Forex Product Guide
Forex, also known as foreign exchange, FX or currency trading, is a decentralized global market where all the world's currencies trade. The forex market is the largest, most liquid market in the world with an average daily trading volume exceeding $5 trillion.
We pride ourselves in offering excellent forex trading experience in the market. With FXCM, you not only gain access to the top currency pairs, but also the tools and support you need to navigate the world’s largest market.
Trading Hours
FXCM's trading hours vary by product. For forex, trading opens on Sundays between 5:00 PM ET and 5:15 PM ET and closes on Fridays around 4:55 PM ET.
Margin Requirements
Margin Requirements may differ depending on account type and can be viewed in the dealing rates and create order windows on the trading station or by clicking here.
Spreads
FXCM offers competitive spreads on our currency pairs and CFD instruments. Active Traders can get deep discounts on spread costs based on the volume traded.
Spreads are variable and historical average spreads and available pairs can be found here.
Max Contract Size
FXCM has no limits on maximum exposure but there is a maximum limit per order/ticket. The Trading Station platform allows for order sizes up to 50 million per trade for forex positions. Certain pairs or account types may have smaller limits and a pop up will appear on the platform if an order is placed above the maximum trade size confirming the limit.
Minimum Pip Cost (Value)
The word “PIP” stands for Percentage in Point. In forex, a pip is what you would consider a “point” for calculating profits and losses.
In the Trading Station you can see the value of a pip for each of your trades when entering a Market or Entry Order.
Under the Amount (K) field, you will see “Per pip”. This will be the Pip value in your base currency.
For most currency pairs, the 'pip' location is the fourth decimal place. In this example, if the GBP/USD moved from 1.42279 to 1.42289 you would have gained or lost one pip, depending on if you're long or short. The amount that pip is worth depends on the lot size you open.
For JPY crosses a pip will be the second decimal place. For e.g. 123.789
You can view the current pip value of any instrument in the Pip Cost area of the Advanced Dealing Rates window (shown below).
Rollover
Rollover is the interest paid or earned for holding a position overnight, any client holding an open position at the end of the trading day (5pm EST) will be credited or debited rollover.
Most liquidity providers are closed on Saturdays and Sundays, so there is no rollover on these days, but most liquidity providers still apply interest for those two days. To account for that, the Forex market books three days of rollover on Wednesdays, which makes a typical Wednesday rollover three times the amount on Tuesday. Additionally there is no rollover on holidays, but an extra days’ worth of rollover two business days before the holiday.
Please click here to view a table that indicates how many days of rollover will be applied to open positions at 5pm EST on each trading day.
Our Enhanced Execution allows client to scalp, place entry orders in the spread, and trade with no minimum distances on stops or limits.