Hey guys, Newbie prospective trader(UK) here. I have been using the demo account on Trading212 and so far it has been going good. My only issue is, when you open a position, after buying a pair, you start negative since the buy price is always higher than the sell price, right? The thing with Trading212 is that if you're making a loss on your position and it is more than half of your original deposit, they close your position automatically.
This is a pain because when I start to use real money, I plan on depositing £100 so if my position goes beyond -50, they close it - even if I know it will rise up again.
I have noted that sometimes I may be down -230 or -500 on a position but I still end up with a profit since I put a take profit on all of my positions.
Does anyone know any brokers with a very easy to use platform that don't have this issue? I've tried MT4 but I just can't stand the UI. On of the pros of Trading212 is their very beginner-friendly UI. Any help would be appreciated!

I'm a somewhat experienced forex trader but I feel like the advantages of a more tangible/centralized market and volume information are too significant to pass up, so I'm trying to make the switch to trading futures. I have experience charting with Tradingview, so I'm particularly interested in opening an account with AMP and trading through TV, but there seem to be a lot of different fees in futures to consider versus forex, so I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what it would cost me to trade that way.
It's my understanding that if I want to just stick to E-minis, I'd be looking at the $10+1 per month fee for the CME data feed and the commission (plus CQG route fee and exchange fees) per contract per side. Are there any other fees or considerations I'm missing? Is this an adequate setup for trading ES?

The scene: I receive an email from my father. He sent me this link:
https://cayarekylajules.gitlab.io/julescayarek/?placement=silverprice.org&creative=476738494285&campid=11533504265&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu-_F-aH27AIV8QFoCB3HOQY8EAEYASAAEgKq6fD_BwE
This was my response:
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If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If your "investment" strategy seems akin to placing a bet in a casino, then you're not really investing. You're gambling.
The significance of seeing a world government backing a cryptocurrency is high. Presumably it would be a cryptocurrency designed and supported by that country's central bank. Many countries (including Canada) are currently working on such projects.
The catch though is that governments are not interested in careless speculation. They want stability in their national currencies. There are already several cryptocurrencies out there that are designed as "stablecoins," ie. they are designed to try to be pegged to the USD or Euro. So obviously a cryptocurrency that is designed to be pegged to fiat will not see any significant appreciation, save for marching in lockstep with the pegged national currency.
There are still a lot of good uses for digital stable-coins, as opposed to traditional fiat. They would work very similar to current fiat currencies, and their stability would be an asset to certain classes of investors. Currently, they are used when investors/speculators think that other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin are about to drop in price. The traders move their funds out of bitcoin and into the stablecoin, so the value is preserved, and then if the cryptocurrency actually drops in price, they can sell their stablecoin and buy the cryptocurrency again, ending up with a greater quantity of the cryptocurrency than they had when they started.
The thing about cryptocurrencies that concerns me the most is that so few people understand how they work, and for those people, there is a serious risk of losing funds. Does anyone think that it's a good idea for someone with a grade 8 education to have access to a trading account where they can trade margined forex or leveraged derivatives? No. And for a lot of people, a true understanding of the characteristics and value of cryptocurrencies requires a good deal of financial and banking acumen, plus a solid grounding in economics. And perhaps it would help to have some mathematics and coding experience on the side.
Edit: And to be clear, that site is also a scam.

The foreign currency market is the largest of all of the trading markets with an almost unbelievable 5 trillion dollars changing hands each day. Until recently Forex trading was consigned to heavy weight traders and brokers who could afford the high minimum trading amounts required.
However, the recent appeal of trading online has prompted a further development in the foreign exchange boom. Increased leverages are now not just available for the big scale traders but also for the starter and lower volume speculators. Whereas minimum deposits were at one time in the thousands of dollars range now they are in the hundreds. Nowadays, a trader can enter the foreign exchange with little more than a credit card, a Forex trading account and a laptop or PC. The boom has led to a number of brokers entering the market to meet the demand in online trading, but getting a suitable broker out of so many options can be difficult.
Deciding on a Forex broker
Take a look at this list of fundamentals to think about when making your selection of a suitable Forex broker:
Foreign currencies
All Forex brokers provide the "majors" as pairs to trade upon. These principal moneys include the US dollar (USD), the Japanese Yen (JPY) and the British pound (GBP). Further brokerages host platforms that have the alternative to exchange lesser known moneys. The more sluggish Forex currencies or"exotics" encounter even more volatility as opposed to the "majors" which can provide intriguing trading options. If you are planning on trading on one of the weaker, "exotic" currencies make sure that it on the list of currencies to invest with on your broker of choice's platform. In short make sure that you work with currencies that you have an interest in.
Trades
A lot of currency brokerages have reduced their minimum deposits to as low as $100. Higher leverage sums which were formerly only made accessible for expert traders are currently on hand for the lower end traders. The good thing about this is that with a 50:1 leverage, on a trading account of $1,000 the user can now sustain a place of $50,000. Be careful to remember, however, that leverage is a sort of financial loan, whilst the strength of your account is markedly increased the potential sum to be lost is also boosted.
Regulation
Each one of the leading Forex firms will have made sure that they are listed by one or more of the main regulatory authorities. For a user to observe that a company is fully regulated shows that the brokerage service is a serious operation devoted to fair market procedures. Signing up for membership with an unregulated broker is not advised, even more so with such a wide choice of regulated brokers out there..
Minimum amounts for deposit
Every broker will designate a minimum deposit amount prior to the start of trading. Smaller deposit amounts can be put down using beginner or low volume trading accounts whereas the high roller accounts require higher minimums to begin. As there are such larger numbers of brokers operating the initial deposit amounts can play a significant role as each company pushes for your custom by trying to out compete rival companies with more tempting welcome offers. You will notice that it can be to your gain if you browse a little.
Commissions and Spreads
Forex brokerages profit though commissions and spreads. The broker's commission can either be set on a per transaction basis or over a set of transactions. The spread refers to the amount between the actual and the bidding prices of a currency or currency pair. Usually the spread is comes in at around 3-5 pips.
Margins
It is not unconventional for a broker to require that you fund your account with an advanced amount of capital to counter balance any potential losses that may be experienced. This advanced amount is known as a margin or margin requirement. Be sure that the conditions of the margin requirement are suited to your degree of trading.
Trading Platforms
The most widespread platform in the online Forex market is the Meta trading platform. It is very reliable and can be accessed both on your computer and your mobile device. Some brokers use their own proprietary trading platform as well so it is advisable to take the time to find out how trusted it is and whether there are any interruptions between messaging between their platform and the actual foreign exchange.
Support
See if you can get as much information as possible about the level of support available with a broker. Good indicators of a broker's level of service can include the trading education materials they have and if there is a live chat option. Together with this, many top companies display documentation, tutorials and eBooks to educate you on how to improve your chances of achieving profitable returns and cutting down minimising the risks.
Forex trading involves risks. You can minimise the risks by researching your broker and testing out your trading strategy thoroughly.

Disclaimer: This DD is to help start forming a market view as per RBI announcements. Also a gentle reminder that fundamentals play out over a longer time frame than intraday. The authors take no responsiblity for your yolos.
With contributions by Asli Bakchodi, Bran OP & dragononweed!
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What is the RBI?
RBI is the central bank of India. They are one of the key players who affect India’s economic trajectory. They control currency supply, banking rules and more. This means that it is not a bank in which retailers or corporates can open an account with. Instead they are a bank for bankers and the Government of India.
Their functions can be broadly classified into 6.
· Monetary authority
· Financial supervisor for financial system
· Issuer of currency
· Manages Foreign exchange
· Bankers bank
· Banker to the government
This DD will take a look at each of these functions. It will be followed by a list of rates the RBI sets, and how changes in them can affect the market.
1. Monetary Authority
One of RBI’s functions is to achieve the goal of “Price Stability” in the economy. This essentially means achieving an inflation rate that is within a desired limit.
A monetary policy committee (MPC) decides on the desired inflation rate and its limits through majority vote of its 6 members, in consultation with the GoI.
The current inflation target for RBI is as follows
Consumer Price Inflation (CPI): 4%
Upper Limit: 6%
Lower Limit: 2%
An increase in CPI means less purchasing power. Generally speaking, if inflation is too high, the public starts cutting down on spending, leading to a negative impact on the markets. And vice versa. Lower inflation leads to more purchasing power, more spending, more investments leading to a positive impact on the market.
2. Financial Supervisor For Financial System
A financial system consists of financial markets (Capital market, money market, forex market etc.), financial institutions (banks, stock exchanges, NBFC etc) & financial assets (currencies, bills, bonds etc)
RBI supervises this entire system and lays down the rules and regulations for it. It can also use further ‘Selective Credit Controls’ to regulate banks.
3. Issues of currency
The RBI is responsible for the printing of currency notes. RBI is free to print as much as it wants as long as the minimum reserve of Rs 200 Cr (Gold 112 Cr) is maintained. The RBI has total assets or a balance size sheet of Rs. 51 trillion (April 2020). (1 Trillion = 1 Lakh crore)
India’s current reserves mean our increase in currency circulation is well managed.
4. Manages Foreign Exchange
RBI regulates all of India’s foreign exchange transactions. It is the custodian of all of foreign currencies in India. It allows for the foreign exchange value of the rupee to be controlled. RBI also buy and sell rupees in the foreign exchange market at its discretion.
In case of any currency movement, a country’s central bank can directly intervene to either push the currency up, as India has been doing, or to keep it artificially low, as the Chinese central bank does. To push up a currency, a central bank can sell dollars, which is the global reserve currency, or the currency against which all others are measured. To push down a currency, a central bank can buy dollars.
The RBI deciding this depends on the import/export and financial health of the country. Generally a weaker rupee means imports are more expensive, but are favourable for exports. And a stronger rupee means imports are cheaper but are unfavourable for exports.
A weaker rupee can make foreign investment more lucrative driving up FII. A stronger rupee can have an adverse effect of FII investing in markets.
5. Banker’s Bank
Every bank has to maintain a certain amount of reserve with the RBI. A certain percentage of a bank’s liabilities (anywhere between 3-15% as decided by RBI) has to be maintained in this account. This is called the Cash Reserve Ratio. This is determined by the MPC during the monetary policy review (which happens every six weeks at present).
It lends money from this reserve to other banks if they are short on cash, but generally, it is seen as a last resort move. Banks are encouraged to meet their shortfalls of cash from other resources.
6. Banker to the government
RBI is the entity that carries out ALL monetary transactions on behalf of the Government. It holds custody of the cash balance of the Government, gives temporary loans to both central and state governments and manages the debt operations of the central Government, through instruments of debt and the interest rates associated with them - like bonds.
The different rates set & managed by RBI
- Repo rate
The rate at which RBI is willing to lend to commercial banks is called as Repo Rate.
Banks sometimes need money for emergency or to maintain the SLR and CRR (explained below). They borrow this from RBI but have to pay some interest on it. The interest that is to be paid on the amount to the RBI is called as Repo Rate.
It does not function like a normal loan but acts like a forward contract. Banks have to provide collateral like government bonds, T-bills etc. Repo means Repurchase Option is the true meaning of Repo an agreement where the bank promises to repurchase these government securities after the repo period is over.
As a tool to control inflation, RBI increases the Repo Rate making it more expensive for banks to borrow from the RBI with a view to restrict availability of money. Exact opposite stance shall be taken in case of deflationary environment.
The change of repo rate is aimed to affect the flow of money in the economy. An increase in repo rate decreases the flow of money in the economy, while the decrease in repo rate increases the flow of money in the economy. RBI by changing these rates shows its stance to the economy at large whether they prioritize growth or inflation.
- Reverse Repo Rate
The rate at which the RBI is willing to borrow from the Banks is called as Reverse Repo Rate. If the RBI increases the reverse repo rate, it means that the RBI is willing to offer lucrative interest rate to banks to park their money with the RBI. Banks in this case agree to resell government securities after reverse repo period.
Generally, an increase in reverse repo rate that banks will have a higher incentive to park their money with RBI. It decreases liquidity, affecting the market in a negative manner. Decrease in reverse repo rate increases liquidity affecting the market in a positive manner.
Both the repo rate and reverse repo rate fall under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility tools for RBI.
- Cash reserve ratio (CRR)
Banks in India are required to deposit a specific percentage of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) in the form of CASH with the RBI. This minimum ratio (that is the part of the total deposits to be held as cash) is stipulated by the RBI and is known as the CRR or Cash Reserve Ratio. These reserves will not be in circulation at any point in time.
For example, if a bank had a NDTL (like current Account, Savings Account and Fixed Deposits) of 100Cr and the CRR is at 3%, it would have to keep 3Cr as Cash reserve ratio to the RBI. This amount earns no interest.
Currently it is at 3%. A lower cash ratio means banks can deposit just a lower amount and use the remaining money leading to higher liquidity. This translates to more money to invest which is seen as positive for the market. Inversely, a higher cash ratio equates to lower liquidity which translates to a negative market sentiment.
Thus, the RBI uses the CRR to control excess money flow and regulate liquidity in the economy.
- Statutory liquidity ratio (SLR)
Banks in India have to keep a certain percentage of their net demand and time liabilities WITH THEMSELVES. And this can be in the form of liquid assets like gold and government securities, not just cash. A lot of banks keep them in government bonds as they give a decent interest.
The current SLR ratio of 18.25%, which means that for every Rs.100 deposited in a bank, it has to invest Rs.18.50 in any of the asset classes approved by RBI.
A low SLR means higher levels of loans to the private sector. This boosts investment and acts as a positive sentiment for the market. Conversely a high SLR means tighter levels of credit and can cause a negative effect on the market.
Essentially, the RBI uses the SLR to control ease of credit in the economy. It also ensures that the banks maintain a certain level of funds to meet depositor’s demands instead of over liquidation.
- Bank Rate
Bank rate is a rate at which the Reserve Bank of India provides the loan to commercial banks without keeping any security. There is no agreement on repurchase that will be drawn up or agreed upon with no collateral as well. This is different from repo rate as loans taken with repo rate are taken on the basis of securities. Bank rate hence is higher than the repo rate.
Currently the bank rate is 4.25%. Since bank rate is essentially a loan interest rate like repo rate, it affects the market in similar ways.
- Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR)
This is the minimum rate below which the banks are not allowed to lend. Raising this rate, makes loans more expensive, drying up liquidity, affecting the market in a negative way. Similarly, lower MCLR rates will bring in high liquidity, affecting the market in a positive way.
MCLR is a varying lending rate instead of a single rate according to the kind of loans. Currently, the MCLR rate is between 6.65% - 7.15%
- Marginal Standing facility
Marginal Standing Facility is the interest rate at which a depository institution (generally banks) lends or borrows funds with another depository institution in the overnight market. Overnight market is the part of financial market which offers the shortest term loans. These loans have to be repaid the next day.
MSF can be used by a bank after it exhausts its eligible security holdings for borrowing under other options like the Liquidity adjustment facilities.
The MSF would be a penal rate for banks and the banks can borrow funds by pledging government securities within the limits of the statutory liquidity ratio.
The current rate stands at 4.25%. The effect it has on the market is synonymous with the other lending rates such as repo rate & bank rate.
- Loan to value ratio
The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is an assessment of lending risk that financial institutions and other lenders examine before approving a mortgage. Typically, loan assessments with high LTV ratios are considered higher risk loans.
Basically, if a companies preferred form of collateral rises in value and leads the market (growing faster than the market), then the company will see the loans that it signed with higher LTV suddenly reduce (but the interest rate remains the same).
Let’s consider an example of gold as a collateral. Consider a loan was approved with gold as collateral. The market price for gold is Rs 2000/g, and for each g, a loan of Rs 1500 was given. (The numbers are simplified for understanding). This would put LTV of the loan at 1500/2000 = 0.75. Since it is a substantial LTV, say the company priced the loan at 20% interest rate.
Now the next year, the price of gold rose to Rs 3000/kg. This would mean that the LTV of the current loan has changed to 0.5 but the company is not obligated to change the interest rate. This means that even if the company sees a lot of defaults, it is fairly protected by the unexpected surge in the underlying asset. Moreover, since the underlying asset is more valuable, default rates for the loans goes down as people are more protective of the collateral they have placed.
The same scenario for gold is happening right now and is the reason for gold backed loan providers like MUTHOOT to hit ATHs as gold is leading the economy right now. Also, these in these scenarios, it also enables companies to offer additional loan on same gold for those who are interested Instead of keeping the loan amount same most of the gold loan companies.
Based on above, we can see that as RBI changes LTV for certain assets, we are in a position to identify potential institutions that could get a good Quarterly result and try to enter it early.
Conclusion
The above rates contain the ways in the Central Bank manages the monetary policy, growth and inflation in the country.
Its impact on Stock market is often seen when these rates are changed, they act as triggers for the intraday positions on that day. But overall, the outlook is always maintained on how the RBI sees the country is doing, and knee jerk reactions are limited to intraday positions. The long term stance is always well within the limits of the outlook the big players in the market are expecting.
The important thing to keep in mind is that the problems facing the economy needn’t be uni-dimensional. Problems with inflation, growth, liquidity, currency depreciation all can come together, for which the RBI will have to play a balancing role with all it powers to change these rates and the forex reserve. So the effect on the market needs to be given more thought than simply extrapolated as ‘rates go low, markets go up’.
But understanding these individual effects of these rates allows you to start putting together the puzzle of how and where the market and the economy could go.

Rec'd this message yesterday. Saw some other posts asking about how to trade the election. This is something to keep in mind for those who refuse to use stops or close losing trades becasuse 'its coming back'.
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"In preparation for the upcoming U.S. election, TD Ameritrade Futures & Forex LLC wants to inform you of the potential for increased volatility and reduced liquidity that may result. While we expect the forex market to function as normal, the possibility for increased volatility across all forex currency pairs may cause spreads to widen and affect your ability to execute orders. At this time, we are not increasing margin requirements. However, we reserve the right to increase the margin requirement on any forex pair at any time without notice."...." Sincerely, TD Ameritrade Futures & Forex LLC"

The new CFD caps on leverage are a bit confusing. Will it become more difficult to grow your forex account if it’s gone from 1:300 to 1:30 leverage ? I know margin requirements will shoot up and the bar of entry into the industry with it.
Placing multiple trades will become difficult with a smaller account, likewise techniques such as stacking. Am I overreacting ?

Hello everyone,
I’m a new person trying to understand forex leveraging, especially on MetaTrader4.
I downloaded MetaTrader4 and set up a demo account with CDG Global.
I looked up what leverage meant and i understood it means that is the ability to control large amount of money without using your own and borrowing the rest from your brokers. The articles were using examples of 500:1 or 100:1.
I understood that if i controlled $100,000 with a $1,000. I would have a leverage of 100:1
On my demo account, i only see leverages of 1:1 all the way up to 1:500. So the examples kind of confused me because they didn’t use the same ratios as i saw on my demo account.
Do they mean the same thing? Or do I have to go online with real money in order to see the leverages that are 500:1 or 100:1 ?

Factset: How You can Invest in Hedge Funds’ Biggest Investment
Tl;dr FactSet is the most undervalued widespread SaaS/IT solution stock that exists
If any of you have relevant experience or are friends with people in Investment Banking/other high finance, you know that Factset is the lifeblood of their financial analysis toolkit if and when it’s not Bloomberg, which isn’t even publicly traded. Factset has been around since 1978 and it’s considered a staple like Bloomberg in many wealth management firms, and it offers some of the easiest to access and understandable financial data so many newer firms focused less on trading are switching to Factset because it has a lot of the same data Bloomberg offers for half the cost. When it comes to modern financial data, Factset outcompetes Reuters and arguably Bloomberg as well due to their API services which makes Factset much more preferable for quantitative divisions of banks/hedge funds as API integration with Python/R is the most important factor for vast data lakes of financial data, this suggests Factset will be much more prepared for programming making its way into traditional finance fields. According to Factset, their mission for data delivery is to: “Integrate the data you need with your applications, web portals, and statistical packages. Whether you need market, company, or alternative data, FactSet flexible data delivery services give you normalized data through APIs and a direct delivery of local copies of standard data feeds. Our unique symbology links and aggregates a variety of content sources to ensure consistency, transparency, and data integrity across your business. Build financial models and power customized applications with FactSet APIs in our developer portal”. Their technical focus for their data delivery system alone should make it stand out compared to Bloomberg, whose UI is far more outdated and complex on top of not being as technically developed as Factset’s. Factset is the key provider of buy-side portfolio analysis for IBs, Hedge funds, and Private Equity firms, and it’s making its way into non-quantitative hedge funds as well because quantitative portfolio management makes automation of risk management and the application of portfolio theory so much easier, and to top it off, Factset’s scenario analysis and simulation is unique in its class. Factset also is able to automate trades based on individual manager risk tolerance and ML optimization for Forex trading as well. Not only does Factset provide solutions for financial companies, they are branching out to all corporations now and providing quantitative analytics for them in the areas of “corporate development, M&A, strategy, treasury, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations workflows”. Factset will eventually in my opinion reach out to Insurance Risk Management a lot more in the future as that’s a huge industry which has yet to see much automation of risk management yet, and with the field wide open, Factset will be the first to take advantage without a shadow of a doubt. So let’s dig into the company’s financials now:
Their latest 8k filing reported the following:
Revenue increased 2.6%, or $9.6 million, to $374.1 million compared with $364.5 million for the same period in fiscal 2019. The increase is primarily due to higher sales of analytics, content and technology solutions (CTS) and wealth management solutions.
Annual Subscription Value (ASV) plus professional services was $1.52 billion at May 31, 2020, compared with $1.45 billion at May 31, 2019. The organic growth rate, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions, and foreign currency movements, was 5.0%. The primary contributors to this growth rate were higher sales in FactSet's wealth and research workflow solutions and a price increase in the Company's international region
Adjusted operating margin improved to 35.5% compared with 34.0% in the prior year period primarily as a result of reduced employee-related operating expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 11.0% to $2.63 compared with $2.37 for the same period in fiscal 2019.
Adjusted diluted EPS rose 9.2% to $2.86 compared with $2.62 in the prior year period primarily driven by an improvement in operating results.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the third quarter decreased to 15.0% compared with 18.6% a year ago, primarily due to an income tax expense in the prior year related to finalizing the Company's tax returns with no similar event for the three months ended May 31, 2020.
FactSet increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 per share or 7% to $0.77 marking the fifteenth consecutive year the Company has increased dividends, highlighting its continued commitment to returning value to shareholders.
As you can see, there’s not much of a negative sign in sight here.
It makes sense considering how FactSet’s FCF has never slowed down:
https://preview.redd.it/frmtdk8e9hk51.png?width=276&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c0ff12539e0b2f9dbfda13d0565c5ce2b6f8f1a
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https://preview.redd.it/6axdb6lh9hk51.png?width=593&format=png&auto=webp&s=9af1673272a5a2d8df28f60f4707e948a00e5ff1
FactSet’s annual subscriptions and professional services have made its way to foreign and developing markets, and many of them are opting for FactSet’s cheaper services to reduce costs and still get copious amounts of data and models to work with.
Here’s what FactSet had to say regarding its competitive position within the market of providing financial data in its last 10k: “Despite competing products and services, we enjoy high barriers to entry and believe it would be difficult for another vendor to quickly replicate the extensive databases we currently offer. Through our in-depth analytics and client service, we believe we can offer clients a more comprehensive solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop or mobile user interface or through a standardized or bespoke data feed.” And FactSet is confident that their ML services cannot be replaced by anybody else in the industry either: “In addition, our applications, including our client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities offered. We are entrusted with significant amounts of our clients' own proprietary data, including portfolio holdings. As a result, our products have become central to our clients’ investment analysis and decision-making.” (https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fds#link_fullReport), if you read the full report and compare it to the most recent 8K, you’ll find that the real expenses this quarter were far lower than expected by the last 10k as there was a lower than expected tax rate and a 3% increase in expected operating margin from the expected figure as well. The company also reports a 90% customer retention rate over 15 years, so you know that they’re not lying when they say the clients need them for all sorts of financial data whether it’s for M&A or wealth management and Equity analysis:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/factset.asp
https://preview.redd.it/yo71y6qj9hk51.png?width=355&format=png&auto=webp&s=a9414bdaa03c06114ca052304a26fae2773c3e45
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FactSet also has remarkably good cash conversion considering it’s a subscription based company, a company structure which usually takes on too much leverage. Speaking of leverage, FDS had taken on a lot of leverage in 2015:
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https://preview.redd.it/oxaa1wel9hk51.png?width=443&format=png&auto=webp&s=13d60d2518980360c403364f7150392ab83d07d7
So what’s that about? Why were FactSet’s long term debts at 0 and all of a sudden why’d the spike up? Well usually for a company that’s non-cyclical and has a well-established product (like FactSet) leverage can actually be good at amplifying returns, so FDS used this to their advantage and this was able to help the share’s price during 2015. Also, as you can see debt/ebitda is beginning a rapid decline anyway. This only adds to my theory that FactSet is trying to expand into new playing fields. FactSet obviously didn’t need the leverage to cover their normal costs, because they have always had consistently growing margins and revenue so the debt financing was only for the sake of financing growth. And this debt can be considered covered and paid off, considering the net income growth of 32% between 2018 and 2019 alone and the EPS growth of 33%
https://preview.redd.it/e4trju3p9hk51.png?width=387&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f6bee15f836c47e73121054ec60459f147d353e
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EBITDA has virtually been exponential for FactSet for a while because of the bang-for-buck for their well-known product, but now as FactSet ventures into algorithmic trading and corporate development the scope for growth is broadly expanded.
https://preview.redd.it/yl7f58tr9hk51.png?width=489&format=png&auto=webp&s=68906b9ecbcf6d886393c4ff40f81bdecab9e9fd
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P/E has declined in the past 2 years, making it a great time to buy.
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https://preview.redd.it/4mqw3t4t9hk51.png?width=445&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8d719f4913883b044c4150f11b8732e14797b6d
Increasing ROE despite lowering of leverage post 2016
https://preview.redd.it/lt34avzu9hk51.png?width=441&format=png&auto=webp&s=f3742ed87cd1c2ccb7a3d3ee71ae8c7007313b2b
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Mountains of cash have been piling up in the coffers increasing chances of increased dividends for shareholders (imo dividend is too low right now, but increasing it will tempt more investors into it), and on top of that in the last 10k a large buyback expansion program was implemented for $210m worth of shares, which shows how confident they are in the company itself.
https://preview.redd.it/fliirmpx9hk51.png?width=370&format=png&auto=webp&s=1216eddeadb4f84c8f4f48692a2f962ba2f1e848
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SGA expense/Gross profit has been declining despite expansion of offices
I’m a bit concerned about the skin in the game leadership has in this company, since very few executives/board members have significant holdings in the company, but the CEO himself is a FactSet veteran, and knows his way around the company. On top of that, Bloomberg remains king for trading and the fixed income security market, and Reuters beats out FactSet here as well. If FactSet really wants to increase cash flow sources, the expansion into insurance and corp dev has to be successful.
Summary: FactSet has a lot of growth still left in its industry which is already fast-growing in and of itself, and it only has more potential at its current valuation. Earnings September 24th should be a massive beat due to investment banking demand and growth plus Hedge fund requirements for data and portfolio management hasn’t gone anywhere and has likely increased due to more market opportunities to buy-in.
Calls have shitty greeks, but if you're ballsy October 450s LOL, I'm holding shares
I’d say it’s a great long term investment, and it should at least be on your watchlist.

Today’s lesson goes to be somewhat controversial and should ruffle some feathers. I shall blow wide open and debunk tons of the knowledge you've got presumably been exposed to the present far in your trading journey.
The average trader is out there walking through a confusing and conflicting maze of data from a spread of sources including; blogs, forums, broker websites, books, e-books, courses and YouTube videos.
With of these learning resources available there's naturally getting to be some excellent and a few very bad information, but actually , there just isn’t how for many aspiring traders to understand what to concentrate to, who to concentrate to, or what information is useful and what information is non-beneficial.
I’m not getting to pretend that there's how for an aspiring trader to filter this giant sea of data composed by of these resources and mentors out there, because there simply isn’t. knowledgeable trader with 10,000 hours of experience might stand an opportunity of deciding the great from the bad and therefore the valid from the invalid. However, you, the beginner or intermediate trader simply won’t possess that filtering ability yet.
Becoming ‘Non-Average’
As traders, we concede to our instinctive feelings of social trustworthiness supported what we see and listen to , often to our extreme detriment. we frequently tend to require a leap of religion with our mentors and have a habit of taking things said to us at face value. we would like to hold close information that resonates with us and is sensible to us, especially if it’s delivered by a well-known source that we've come to understand and trust.
The ‘average trader’s brain’ is usually trying to find a shortcut due to the overwhelming desire to form money and be free. The brain wants to urge a winning result immediately with the smallest amount amount of effort possible. If you would like to ever make it as a professional trader or investor, I suggest you are doing everything you'll to avoid thinking with the ‘average trader’s brain‘ and begin being ‘non-average’. meaning becoming far more aware, thinking outside the box more and questioning and filtering the knowledge you read and watch. most significantly , slowing everything all down!
This now begs the apparent question…how does one even know what I’m close to write during this lesson is actually valid and factual? How are you able to really be sure? the reality is unless you've got followed me and my posts on this blog for an extended time and know me and know my work, then you can’t really make certain , and that i don’t expect you to easily believe it at face value. If you would like to return back and re-read this lesson during a few weeks, or a couple of months, or a couple of years, after you work out that i'm somebody worth taking note of about trading OR that i'm somebody not worth taking note of about trading, then so be it.
So with a degree of healthy skepticism, I ask you to think about the below list of eye-opening secrets that professional traders and therefore the trading industry, don’t want you to understand about or understand. I hope it helps…
Visit : توصيات الذهب اليوم
FOREX isn’t the sole market the Professionals trade
The FX market is large , with billions of dollars per day changing hands. It can cause you to great money if you recognize what you’re doing OR it can send you broke if you don’t. It’s a really popular market to trade globally, BUT it’s not the sole market the professional’s trade and it’s not always the simplest market to trade either.
A note on leverage:
The brokers and platform providers want you to trade FX on high leverage because the profit margins are very high for them. However, if you trade FX on lower leverage, the profit margins shrink dramatically for them. once you trade FX, start brooding about what can fail rather than just brooding about what can go right. I suggest avoiding stupidly high leverage like 400 to 1, as this will be very dangerous for you if the market moves quickly or experiences a price gap and your stop-loss orders aren’t executed at the worth you set. A more sensible leverage level would be 100 to 1 or 200 to 1, but any higher seems crazy. (Using an excessive amount of leverage is what wiped tons of traders out during Swiss Bank Crisis in 2015, The Brexit choose 2016 and therefore the Currency flash crash in early 2019).
Broaden your view:
Going forward, it'll serve you well in your trading career to start out watching a spread of worldwide markets including FX, Stock Indicies and Commodities. additionally to FX, I personally trade GOLD (XAUUSD), S&P500 Index USA, the SPI200 Index Australia, and therefore the Hang Seng Index Hong Kong , and sometimes individual stocks on various global exchanges. In short, there's more to the trading world than simply FX. I discuss the foremost popular markets I trade this lesson here.
Day trading isn’t what Pro trading really is
The internet is crammed with marketing trying to convince folks that the definition of a trader may be a one that spends all day actively trading in and out of the market on a brief term basis, all whilst living the life-style of a Wall St millionaire. there's a significant agenda within the industry to push this story to the masses, it's been relentless for many years .
I am yet to satisfy one successful day trader who is consistent over the future and that i have almost 25,000 students and 250,000 readers on this blog. i'm not saying there isn’t a couple of out there, but 99.9% of the people that do this sort of trading or attempt to live up to the standard day trader stereotype are getting to fail and perhaps even harm themselves financially or mentally. Watching a screen all day and searching for trades constantly is that the like a compulsive gambler playing roulette during a casino.
The successful traders i do know of (myself included) are watching higher time frames and longer time horizons (minimum 4-hour chart timeframes and predominantly daily chart time frames). they need no restriction on how long they're looking to carry a trade for and that they tend to let the trades find them. The professionals i do know , don't day trade, they are doing not watch screens all day, they are doing not search for trades constantly. they're going to typically fall under the category of a swing trader, trend trader or position trader.
The obvious paradox and conflicting reality within the ‘day trader story’ is blatantly obvious. How does a trader who is consistently watching a screen and constantly trading have time to enjoy his life and live the lifestyle? They chose to trade as a profession to possess a life, they didn’t choose it to observe a screen 24/5.
Here are some points to think about that employment against the so-called ‘ day trader’:
The shorter the time-frame the more noise and random price movement there's , thus increasing your chance of simply being stopped out of the trade.
Your ‘trading edge’ features a higher chance of yielding a result for you if you’re not trading within the intraday noise.
The same trading edge doesn't work or produce an equivalent results on a 5 min chart compared to a Daily chart.
Commissions and spreads churn your account, therefore the more you trade the more you lose in broker platform costs. (I will mention this below)
Risk-Reward ratios aren't relative on shorter and longer time frames. Statistical average volatility across different time periods also as natural market dynamics play an enormous role during this . there's much more weight behind higher time frames than lower timeframes.
Great trades take time because the market moves slower than most of the people ever anticipate. Trading from the upper timeframes and holding trades for extended time periods will provide you with greater opportunities to ascertain trades mature into big winners. However, shorter timeframes don’t provide you with this same opportunity fairly often .

Hello, dummies
It's your old pal, Fuzzy.
As I'm sure you've all noticed, a lot of the stuff that gets posted here is - to put it delicately - fucking ridiculous. More backwards-ass shit gets posted to wallstreetbets than you'd see on a Westboro Baptist community message board. I mean, I had a look at the daily thread yesterday and..... yeesh. I know, I know. We all make like the divine Laura Dern circa 1992 on the daily and stick our hands deep into this steaming heap of shit to find the nuggets of valuable and/or hilarious information within (thanks for reading, BTW). I agree. I love it just the way it is too. That's what makes WSB great.
What I'm getting at is that a lot of the stuff that gets posted here - notwithstanding it being funny or interesting - is just... wrong. Like, fucking your cousin wrong. And to be clear, I mean the fucking your *first* cousin kinda wrong, before my Southerners in the back get all het up (simmer down, Billy Ray - I know Mabel's twice removed on your grand-sister's side). Truly, I try to let it slide. I do my bit to try and put you on the right path. Most of the time, I sleep easy no matter how badly I've seen someone explain what a bank liquidity crisis is. But out of all of those tens of thousands of misguided, autistic attempts at understanding the world of high finance, one thing gets so consistently - so *emphatically* - fucked up and misunderstood by you retards that last night I felt obligated at the end of a long work day to pull together this edition of Finance with Fuzzy just for you. It's so serious I'm not even going to make a u/pokimane gag. Have you guessed what it is yet? Here's a clue. It's in the title of the post.
That's right, friends. Today in the neighborhood we're going to talk all about hedging in financial markets - spots, swaps, collars, forwards, CDS, synthetic CDOs, all that fun shit. Don't worry; I'm going to explain what all the scary words mean and how they impact your OTM RH positions along the way.
We're going to break it down like this. (1) "What's a hedge, Fuzzy?" (2) Common Hedging Strategies and (3) All About ISDAs and Credit Default Swaps.
Before we begin. For the nerds and JV traders in the back (and anyone else who needs to hear this up front) - I am simplifying these descriptions for the purposes of this post. I am also obviously not going to try and cover every exotic form of hedge under the sun or give a detailed summation of what caused the financial crisis. If you are interested in something specific ask a question, but don't try and impress me with your Investopedia skills or technical points I didn't cover; I will just be forced to flex my years of IRL experience on you in the comments and you'll look like a big dummy.
TL;DR? Fuck you. There is no TL;DR. You've come this far already. What's a few more paragraphs? Put down the Cheetos and try to concentrate for the next 5-7 minutes. You'll learn something, and I promise I'll be gentle.
Ready? Let's get started.
1. The Tao of Risk: Hedging as a Way of Life
The simplest way to characterize what a hedge 'is' is to imagine every action having a binary outcome. One is bad, one is good. Red lines, green lines; uppie, downie. With me so far? Good. A 'hedge' is simply the employment of a strategy to mitigate the effect of your action having the wrong binary outcome. You wanted X, but you got Z! Frowny face. A hedge strategy introduces a third outcome. If you hedged against the possibility of Z happening, then you can wind up with Y instead. Not as good as X, but not as bad as Z. The technical definition I like to give my idiot juniors is as follows:
Utilization of a defensive strategy to mitigate risk, at a fraction of the cost to capital of the risk itself.
Congratulations. You just finished Hedging 101. "But Fuzzy, that's easy! I just sold a naked call against my 95% OTM put! I'm adequately hedged!". Spoiler alert: you're not (although good work on executing a collar, which I describe below). What I'm talking about here is what would be referred to as a 'perfect hedge'; a binary outcome where downside is totally mitigated by a risk management strategy. That's not how it works IRL. Pay attention; this is the tricky part.
You can't take a single position and conclude that you're adequately hedged because risks are fluid, not static. So you need to constantly adjust your position in order to maximize the value of the hedge and insure your position. You also need to consider exposure to more than one category of risk. There are micro (specific exposure) risks, and macro (trend exposure) risks, and both need to factor into the hedge calculus.
That's why, in the real world, the value of hedging depends entirely on the design of the hedging strategy itself. Here, when we say "value" of the hedge, we're not talking about cash money - we're talking about the intrinsic value of the hedge relative to the the risk profile of your underlying exposure. To achieve this, people hedge dynamically. In wallstreetbets terms, this means that as the value of your position changes, you need to change your hedges too. The idea is to efficiently and continuously distribute and rebalance risk across different states and periods, taking value from states in which the marginal cost of the hedge is low and putting it back into states where marginal cost of the hedge is high, until the shadow value of your underlying exposure is equalized across your positions. The punchline, I guess, is that one static position is a hedge in the same way that the finger paintings you make for your wife's boyfriend are art - it's technically correct, but you're only playing yourself by believing it.
Anyway. Obviously doing this as a small potatoes trader is hard but it's worth taking into account. Enough basic shit. So how does this work in markets?
2. A Hedging Taxonomy
The best place to start here is a practical question. What does a business need to hedge against? Think about the specific risk that an individual business faces. These are legion, so I'm just going to list a few of the key ones that apply to most corporates. (1) You have commodity risk for the shit you buy or the shit you use. (2) You have currency risk for the money you borrow. (3) You have rate risk on the debt you carry. (4) You have offtake risk for the shit you sell. Complicated, right? To help address the many and varied ways that shit can go wrong in a sophisticated market, smart operators like yours truly have devised a whole bundle of different instruments which can help you manage the risk. I might write about some of the more complicated ones in a later post if people are interested (CDO/CLOs, strip/stack hedges and bond swaps with option toggles come to mind) but let's stick to the basics for now.
(i) Swaps
A swap is one of the most common forms of hedge instrument, and they're used by pretty much everyone that can afford them. The language is complicated but the concept isn't, so pay attention and you'll be fine. This is the most important part of this section so it'll be the longest one.
Swaps are derivative contracts with two counterparties (before you ask, you can't trade 'em on an exchange - they're OTC instruments only). They're used to exchange one cash flow for another cash flow of equal expected value; doing this allows you to take speculative positions on certain financial prices or to alter the cash flows of existing assets or liabilities within a business. "Wait, Fuzz; slow down! What do you mean sets of cash flows?". Fear not, little autist. Ol' Fuzz has you covered.
The cash flows I'm talking about are referred to in swap-land as 'legs'. One leg is fixed - a set payment that's the same every time it gets paid - and the other is variable - it fluctuates (typically indexed off the price of the underlying risk that you are speculating on / protecting against). You set it up at the start so that they're notionally equal and the two legs net off; so at open, the swap is a zero NPV instrument. Here's where the fun starts. If the price that you based the variable leg of the swap on changes, the value of the swap will shift; the party on the wrong side of the move ponies up via the variable payment. It's a zero sum game.
I'll give you an example using the most vanilla swap around; an interest rate trade. Here's how it works. You borrow money from a bank, and they charge you a rate of interest. You lock the rate up front, because you're smart like that. But then - quelle surprise! - the rate gets better after you borrow. Now you're bagholding to the tune of, I don't know, 5 bps. Doesn't sound like much but on a billion dollar loan that's a lot of money (a classic example of the kind of 'small, deep hole' that's terrible for profits). Now, if you had a swap contract on the rate before you entered the trade, you're set; if the rate goes down, you get a payment under the swap. If it goes up, whatever payment you're making to the bank is netted off by the fact that you're borrowing at a sub-market rate. Win-win! Or, at least, Lose Less / Lose Less. That's the name of the game in hedging.
There are many different kinds of swaps, some of which are pretty exotic; but they're all different variations on the same theme. If your business has exposure to something which fluctuates in price, you trade swaps to hedge against the fluctuation. The valuation of swaps is also super interesting but I guarantee you that 99% of you won't understand it so I'm not going to try and explain it here although I encourage you to google it if you're interested.
Because they're OTC, none of them are filed publicly. Someeeeeetimes you see an ISDA (dsicussed below) but the confirms themselves (the individual swaps) are not filed. You can usually read about the hedging strategy in a 10-K, though. For what it's worth, most modern credit agreements ban speculative hedging. Top tip: This is occasionally something worth checking in credit agreements when you invest in businesses that are debt issuers - being able to do this increases the risk profile significantly and is particularly important in times of economic volatility (ctrl+f "non-speculative" in the credit agreement to be sure).
(ii) Forwards
A forward is a contract made today for the future delivery of an asset at a pre-agreed price. That's it. "But Fuzzy! That sounds just like a futures contract!". I know. Confusing, right? Just like a futures trade, forwards are generally used in commodity or forex land to protect against price fluctuations. The differences between forwards and futures are small but significant. I'm not going to go into super boring detail because I don't think many of you are commodities traders but it is still an important thing to understand even if you're just an RH jockey, so stick with me.
Just like swaps, forwards are OTC contracts - they're not publicly traded. This is distinct from futures, which are traded on exchanges (see The Ballad Of Big Dick Vick for some more color on this). In a forward, no money changes hands until the maturity date of the contract when delivery and receipt are carried out; price and quantity are locked in from day 1. As you now know having read about BDV, futures are marked to market daily, and normally people close them out with synthetic settlement using an inverse position. They're also liquid, and that makes them easier to unwind or close out in case shit goes sideways.
People use forwards when they absolutely have to get rid of the thing they made (or take delivery of the thing they need). If you're a miner, or a farmer, you use this shit to make sure that at the end of the production cycle, you can get rid of the shit you made (and you won't get fucked by someone taking cash settlement over delivery). If you're a buyer, you use them to guarantee that you'll get whatever the shit is that you'll need at a price agreed in advance. Because they're OTC, you can also exactly tailor them to the requirements of your particular circumstances.
These contracts are incredibly byzantine (and there are even crazier synthetic forwards you can see in money markets for the true degenerate fund managers). In my experience, only Texan oilfield magnates, commodities traders, and the weirdo forex crowd fuck with them. I (i) do not own a 10 gallon hat or a novelty size belt buckle (ii) do not wake up in the middle of the night freaking out about the price of pork fat and (iii) love greenbacks too much to care about other countries' monopoly money, so I don't fuck with them.
(iii) Collars
No, not the kind your wife is encouraging you to wear try out to 'spice things up' in the bedroom during quarantine. Collars are actually the hedging strategy most applicable to WSB. Collars deal with options! Hooray!
To execute a basic collar (also called a wrapper by tea-drinking Brits and people from the Antipodes), you buy an out of the money put while simultaneously writing a covered call on the same equity. The put protects your position against price drops and writing the call produces income that offsets the put premium. Doing this limits your tendies (you can only profit up to the strike price of the call) but also writes down your risk. If you screen large volume trades with a VOL/OI of more than 3 or 4x (and they're not bullshit biotech stocks), you can sometimes see these being constructed in real time as hedge funds protect themselves on their shorts.
(3) All About ISDAs, CDS and Synthetic CDOs
You may have heard about the mythical ISDA. Much like an indenture (discussed in my post on $F), it's a magic legal machine that lets you build swaps via trade confirms with a willing counterparty. They are very complicated legal documents and you need to be a true expert to fuck with them. Fortunately, I am, so I do. They're made of two parts; a Master (which is a form agreement that's always the same) and a Schedule (which amends the Master to include your specific terms). They are also the engine behind just about every major credit crunch of the last 10+ years.
First - a brief explainer. An ISDA is a not in and of itself a hedge - it's an umbrella contract that governs the terms of your swaps, which you use to construct your hedge position. You can trade commodities, forex, rates, whatever, all under the same ISDA.
Let me explain. Remember when we talked about swaps? Right. So. You can trade swaps on just about anything. In the late 90s and early 2000s, people had the smart idea of using other people's debt and or credit ratings as the variable leg of swap documentation. These are called credit default swaps. I was actually starting out at a bank during this time and, I gotta tell you, the only thing I can compare people's enthusiasm for this shit to was that moment in your early teens when you discover jerking off. Except, unlike your bathroom bound shame sessions to Mom's Sears catalogue, every single person you know felt that way too; and they're all doing it at once. It was a fiscal circlejerk of epic proportions, and the financial crisis was the inevitable bukkake finish. WSB autism is absolutely no comparison for the enthusiasm people had during this time for lighting each other's money on fire.
Here's how it works. You pick a company. Any company. Maybe even your own! And then you write a swap. In the swap, you define "Credit Event" with respect to that company's debt as the variable leg . And you write in... whatever you want. A ratings downgrade, default under the docs, failure to meet a leverage ratio or FCCR for a certain testing period... whatever. Now, this started out as a hedge position, just like we discussed above. The purest of intentions, of course. But then people realized - if bad shit happens, you make money. And banks... don't like calling in loans or forcing bankruptcies. Can you smell what the moral hazard is cooking?
Enter synthetic CDOs. CDOs are basically pools of asset backed securities that invest in debt (loans or bonds). They've been around for a minute but they got famous in the 2000s because a shitload of them containing subprime mortgage debt went belly up in 2008. This got a lot of publicity because a lot of sad looking rednecks got foreclosed on and were interviewed on CNBC. "OH!", the people cried. "Look at those big bad bankers buying up subprime loans! They caused this!". Wrong answer, America. The debt wasn't the problem. What a lot of people don't realize is that the real meat of the problem was not in regular way CDOs investing in bundles of shit mortgage debts in synthetic CDOs investing in CDS predicated on that debt. They're synthetic because they don't have a stake in the actual underlying debt; just the instruments riding on the coattails. The reason these are so popular (and remain so) is that smart structured attorneys and bankers like your faithful correspondent realized that an even more profitable and efficient way of building high yield products with limited downside was investing in instruments that profit from failure of debt and in instruments that rely on that debt and then hedging that exposure with other CDS instruments in paired trades, and on and on up the chain. The problem with doing this was that everyone wound up exposed to everybody else's books as a result, and when one went tits up, everybody did. Hence, recession, Basel III, etc. Thanks, Obama.
Heavy investment in CDS can also have a warping effect on the price of debt (something else that happened during the pre-financial crisis years and is starting to happen again now). This happens in three different ways. (1) Investors who previously were long on the debt hedge their position by selling CDS protection on the underlying, putting downward pressure on the debt price. (2) Investors who previously shorted the debt switch to buying CDS protection because the relatively illiquid debt (partic. when its a bond) trades at a discount below par compared to the CDS. The resulting reduction in short selling puts upward pressure on the bond price. (3) The delta in price and actual value of the debt tempts some investors to become NBTs (neg basis traders) who long the debt and purchase CDS protection. If traders can't take leverage, nothing happens to the price of the debt. If basis traders can take leverage (which is nearly always the case because they're holding a hedged position), they can push up or depress the debt price, goosing swap premiums etc. Anyway. Enough technical details.
I could keep going. This is a fascinating topic that is very poorly understood and explained, mainly because the people that caused it all still work on the street and use the same tactics today (it's also terribly taught at business schools because none of the teachers were actually around to see how this played out live). But it relates to the topic of today's lesson, so I thought I'd include it here.
Work depending, I'll be back next week with a covenant breakdown. Most upvoted ticker gets the post.
*EDIT 1\* In a total blowout, $PLAY won. So it's D&B time next week. Post will drop Monday at market open.

Hi, I'm usually a lurker on Reddit but I created this throwaway account to ask for any advice and also warn people of this scam.
I'm 99% sure my uncle fell into what I think is very clearly a Forex scam. Now our family is in deep financial troubles. We will need to liquidate all of our assets (including our home, which we live together) to pay off our debts. How it happened:
About a year ago, my uncle is approached on LinkedIn by a women claiming to know the secrets to Forex trading. She claims to be from Hong Kong and sends him several screenshots of her very successful trade and claims she makes millions and also lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle. She tells my uncle to install a 3rd party version of MetaTrader4 to get started. Of course, this gets his attention and he downloads the app and starts taking her advice and plays with the paper money. He makes some really great gains on paper and eventually she pushes him to put in real money.
He then comes to me at the beginning to ask my opinion of this situation.
So I did some initial research and I could not find ANY information about this woman's company and her existence. She literally has less than 10 connections on LinkedIn. I also noted that it was sketchy to download a 3rd party version of this app when a version of it already exists in the App Store. I also reversed image searched her profile pictures but I wasn't able to get any concrete proof she was a scammer.
I tell him that this is most likely a scam based on what I found and his paper money gains on Forex are incredulous and that even pros don't make that much money (He and I have some retail experience trading equities, so we are familiar with the basics).
I don't want him feeling down so I let him know that if he wants to try it maybe he should put in money that he can afford to lose...
Come about half a year later, my uncle confesses that he has all of his savings and on MARGIN into this "forex broker" and that he has been unable to withdraw any money from his account. Each time he doubles his money through trading, he would make another wire transfer to add money to this trading account.
He also tells me each time he tried withdrawing money, the broker requires a lump sum wire transfer of 100k to ensure the right channels are "secured" for him to transfer the money without being targeted by something among the likes of a Hong Kong Security Law. Of course, he gets convinced to make the wire transfer thinking that the gains he makes from the trades offsets this loss...
I should mention that when he calls the "head trader" at this Hong Kong forex firm, it's a young man who speaks Mandarin..
Also I should mention each wire deposit goes to a different account.
Sorry if my writing and organization isn't the best... honestly I am still so shook from writing this... I've convinced my uncle that he should not expect to get any money back from these guys. Our current financial situation is pretty f**ked as I said earlier and we will lose our homes for this. Do you guys have any advice or paths forward we should take? I'm thinking of taking this to a higher authority in Hong Kong but also we don't want to scare the scammer away. We really don't have anything on this scammer as he communicates with us through WeChat. He never answers our calls, and only calls us when we try to withdraw the money.
I appreciate any advice you guys could give me, and I'll be able to answer any question as I may have missed a couple details..

Hi, I'm usually a lurker on Reddit but I created this throwaway account to ask for any advice and also warn people of this scam.
I'm 99% sure my uncle fell into what I think is very clearly a Forex scam. Now our family is in deep financial troubles. We will need to liquidate all of our assets (including our home, which we live together) to pay off our debts. How it happened:
About a year ago, my uncle is approached on LinkedIn by a women claiming to know the secrets to Forex trading. She claims to be from Hong Kong and sends him several screenshots of her very successful trade and claims she makes millions and also lives an incredibly lavish lifestyle. She tells my uncle to install a 3rd party version of MetaTrader4 to get started. Of course, this gets his attention and he downloads the app and starts taking her advice and plays with the paper money. He makes some really great gains on paper and eventually she pushes him to put in real money.
He then comes to me at the beginning to ask my opinion of this situation.
So I did some initial research and I could not find ANY information about this woman's company and her existence. She literally has less than 10 connections on LinkedIn. I also noted that it was sketchy to download a 3rd party version of this app when a version of it already exists in the App Store. I also reversed image searched her profile pictures but I wasn't able to get any concrete proof she was a scammer.
I tell him that this is most likely a scam based on what I found and his paper money gains on Forex are incredulous and that even pros don't make that much money (He and I have some retail experience trading equities, so we are familiar with the basics).
I don't want him feeling down so I let him know that if he wants to try it maybe he should put in money that he can afford to lose...
Come about half a year later, my uncle confesses that he has all of his savings and on MARGIN into this "forex broker" and that he has been unable to withdraw any money from his account. Each time he doubles his money through trading, he would make another wire transfer to add money to this trading account.
He also tells me each time he tried withdrawing money, the broker requires a lump sum wire transfer of 100k to ensure the right channels are "secured" for him to transfer the money without being targeted by something among the likes of a Hong Kong Security Law. Of course, he gets convinced to make the wire transfer thinking that the gains he makes from the trades offsets this loss...
I should mention that when he calls the "head trader" at this Hong Kong forex firm, it's a young man who speaks Mandarin..
Also I should mention each wire deposit goes to a different account.
Sorry if my writing and organization isn't the best... honestly I am still so shook from writing this... I've convinced my uncle that he should not expect to get any money back from these guys. Our current financial situation is pretty f**ked as I said earlier and we will lose our homes for this. Do you guys have any advice or paths forward we should take? I'm thinking of taking this to a higher authority in Hong Kong but also we don't want to scare the scammer away. We really don't have anything on this scammer as he communicates with us through WeChat. He never answers our calls, and only calls us when we try to withdraw the money.
I appreciate any advice you guys could give me, and I'll be able to answer any question as I may have missed a couple details..

Does anyone know if the Broker trading rule that limits your trades applies to Forex trades? The platform i'm using (Forex.com) I think requires margin trading and i don't want to be limited to 3 trades a day.
​
How do i turn off margin and just use my cash?

Now's a good time for to get a lesson in the greeks you fucking retards. This document outlines the relative risks and rewards of certain trading strategies and how to manage risks along with some basic math and econ. This should be basic for most of you.
Why do stocks go up?
Because capital growth has a diminishing returns to scale. In the long run capital is used to create more capital generating growth until it balances with capital depreciation which is linear. You can increase the equilibrium capital accumulation by increasing savings rates essentially trading off short run consumption for long run consumption. The implications of this are that less capital intensive economies grow at faster rates than developed because developed economies are very close to hitting the equilibrium point and have to rely on technological advancements for long run growth. Not every economy is equal though, all have differences in economic institutions, government effectiveness and political norms which will also affect their long run effectiveness. Long story short if the government engages in ineffective policies like protectionism, price manipulation, overly burdensome regulations, underregulation, or inefficient redistribution programs the short run micro/macro picture will be hurt and reflected in the long run picture. The US has had a thriving stock market despite having relatively low growth because it has taken the first mover advantage in many industries. Global Tech, higher education, finance, and pharma are all centered in the US because the US policies have made doing business in the US the optimal choice for these industries. For as long as the US is a capitalist nation you can be sure that the stock market will go up in the long run. This is not necessarily the case for commodities or forex as higher growth has typically led to investments in productive efficiency outweighing increased demand in raw materials and exchange rates do not have a long run trend. Fundamentally, the stock market is a good place to invest savings into in the long run.
Stocks and exponential returns.
Stocks go up so you want to capture the value of price increases. Stocks have a delta of one and a gamma of zero resulting in a linear return to movement of the stock price. Long run capital accumulation, although diminishing, is still exponential and in the long run will return an exponentially increasing return to investment on stock. Linear gains * exponential increase in underlying = exponential gains. But what if things go down? In the short run stocks decrease in value at exponential rates which is absolutely fantastic for investors because exponential declines are diminishing in scale. 10% of 100 is 10, 10% of 90 is 9, 10% of 81 is less and so on and so forth. You may get linear returns from movement but you receive increasing returns to scale gains on the upside and decreasing returns to scale losses on the downside.
Delta and Gamma
Long options have even better fundamentals than stocks because they amplify the exponentiality through gamma. As an option moves into the money its delta increases creating exponential gains in value. As an option moves out of the money delta decreases, lowering losses. Thus options while having more risk per dollar than stocks have far superior risk returns in the short run.
Theta and Vega
The opposite is true of selling a call and you're put into the position of wanting to sell when times are most dire and hold when times are good. In exchange you get benefit from theta decay but if you can reasonably predict the movement of the market that's pretty much nothing compared to the gains from delta you could get investing the same amount of money into long calls. Selling also requires way more money further reducing its risk to return. But what about vega? When markets crash, volatility skyrockets. Long calls gain and the opposite is true once again for selling them.
Mathematically, buying longs has the best return on risk of any option strategy but higher absolute losses when delta doesn't move in your favor. Selling longs or spreads has a way worse return to risk but you'll lose less money when delta moves against you and it's harder for any one position to lose all of its value.
Theta gang isn't more profitable than bullgang, it's less risky per dollar spent. The reason market makers don't play like WSB retards is because they play on margin and the 20-30% losses we typically take and make back buying longs would cause their investors to flee bankrupting them.
Strategy implications
Longs

• If you can reasonably predict positive price movement these should be your go to position to capture delta and gamma. Otm has better delta to price but comes at the cost of worse theta to price. I recommend getting slightly OTM options to balance collecting gamma with exposure to theta risk.
• Optimal position size: The total size of spy correlated longs should not exceed 25-50% of your account balance. Only double down on a losing position if your longs get blown up. Your risk return from delta gets better the more blown up your contracts get and exponential gains can bring you back to green.
• When to sell? Sell when you think there's a chance risk from theta or vega might outweigh delta gains. Also sell when the underlying moves against you but that should be obvious. Delta goes up the more you go into the money so its better to hold winners than profit take early when possible.
• Profit taking: If you don't want bail from a position completely when you profit take consider selling a call to lock in most of your profits while retaining some delta risk with a debt spread.
• You will take losses buying tons of longs but if you do it right your winners will outweigh your losers easily.

Selling naked longs

• If you're doing wheel, go for it. Selling naked longs shouldn't be done otherwise unless you want to park your cash somewhere and bond yields are too long for your liking or you anticipate a IV decrease. The tradeoff is receiving gains from theta, smaller delta per dollar spent(lower risk) and less options leverage.

Credit spreads

• For all intents and purposes OTM credit spreads are like selling naked with more leverage.
• Edit: The prior statement was kinda wrong. Selling a wide credit spread is like selling a long. There's still a tradeoff with reduced gains from theta and reduced delta.

Debit spreads

• When deciding between debt or credit make a prediction about whether IV will increase or decrease and whether you want risk up front or later.
• Absolutely do not buy OTM debit spreads in any situation where you wouldn't buy the same position as a credit spread. Compared to a long call you're reducing your delta and vega in exchange for the possibility of theta gains as you reach the short leg of your spread. If you actually managed to reach the short leg of your debt spread before expiration a long call would have made many times more money and now you're stuck sitting on your debt spread waiting for theta to decay it to its maximum value at expiration. Every youtube resource I've seen on debt spread pricing is wrong, if your spread goes completely in the money you will not have something worth max value, you will have something that decays towards max value akin to a close to the money credit spread.
• The best usage for OTM debt spreads is as hedges where you think the price will reach a certain point at some specific point in the future and you're worried about adverse movements in delta or IV between now and then.

Edit: For what to do with your cash position, you could put it into gold, bonds, bond etfs, non spy correlated stocks or whatever. Low risk theta gang strats are fine in bull markets but don't expect to make real money from them. I'm cash since volatility is high, u do u.

Factset: How You can Invest in Hedge Funds’ Biggest Investment
Tl;dr FactSet is the most undervalued widespread SaaS/IT solution stock that exists
If any of you have relevant experience or are friends with people in Investment Banking/other high finance, you know that Factset is the lifeblood of their financial analysis toolkit if and when it’s not Bloomberg, which isn’t even publicly traded. Factset has been around since 1978 and it’s considered a staple like Bloomberg in many wealth management firms, and it offers some of the easiest to access and understandable financial data so many newer firms focused less on trading are switching to Factset because it has a lot of the same data Bloomberg offers for half the cost. When it comes to modern financial data, Factset outcompetes Reuters and arguably Bloomberg as well due to their API services which makes Factset much more preferable for quantitative divisions of banks/hedge funds as API integration with Python/R is the most important factor for vast data lakes of financial data, this suggests Factset will be much more prepared for programming making its way into traditional finance fields. According to Factset, their mission for data delivery is to: “Integrate the data you need with your applications, web portals, and statistical packages. Whether you need market, company, or alternative data, FactSet flexible data delivery services give you normalized data through APIs and a direct delivery of local copies of standard data feeds. Our unique symbology links and aggregates a variety of content sources to ensure consistency, transparency, and data integrity across your business. Build financial models and power customized applications with FactSet APIs in our developer portal”. Their technical focus for their data delivery system alone should make it stand out compared to Bloomberg, whose UI is far more outdated and complex on top of not being as technically developed as Factset’s. Factset is the key provider of buy-side portfolio analysis for IBs, Hedge funds, and Private Equity firms, and it’s making its way into non-quantitative hedge funds as well because quantitative portfolio management makes automation of risk management and the application of portfolio theory so much easier, and to top it off, Factset’s scenario analysis and simulation is unique in its class. Factset also is able to automate trades based on individual manager risk tolerance and ML optimization for Forex trading as well. Not only does Factset provide solutions for financial companies, they are branching out to all corporations now and providing quantitative analytics for them in the areas of “corporate development, M&A, strategy, treasury, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations workflows”. Factset will eventually in my opinion reach out to Insurance Risk Management a lot more in the future as that’s a huge industry which has yet to see much automation of risk management yet, and with the field wide open, Factset will be the first to take advantage without a shadow of a doubt. So let’s dig into the company’s financials now:
Their latest 8k filing reported the following:
Revenue increased 2.6%, or $9.6 million, to $374.1 million compared with $364.5 million for the same period in fiscal 2019. The increase is primarily due to higher sales of analytics, content and technology solutions (CTS) and wealth management solutions.
Annual Subscription Value (ASV) plus professional services was $1.52 billion at May 31, 2020, compared with $1.45 billion at May 31, 2019. The organic growth rate, which excludes the effects of acquisitions, dispositions, and foreign currency movements, was 5.0%. The primary contributors to this growth rate were higher sales in FactSet's wealth and research workflow solutions and a price increase in the Company's international region
Adjusted operating margin improved to 35.5% compared with 34.0% in the prior year period primarily as a result of reduced employee-related operating expenses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Diluted earnings per share (EPS) increased 11.0% to $2.63 compared with $2.37 for the same period in fiscal 2019.
Adjusted diluted EPS rose 9.2% to $2.86 compared with $2.62 in the prior year period primarily driven by an improvement in operating results.
The Company’s effective tax rate for the third quarter decreased to 15.0% compared with 18.6% a year ago, primarily due to an income tax expense in the prior year related to finalizing the Company's tax returns with no similar event for the three months ended May 31, 2020.
FactSet increased its quarterly dividend by $0.05 per share or 7% to $0.77 marking the fifteenth consecutive year the Company has increased dividends, highlighting its continued commitment to returning value to shareholders.
As you can see, there’s not much of a negative sign in sight here.
It makes sense considering how FactSet’s FCF has never slowed down
FactSet’s annual subscriptions and professional services have made its way to foreign and developing markets, and many of them are opting for FactSet’s cheaper services to reduce costs and still get copious amounts of data and models to work with.
Here’s what FactSet had to say regarding its competitive position within the market of providing financial data in its last 10k: “Despite competing products and services, we enjoy high barriers to entry and believe it would be difficult for another vendor to quickly replicate the extensive databases we currently offer. Through our in-depth analytics and client service, we believe we can offer clients a more comprehensive solution with one of the broadest sets of functionalities, through a desktop or mobile user interface or through a standardized or bespoke data feed.” And FactSet is confident that their ML services cannot be replaced by anybody else in the industry either: “In addition, our applications, including our client support and service offerings, are entrenched in the workflow of many financial professionals given the downloading functions and portfolio analysis/screening capabilities offered. We are entrusted with significant amounts of our clients' own proprietary data, including portfolio holdings. As a result, our products have become central to our clients’ investment analysis and decision-making.” (https://last10k.com/sec-filings/fds#link_fullReport), if you read the full report and compare it to the most recent 8K, you’ll find that the real expenses this quarter were far lower than expected by the last 10k as there was a lower than expected tax rate and a 3% increase in expected operating margin from the expected figure as well. The company also reports a 90% customer retention rate over 15 years, so you know that they’re not lying when they say the clients need them for all sorts of financial data whether it’s for M&A or wealth management and Equity analysis:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/factset.asp
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FactSet also has remarkably good cash conversion considering it’s a subscription based company, a company structure which usually takes on too much leverage. Speaking of leverage, FDS had taken on a lot of leverage in 2015:
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So what’s that about? Why were FactSet’s long term debts at 0 and all of a sudden why’d the spike up? Well usually for a company that’s non-cyclical and has a well-established product (like FactSet) leverage can actually be good at amplifying returns, so FDS used this to their advantage and this was able to help the share’s price during 2015. Also, as you can see debt/ebitda is beginning a rapid decline anyway. This only adds to my theory that FactSet is trying to expand into new playing fields. FactSet obviously didn’t need the leverage to cover their normal costs, because they have always had consistently growing margins and revenue so the debt financing was only for the sake of financing growth. And this debt can be considered covered and paid off, considering the net income growth of 32% between 2018 and 2019 alone and the EPS growth of 33%
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EBITDA has virtually been exponential for FactSet for a while because of the bang-for-buck for their well-known product, but now as FactSet ventures into algorithmic trading and corporate development the scope for growth is broadly expanded.
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P/E has declined in the past 2 years, making it a great time to buy.
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Increasing ROE despite lowering of leverage post 2016
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Mountains of cash have been piling up in the coffers increasing chances of increased dividends for shareholders (imo dividend is too low right now, but increasing it will tempt more investors into it), and on top of that in the last 10k a large buyback expansion program was implemented for $210m worth of shares, which shows how confident they are in the company itself.
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SGA expense/Gross profit has been declining despite expansion of offices
I’m a bit concerned about the skin in the game leadership has in this company, since very few executives/board members have significant holdings in the company, but the CEO himself is a FactSet veteran, and knows his way around the company. On top of that, Bloomberg remains king for trading and the fixed income security market, and Reuters beats out FactSet here as well. If FactSet really wants to increase cash flow sources, the expansion into insurance and corp dev has to be successful.
Summary: FactSet has a lot of growth still left in its industry which is already fast-growing in and of itself, and it only has more potential at its current valuation. Earnings September 24th should be a massive beat due to investment banking demand and growth plus Hedge fund requirements for data and portfolio management hasn’t gone anywhere and has likely increased due to more market opportunities to buy-in.

TLDR

• MPC vote was 5 to 1 for rate cut quantum; unanimous for concept of rate cut
• Reverse repo is 3.35%
• Repo rate is 4%
• Inflation outlook is uncertain
• FY21 GDP growth expected to be negative

Edit: The statement is at: https://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/PressRelease/PDFs/PR239109AC3CAC0F874527895214BDF9E76BF0.PDF
Some stats

• 60% of industrial input is from states affected largely
• 36% reduction in capital goods
• 91% fall in finished steel consumption
• Durables fell 30+% in Mar
• Industrial production shrank 17% in Mar
• Manufacturing PMI was 27.4 in Apr; services PMI was 5.4 in Apr
• Agriculture went up 3+%
• Summer sowing is up by more than 30% from last year
• Expect improvement in farm income
• Partial data released by NSSO on inflation has mixed signals in inflation
• Merchands exports reduced by 60+% in Apr;
• Forex reserves up by 9% - USD 487 billion

Outlook

• Inflation outlook is uncertain
• Measures suggested to hold down food prices
• Fuel bills expected to be soft
• Headline inflation may remain in 1HFY21; and fall in 2H below 4%
• Growth outlook risk judged to be the gravest
• Fiscal, monetary and admin measures expected to help gradual revival in 2HFY21
• GDP growth in FY21 expected to be negative; more specific projections would come later
• "We may stumble and fall, but would rise once again" - Mahatma Gandhi
• Essential now to instill confidence

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Regulatory and Policy Announcements

• RBI continues to be careful; level of vigilance is quite high
• RBI has announced policy measures at many levels
• Bank transmission of rates has improved; details would be available soon in RBI website
• Measures - Market functioning, Support export and import, Debt Servicing, Help for state governments

1. SIDBI credit extended for another 90 days
2. FPI - Additional 3 months to fulfill commitment requirements
3. Export credit - Pre-shipment and post-shipment credit extended to 15 months from 12
4. EXIM Bank - New line of credit of 15,000 crore for 90 days, roll over to 1 year
5. Importer support - Outward remittances for normal imports can be done for 12 months
6. Moratorium (in 6 areas) - Term loan, default classification, etc. - Another 3 months till end Aug
7. Lending institutions are permitted to restore margins for working capital to original levels by Mar '21
8. Convert accumulated interest in WCF into a funded interest term loan - Basically deferred interest can be paid back over time and by Mar '21
9. Group exposure limit of banks increased from 25% to 30%
10. Withdrawal from Consolidated Sinking Fund (CSF) - norms relaxed to deal with redemptions in market borrowings

Conclusion

• Central banks are seen as conservative
• But they take necessary measures when needed
• Would take whatever measures are necessary
• "Would be in battle readiness" - use existing instruments and fashion new ones

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So this is my rough guide to Islamic investments within the South African Universe (it can apply globally, except my examples is all South African based). Hope it is informative and encourages halal investing.
Suggestions welcome

Section 1: Investment Universe 

1. Islamic Bank fixed deposits

About: Invest your money for a fixed period (1 month up to 5 years). Get profit when period is completed
Pros: Reliable profit , Low financial risk, low Islamic risk : covered by a board of Shariah scholars
Cons: Low profit rates.

• FNB Islamic Fixed deposit.
• Absa Islamic Fixed deposit
• Standard Bank Islamic Fixed deposit

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1. Unit trusts

About: Collective investment - managed by investment company, protected by SA law, typically invests in equities, sukuks and property
Pros: Plenty of choice, Provided by registered Financial Service Providers, Sharia Boards , diversification
Cons: Typically High fees, .

• Old Mutual Albarakah equity fund
• Oasis Cresent Equity Fund
• Kagiso Islamic Equity Fund
• Many options: only a few examples listed.

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1. ETF

About: Collective investment
Pros: low fees, Provided by registered Financial Service Providers, Sharia Boards , diversification
Cons: only one option in SA, heavily weighted on Resources

• NewFunds Sharia top 40 ETF

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1. Shares

About: Pick your own stocks off the exchange
Pros: High profit potential,
Cons: Very Risky, No Islamic oversight (hence need to do your own screening)

• Platform: Easy Equities (low fees platform available in SA. NO Leverage/Margin, Remember to buy/sell whole shares only).
• Lazy guide to choosing "Sharia stocks" : Get the constituents of islamic unit trusts, invest in those.
• NB: Remember to do dividends purification

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1. Property

About: Tried and test property
Pros: Stable Asset, Tangible, Straightforward, Zakah benefits,
Cons: High capital outlay, expensive legal costs (transfebond registration) , Not very liquid,

• Banks for islamic loans:
  • FNB (Islamic bond)
  • Albaraka Bank
• NB: Zakah
  • paid on rental income , not on property value (if intention is to invest)
  • paid on property value: if intention is to sell property in near term (refurbish/fix and sell, etc).
• NB: Interest
  • Interest is Haram. No two ways about it. Luckily we have two banks that can provide Islamic loans (or at least as close as possible)

1. Custom Wealth Solutions

About: Customized Wealth management and investments
Pros: Professional advice, custom solution
Cons: Available exclusively to high net worth individuals, Investment advise appears to be fee based

• Sanlam Private Wealth (custom investment solutions).
  • Side note - I do not have any experience/knowledge. Would be great to hear if anyone has any experience here.
• Banks such as FNB provide Islamic Private banking, with financial advisors (but they tend to push unit trusts, endowment policies, etc).

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Section 2: Definitely not halal 

1. Margin based investing: Margin = interest = haram. Also very risky
2. Futures contracts: Shorting, going long, all CFD's and futures contracts are impermissible. Because a condition for a halal investment is that the underlying asset must be owned
3. Forex: Or at least forex based on CFD's and margins. Buying dollars to travel should be perfectly fine.
4. Stocks/Equities that primarily deal in haram activities: Gambling, pork, etc

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Section 3: Grey Areas 

1. Crypto ( Bitcoin ,etc) : In theory these should be more "halal" than fiat currency (what all money in the world is) however there are differences of opinion.
   
2. Shares : There are grey areas : Most companies has an element of haram income (interest, etc). Scholars have devised ratios to to filter out "islamic stocks" from haram stocks (30-33% max debt, max 5% haram income, liquid ratios, etc). It is for this reason these stocks requires dividend purification.
   

However you should be aware of this before venturing into to stocks as you might not be comfortable with that thought (This also affects EFTs, Unit trusts, etc).
3 Easy Equities: Easy equities makes it cheap and easy to own equities. However I would at all times buy/sell only whole shares and not fractional shares. Fractional shares are done as a CFD (a bit different from a forex CFD). You get all the benefits of ownership such as dividends and capital gains on a pro rate basis. But you do not actually own the CFD until you buy enough CFD to get a real whole share. That being said, it is still grey, best to avoid fractional shares entirely
4. Halal Forex Accounts: Somehow these are marketed that way. Here's a link to (Islamic Finance Guru) who has a bit more knowledge on this. (Note: I am not affiliated in any way or get any benefit)

Section 4: Conclusion 

I sincerely hope this helps , and encourages to invest in the Islamic world.
Any ideas, inputs and suggestions welcome.
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Disclaimer 1 : Corrections welcome, I am not a learned scholar, this is not financial advice, you bear the responsibility & consequences of your own decisions/investments
Disclaimer 2 : At some point FNB Sharia board quit , they subsequently hired a new board. They don't however make it easy to find who is in the board from their website. However the information can be found in news websites.

Hi there,
My base currency is Canadian and I hold some USD exposure right now due to investments. I am new to using Interactive Brokers and futures trading.
To my understanding it is possible to mantain a hedge using the cash-settled large and mini Currency Futures Contract and occasionally adjust depending on your USD exposure.
https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/fx/g10/canadian-dollar.html
Per https://www.retailinvestor.org/hedge.html#risk
"It is too expensive to hedge." The cost to buy a $100,000 futures contract good for a year, is about $5. Pittance. Yes you must provide collateral but that is not a cost. You will also find that buried somewhere in whatever method you chose, is a cost/benefit equal to the difference in interest rates between the countries. Since Canada and US rates are so close you can cancel out any cost by using limit orders that let normal market volatility make up the difference.
The fund managers who say hedging is expensive are referring to using options. This method IS expensive. Options are a one-sided bet on the direction of FX, expiring within a specific time span. They are not hedges.
The cash funding of open futures contracts come from the daily settlements. If your position gains $1,000 in value one day, there will be $1,000 put into your account. More importantly, if your position loses $1,000, it will be taken from your account. If there is not sufficient cash your broker will consider it borrowed and charge you interest. You must realize that because this is a hedge, you are not 'losing' that cash. For every dollar you might lose in the futures account, the offsetting investment in the foreign security will have gained the same amount. Agreed, you cannot liquidate that cash daily, but the value is there."
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1) Anybody have any experience in this in how to consider which month of futures contract to purchase, (near month or 1 year from now if I want one year of) I believe futures contract automatically roll-forward to the next month.
The Price Curve seems to curve down, and is in some sort of backwardation? So farther away in time cost more due to priced in uncertainty - and also more thinly traded?
2) Collateral is required so I assume is some sort of Margin that is required to maintain the contract,
3) What are the calculations to determine how much to hedge out. Say I have $100k USD?
Is it just Looking at say $100k USD x the Future Price Rate (of CAD/USD) or the current Spot Forex Exchange Rate?
I.e. $100k USD / 0.74500s (Aug '20) = $134k CAD ~
So 1 $100k CAD Contract and 3-4 $10k CAD mini contracts?
4) Any resources to learn about this?
​
Thanks in advance

I am trying to get approved to sell options and or trade futures depending on market conditions. I have tried a couple times now and they keep saying:
“At this time, we're not able to approve your application for an options upgrade. Your options level remains Standard Cash.”
Does anyone know what is required to get tier 3 so I can trade what I planned on? I am already approved for margin and advanced features, I just need to be approved for this last tier so I can trade futures/forex/and sell naked options. I have changed all of my investor profile settings and the only thing left I can think of is income and net liquidity. Do they check this or do people tend to embellish to get approved?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
EDIT: I should’ve said tier 2/3 as for options I am currently standard cash.