I posted before about the NFA’s new rules on maximum forex trading leverage permissible for traders with US brokerage accounts (see New NFA Retail Forex Leverage Restrictions). Those went into effect on Monday. Tuesday new leverage rules kicked in for the trading in leveraged ETFs. Darwin’s Finance has a good write-up on the subject.
I find it somewhat interesting that margins on short ETFs is higher than on long ones. Granted, equities do tend to move more rapidly to the downside, but a double long ETF is going to move just as quickly as a double short when the market is falling (considering day timeframe moves here, which is what the leveraged ETFs are intended to track). It’s basic math, so I see no real justification for the higher margin between the two.
The other interesting part of this is that even with the new margin requirements you can still trade at effectively 4:1 leverage. That’s a fair amount of leverage when you consider how much volatility there can be in the markets underlying these ETFs. Many experienced forex traders don’t go much beyond 10:1 leverage when they trade, and that’s in a lower volatility market (see Looking at Volatility Across Markets)
If you like this post or find it informative, I encourage you to sign-up for the newsletter.
Also subscribe to the blog feed and/or follow via Facebook or Twitter.
About the Author
John Forman, author of this blog, has traded for more than 20 years, is a professional market analyst, and authored The Essentials of Trading. He is an active participant in trading forums, consults for trading related businesses, as published literally dozens of trading articles, and has been quoted in a number of books and in the media.
** See John’s full bio.
Similar Posts:
- New NFA Forex Leverage Limits In Effect Today
Expanding Margin Rates in Silver
New CFTC Rules for Retail Forex Trading
