Forex - Institutional Rates

1) Target Bid/Ask spreads The target bid/ask spreads listed are our best possible spreads used in normal market conditions. Under certain market conditions - such as over the release of key economic figures, during periods of volatile market conditions, and during the sometime illiquid European night time spreads may be wider and auto execution limits may be lowered or disabled. For certain categories of clients, the spreads may in general be wider by up to 2 pips. The spreads applicable to a client’s account will be displayed in the SaxoTrader. Please consult an assigned Saxo Capital Markets to obtain further information about the spread range and its account implications.

2) Margin requirements

Forex is traded on margin enabling clients to leverage a small margin deposit for a much greater market effect where:

• First USD 25,000 margin rates apply to the first USD 25,000 (or equivalent) of investment collateral
• Normal margin rates apply to all investment collateral over USD 25,000 (or equivalent).

3) Autoexecuted trades

Major currency trades can be autoexecuted for amounts below the autoexecution limit. Autoexecuted trades are automatically accepted without intervention from the bank. For trade sizes over the autoexecute limit and in volatile market conditions, the trade must first be approved by a dealer which normally takes just a few seconds.

* Note that these are typical autoexecute limits that can change over the day, depending on the market conditions and available liquidity.

4) Trading on bands

Your trades will be subject to price bands when trading below the auto-execution limit described above. This in effect matches the best possible target spread to the amount traded and removes unnecessary delays and manual intervention. The smaller the amount traded, the narrower the spread. Each time you trade, a reload period begins. If you continue to trade within the reload period, your cumulative volume can affect a band jump. A band jump will automatically quote a spread respective to the cumulative volume traded within the reload period. After the reload period elapses, the bands are reset. The target spreads and amounts for the bands applicable to your account will be displayed in your SaxoTrader.

5) Ticket fees for low-value trades

For Forex trades below the Ticket Fee Threshold listed, a small ticket fee of USD 10 is added to the trade to cover administration costs.

This Ticket Fee is not applicable to Saxo MiniTrader accounts.

6) Stop Orders

For all "no-slip" stop orders on Majors there is a minimum distance to current market. This means that stop and trailing stop orders for the below currency pairs must be placed with a minimum distance to market as indicated in the table below:

Orders will automatically be rejected if they are not placed at a greater distance from market prices than shown above. This applies to both “no-slip” stop orders and trailing stop orders.

What is a "no-slip" stop order?

For the Majors, Saxo Capital Markets will attempt to fill stop orders at the price level set by the investor for amounts up to 3 million in the base currency, except if the pair gaps more than the max-gap value defined for the specific cross. The max-gap values for each cross are the same as the minimum distance values defined in the table above.

Saxo Capital Markets Historical FX Stop Order Slippage

The table below details Saxo Capital Markets' performance in filling client Stop Orders on the major currency pairs.

Saxo Capital Markets focuses on reducing slippage on Stop Orders as we believe improving client certainty on exiting losing positions is of more importance than occasionally providing more profit than the client was hoping to take.

• The data is for all Stop Orders
• Limit Orders are not included in the data because they are filled at the order level or better
• Market Orders are also not included because they are filled at best available price when executed

Order fill stats for H1 2011
(New data will be available at the beginning of each quarter.)

Note: Actual fill levels will always differ from order levels by the amount of the client spread for orders placed on the opposite side of the spread (i.e., buy if bid and sell if offered). In these cases, therefore, slippage is calculated as that beyond the expected amount given the actual bid/offer spread. For orders placed on the same side of the spread (i.e., sell if bid and buy if offered), slippage is calculated as the full realized difference between fill and order rates.

Margin calls

You must maintain the margins listed in your account at all times. If the funds in your account fall below this margin, you will be subject to a margin call to either deposit more funds to cover your positions or close positions — normally you will be notified through our trading platform and via email. If your margin situation is not remedied, we may close positions on your behalf.

Forex Trading Hours

Saxo Capital Markets is open from Monday 0500hrs Sydney local time to Friday 1700hrs New York local time.

Forex positions held until their Value Date, and Interest on Unrealised Profit/Loss

Open Spot Forex positions held at the end of a Trading Day will be rolled over to a new Value Date on a Tom/Next basis. As part of the tom next roll over operation, positions are subject to a swap charge or credit. The Swap Points used are based on a swap feed from a tier 1 bank added a mark up corresponding to +/- 0.35% on daily market overnight interest rates, plus an interest component of +/- 0.75% for any unrealised P/L on the position based on the same interest rate feed.

View a more detailed explanation about Tom/Next rollover.