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Margin Requirements and Policies

GCI's margin requirements are the most advantageous in the industry:

Standard Forex Account:  $500 per lot on all instruments.  Equivalent to approximately 0.5% margin or 200:1 leverage.

Mini Forex Account: $50 per lot on all instruments.  Equivalent to approximately 0.5% margin or 200:1 leverage.

CFD/Share Account:  2% on individual shares, $50 per lot on indices and other instruments.  Click here for exact margin requirements on each product.

GCI is able to maintain these low margin requirements by enabling automatic liquidation of positions once a margin call is reached.  This policy also provides for the protection of client account balances in the event of rapid price movements. 

A margin call is reached if a client's account equity falls below the required margin.  For example, in a Standard Forex account, if a client has 10 lots of open positions a margin call will occur if account equity drops below $5,000.  At this point, some or all of the client's open positions will be closed immediately at current prices.
 
Traders are also able to monitor both usable margin and used margin in real-time from the "Account Information" window of the online trading platform.  Positions will be automatically closed once usable margin drops below zero. 
 
Walk through an example...
 
GCI encourages clients to avoid margin calls by either using stop loss orders or maintaining adequate funds in the account relative to position size.

More on CFD Margins

Share CFDs are traded in lots that are equivalent in size to 100 shares each.  For example, a trader can purchase 1 lot of a CFD on IBM at $90, for a total position value of $9,000.  The required margin for this trade is $180. Indices, Forex and Commodities are traded in "lots". Please see specifications for further information on contract sizes.

Standard Forex Account Margin Option

Margin requirements for the Standard Forex and Share CFD accounts are set to $500 per lot by default (2% on shares).  With this margin setting, clients pay the daily carry as per the amounts shown in the "Currency Reference Rates"/"Instruments" window of the trading platform, regardless of position direction.  However, clients can choose to have their margin requirements set at $2,000 per lot on non-share products (2% on individual shares), in which case they will pay or receive based on position direction.  In this case, negative amounts shown in the "Currency Reference Rates" window are the amounts that the client will pay, and positive amounts are the amounts that the client will receive.

Mini Forex and CFD/Share Account Margin Option

Margin requirements for the Mini Forex and Mini Share accounts are set to $50 per lot by default (2% on shares).  With this margin setting, clients pay the daily carry as per the amounts shown in the "Currency Reference Rates"/"Instruments" window of the trading platform, regardless of position direction.  However, clients can choose to have their margin requirements set at $200 per lot on non-share products (2% on individual shares), in which case they will pay or receive based on position direction.  In this case, negative amounts shown in the "Currency Reference Rates" window are the amounts that the client will pay, and positive amounts are the amounts that the client will receive.