Leverage in the Forex Market
Friday, February 5th, 2010Forex trading strategies should always take into consideration leverage. If the leverage is reduced to 10:1, according to CFTC’s better wishes, it would cost 1000 units of currency to control 10,000 units of currency, for a mini account. So, yes, if a person were to go nuts, and have 10 positions on all at once, obviously you’d be margined out.
So, definitely, people who over-leverage (or at least use leverage very aggressively) are going to have to pay close attention to this. All the other moderators in the LiveConnect room do NOT let their leverage exceed 1% in total overall risk of all open positions.
So, really, even if leverage were to be reduced to 10:1, it’ll have no effect on the way we trade. This is why it’s just so terribly critical that traders really understand how important a role that risk plays in trading, and incorporate risk management strategies as part of their overall forex trading strategies. Undisciplined traders are going to continue to try to hit the big homer by using lots of leverage and, although it can work out at times, eventually (at least in my experience of over 30 years) their account will be toasted and roasted.
Vic Noble
www.forexmentor.com