Prime. Among the big banks, Citigroup reportedly lost $150 million and Deutsche Bank $100 million. Neither bank confirmed the losses.

丹麦盛宝银行,公司提供attractive leverage to retail customers, reported that it lost $107 million in leveraged client accounts during the Swiss franc move. The bank earned $240 million in profit in the first half of 2014, according to its annual report. Saxo is demanding that its clients repay their losses, says Kasper Elbjorn, Saxo’s head of communications. For its part, FXCM forgave 90 percent of client losses. Most retail brokers have forgiven clients with negative account balances.

有很多零售经纪人，具有复杂风险管理系统的零售商可能会如何减掉这么多？AITS的PAZ表示，风险管理未能预测此类重大举措。对于那些使用原子能机构模型的公司，就像FXCM一样，“你有很多人通过门踩着，”我想摆脱我的立场，“”他说。但随后是交易另一边的主要经纪人，“拒绝为客户所需的优势价格提供流动性。”FXCM的官员拒绝了评论请求。

The damage was much smaller at principal brokers. Toronto-based Courtney Gibson, head of trading and quantitative analytics at Oanda Corp., says his currency firm takes a more conservative approach to leverage than others, offering a maximum 50-to-1 anywhere in the world, and less in some places, such as Japan, where it’s 25-to-1. Oanda has also invested heavily in technology so that its risk management is more robust, Gibson says.

Because Oanda uses the principal approach, it was able to settle client trades internally, offsetting a sell order against an outstanding buy, rather than turning all trades over to third parties to be settled. As a result it had to go to the forex market relatively few times, he says. While it lost money, losses were minor compared to those of other firms. Oanda told clients that even though liquidity providers had changed quotes because of the Swiss franc move, it would honor its trades and not “requote” prices as other brokers were doing. It also forgave clients with negative account balances. Gibson says the number of new clients surged 50 percent in January, with most fleeing other firms.

Clients at other firms were not so lucky. “It’s like I’m living in FX bizarro world,” one investor complained in an online chat room after his stop-loss orders were ignored. “I will dedicate every day of my life until (the broker) returns what was stolen from me.”

Interestingly, even though many investors lost money in the crisis, retail volumes have not fallen sharply. Saxo Bank reported that average daily trading volume in February was $13.2 billion, down marginally from $13.8 billion in January. But client collateral on deposit at Saxo increased by $560 million to $8.6 billion, indicating little loss of investor interest. Saxo was among the banks raising collateral requirements.

The most significant fallout from the crisis was a rush of efforts to lower retail leverage. The National Futures Association imposed a 20-to-1 limit on leverage for Swiss franc investments; 33-to-1 for Swedish krona, Norwegian krone, Japanese yen and Australian dollars; 16-to-1 for the Mexican peso; 11-to-1 for the Brazilian real; and 5-to-1 for the Russian ruble.

At the same time, dealers such as FXCM and Saxo lifted margin requirements on some currency pairs. “Volatility is rising, and to reflect the potential increase in risk and to protect clients, banks and brokerages have to raise their margin, the sooner the better,” Saxo Bank’s chief financial officer, Steen Blaafalk, said in an online Q&A.

零售客户所遭受的损失也可能导致监管机构再次努力，以便在任何可能负担损失的人那样看到的人。

Bart Chilton, a former CFTC commissioner, says he believes customer accounts should be protected with mandatory insurance in cases where firms go bankrupt, such as the $890 million loss in customer funds atMF Global.2011年，或者在美国零售公司，以开支投资基金。

Bowen，CFTC的CFTC的民主继任者表示，这是一个市场，其中三分之二的投资者在净缺失的基础上赔钱不是一个好模式。“至少应该存在与整个投资行业相同的规则，”她说，引用规则，涵盖执行和透明度以及资本要求。“为什么这个行业的这段应该是不受理的没有意义。”

Bowen says extreme leverage available on foreign platforms is her main concern. “Basically, you can’t have a race to the bottom, which this has become,” she says. “Risks that happen outside our shores can flow back.” She expresses satisfaction that firms are now being forced to reduce leverage, adding that with currency markets unstable, no one knows when other major moves might occur.

Executives at retail firms, such as FXCM CEO Drew Niv, have stated their opposition to reducing leverage on the grounds that investors would head overseas. But recent losses may have convinced all but the most speculative investors that a more conservative approach may be the wisest. •