Trading conditions for the New Year and Christmas holidays

14 Dec 2007, 17:31

Following changes to the trading rules will occur during the New Year and Christmas holidays from 26 Dec 2007 till 31 Dec 2007 including.

• leverage for all accounts will be reduced to 1:33, marginal requirements for currency futures will be tripled;
• spread and commission for all trading instruments will be tripled;
• levels of stop&limit will also be increased by 3;

Necessity of following changes is caused by low market liquidity during specified time period. All changes are implemented according to part 3.1.11 of the Client Agreement.

The trading schedule for the New Year and Christmas holidays:

12.24.2007 (Monday)

Trading with all instruments stops at 20:00 (GMT+2 — trading terminal time)

12.25.2007 (Tuesday)

All trade is closed

12.26.2007 (Wednesday)

Trading resumes at 13:00 (GMT+2 — trading terminal time)

12.31.2007 (Monday)

Trading stops at 19:00 (GMT+2 — trading terminal time)

01.01.2008 (Tuesday)

All trade is closed

01.02.2008 (Wednesday)

Trading resumes at 11:00 (GMT+2 — trading terminal time). All trading conditions are changed back to normal. Leverage sizes go back to previous values, which they had before the increase of deposit requirements.

We strongly recommend to decrease the amount of opened positions, use Stop Losses and maintain margin level above 100%.

For example, let’s review a situation, when increase of marginal requirements can lead to a forced closing of opened positions. Let’s say, you have a leverage of 1:200 and you have several opened positions. Margin level of your account is 181%. Let us calculate the margin level after a decrease of leverage to 1:33.

Your credit leverage will be decreased by 200 / 33 = 6.06 times.

Correspondingly, margin level will be 181 / 6.06 = 29.87% after the leverage change. Considering that market volatility will be greater than usual, you will either have to close some of your positions or increase the deposit amount. Otherwise, there is a great risk of closing positions by margin call.