Margin can be thought of as a good faith deposit required to maintain open positions. This is not a fee or a transaction cost, it is simply a portion of your account equity set aside and allocated as a margin deposit. Margin requirements (per 10K lot) at FXCM are determined by taking a percentage of the notional trade size plus a small cushion. A cushion is added to help alleviate daily/weekly fluctuations.

Trading on Margin (Trading with Leverage*) is a common attraction of the forex market. It allows you to open trades that are larger than the capital in your account.

In the example above, $1,000,000 have been purchased through a long USD/JPY position with a $50,000 account balance (20:1* Leverage).

Trading on margin can both positively and negatively affect your trading experience as both profits and losses can be dramatically amplified.

FXCM offers a leverage of 200:1*. The high degree of available leverage is a popular attraction for many traders to the forex market, and most FXCM traders use the default leverage (determined by the default margin settings). But the amount of leverage utilized in your trading is up to you.

When you use excessive leverage, a few losing trades can quickly offset many winning trades. To clearly see how this can happen, consider the following example.

Scenario: Trader A buys 50 lots of USD/JPY while Trader B buys 5 lots of USD/JPY.

Questions: What happens to Trader A and Trader B account equity when the USD/JPY price falls 100 pips against them?

Answer: Trader A loses 41.5% and Trader B loses 4.15% of their account equity.

By using lower leverage, Trader B drastically reduces the dollar drawdown of a 100 pip loss.

The lowest available margin setting (also the default margin setting) is 1% for major currency pairs and 4% for exotic currency pairs. You can request to increase your margin settings at any time by contacting our Operations Associates at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or at +961 1 986 686. Simply choose the margin requirement you desire. (Margin changes can take as long as one business day to be reflected in your account.)

Up-to-date margin requirements are listed by currency pair in the MMR column of the "Simple Dealing Rates" window within the platform.

Not with FXCM. We guarantee you can never pay a debit balance as a result of trading.
One of the greatest concerns traders have about leverage is that a sizable loss could result in owing money to their broker. At FXCM, your maximum risk of loss is limited by the amount in your account. All accounts are tracked by our "Margin Watcher" feature. With the Margin Watcher feature, if account equity falls below margin requirements, the FXCM Trading Station will trigger an order to close all open positions.