FXCM issued the following statement to ODL's clients notifying them that their Spread Betting accounts will be moved to FXCM's proprietary Trading Station II platform. FXCM is gradually moving ODL's clients to its own platforms following the much hyped acquisition.
No Re–Quote Spread Betting with Trading Station II
Your ODL Spread Betting account is scheduled to be transitioned to the award-winning Trading Station II (TS2) Trading Platform on 4 June, 2010. To prepare, we suggest that you watch this video to learn about the TS2 and practice placing some spread bets using a demo practice account.
Trading Station II offers No Dealing Desk execution on Forex instruments and No Re-Quote spread betting on Stock Indices, Oil, and Precious Metals. You will need to download and install the TS2 software from our website. Upon transition to the TS2, we will email you a new username. You will fund your account and withdraw by logging into www.myfxcm.com with this new username. The website will be accessible via the TS2.
With the TS2, there will be a few changes to your trading experience.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES:
Download the Trading Station II software: You can quickly and easily download and install the software at this link: Click Here to Download
Close your Bets: Due to quoting and sizing differences, we cannot directly carry over spread bets from one platform to another. Therefore, you must settle all open spread bets prior to your account's transition. All Spread Betting accounts are scheduled to be transitioned during the weekend of June 4. We will be halting trading early on June 4, at 4:30 PM BST. Any positions open at that time will be automatically closed.
Different Spread Bet Sizes: Instead of a "stake-per-point" bet size, the FX Trading Station uses a lot system based on the underlying product. Your stake can vary according to what you are betting on. Profit and loss for FX markets will be denominated in units of the second currency in the FX pair. For example, for GBP v USD bets, profits and losses are in US Dollars. For AUD v JPY, profits and losses are in Japanese yen, and so on. In FX, going long one 10,000 unit lot (the smallest bet size) in EUR v USD is much like taking a 1 US dollar-per-point stake. Going long 1 lot of EUR/GBP would be like taking a 1 pound-per-point stake, and so on. For Commodity and Stock Index markets, profits and losses are denominated in the currency of the underlying market. So going long 1 contract in the UK 100 is like taking a 1 pound-per-point stake. Going long 1 contract of the US30 (or "Wall Street") is like taking a 1-US dollar-per-point stake. All profits and losses are credited to or debited from your account in Sterling, so you do not need to do any conversions. You can see examples in this video: Watch Video
New Margin Requirements†: In many cases, you will have access to more generous margin after the update. For example, trading a 1 lot position (the smallest bet size), the margin requirement for EUR/USD is £50, GBP/USD is £50 and USD/JPY is £40. Additionally, 1 contract of the SPX500 is £75, the UK100 is £60 and USOil (WTI) is £125. VIEW PRODUCT GUIDE
Margin Call Policy Changing: In contrast to you your current policy—where the largest losing trades are closed first—after the upgrade, if Usable Margin ("Usbl Margin" in the Accounts window) drops below zero, an order will trigger to close all open positions automatically. With this policy, your risk is always limited to the balance of your account, since you will never be required to pay a debit balance due to losses from trading.
Please Note: It is important to monitor your Usable Margin closely, making sure it does not fall below zero.
Details are further explained in this video: Watch Video
New Products: Explore Accounts will gain access to nearly forty new currency pairs and five new Stock Indices after the transition. Discover and Frontier accounts will gain access to over twenty new currency pairs and five Indices. VIEW FULL PRODUCT LIST
