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Visit our FAQ page to find the answers to the most commonly asked questions, including how to create an account, explaining ETFs, and providing useful links, forms, and tables.

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Trading FAQs

Have questions about trading in general or changing your trading settings in your ThinkMarkets account? See below for the answers.

 

General
 

Do you offer fixed or variable spreads?

We don’t offer fixed spreads as we never interfere with market forces or client orders. As such, all products tradable on our platforms are variable spreads.

What are swaps, and what is the difference between positive and negative swaps?
A forex contract expires every two days. Instead of actual delivery of the underlying asset, many traders and investors will ‘rollover’ the contract to extend its trading period. It’s upon this ‘rollover’ that swaps are earned or incurred by the holder of a forex contract. The swap rate is calculated as the interest rate difference between the two nations issuing the currency, and are added to, or subtracted, from the profit and loss for the contract.

A positive swap is where you earn interest from the contract, and a negative swap is where you incur interest on the contract.

For a more detailed explanation, including examples, please see our swap rates page

What is leverage and how does it affect my account?

As the name suggests, the term “Leverage” was coined because using leverage allows you to trade positions sizes with a fraction of the capital that would be normally be required to trade that specific market.
 

Leverage allows you to do this by reducing the amount of margin required for each position opened. The higher the leverage you have set the less capital margin you are required to have in your account to place a trade. To learn more about the function of leverage and how it is calculated please visit Leverage and Margin.
 

Before trading understand how increasing leverage can increase the risks and rewards of a trading.



How can I change the leverage on my account?

You can change the leverage settings on your account by emailing us at [email protected]

The maximum leverage that you can have is 30:1 (for retail clients) and 500:1 (for professional clients). Please visit our Contract Specfications for leverage requirements on other products.


What is the maximum leverage allowed on my account?
Leverage increases the risks and rewards of trading. In essence, the  larger your account balance, the larger the risks and rewards become on a trade. For this reason we have maximum leverage levels, which are set to safeguard client assets and ensure liquidity providers aren’t exposed to excessive risk.

The maximum leverage for a retail trader is 30:1.

The maximum leverage for a professional trader is as follows:
 

Account balance Maximum leverage allowed
$0-$50,000 500:1
$50,000-$200,000 200:1
$200,000-$1,000,000 100:1
$1,000,000+ 50:1
 

What is margin/margin requirement?

Margin is the amount required to open a new forex position. It is not a fee or a charge to your account – it is an amount set aside from your free equity to support your new trade.
 

It is the client’s responsibility to maintain sufficient funds in their respective accounts to avoid triggering a margin call at 50% margin level. For more information on margin calls please visit our Fair Execution Policy.
 

How do I calculate the required margin?
Margin requirements are calculated as follows:

(100,000 units * Number of standard lots)/Leverage * conversion rate to your base currency

For example, for a professional account (in USD) with 500:1 leverage, if you placed a EUR/USD buy order of 0.1 lots (10,000 EUR) @ 1.3632, the calculation would be as follows:

{(100,000 *1.3632)*(0.1)}/500 = $27.26
100,000EUR * 1.3632 = $136,320 (margin required for a standard lot when leverage is 1:1)
$136,320 * 0.1 = $13,632 (margin required for 0.1 lots when leverage is 1:1)
$13,632/500 = $27.26 (margin required for 0.1 lots when leverage is 500:1)

For more information please see our page on leverage and margin explained.

When will a margin call be triggered?
A margin call is triggered when your account’s equity falls below 50% of the required margin. For more information please see our margin call policy page

 

What is slippage?

Slippage is the difference between the execution price and the requested price of a pending order or trade. It can be caused by a number of factors, but more commonly by thin liquidity, abnormal volitility and gapping in the markets (where gapping refers to a situation where there is a break between the tradable prices).
 

Please be advised that slippage is a natural occurrence caused by market forces and is by no means induced by ThinkMarkets. Please refer to our website for more information on our Slippage Policy



Trading Tools and Services

 

What is a VPS?

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server, and is a very useful tool for traders that use robots/algorithms to trade on the market. These robots often run automatically and independently from the trader, thus are able to explore trading opportunities that manual traders may not be able to.
 

The two main benefits of a VPS is low latency for faster trade execution to our trading server and the ability for your trading robots/algorithms to run 24/7 because the VPS is switched on all the time.
 

A VPS provides you with the ideal trading environment to maximise the power of robots through eliminating down time and benefiting from extra fast execution speed. Visit our VPS Forex page for more information on how you can get access to a Free VPS service through our recommended ForexVPS.

 

How do I register for a VPS?

To register for one of our recommended VPS services simply visit our Forex VPS offer page.

Using the links on that page you can sign up directly with your chosen provider and be eligible either for Free VPS from ForexVPS, provided you trade 15 lots of Forex each month or 15% discount from Beeks VPS.


How much is a VPS?

ForexVPS is normally $29.99 USD. All traders who trade a minimum of 15 round turn lots on Forex in a calendar month qualify for this free service. Simply sign up to ForexVPS via our page and if you meet the qualifying requirements each calendar month, we will reimburse you account. 
 

Beeks VPS service starts from £27.00 per month and they have 2 other options. Please visit through our special Beeks link to receive your 15% discount. There is no free VPS offer with Beeks.


How do I use FXWirePro news feed?
FXWirePro gives you access to in-depth news from a large network of sources. You can find FXWirePro news feeds via our ThinkTrader application.

Support and Education
 

I’m new to ThinkMarkets, where do I start?

Every new trader is different, but we offer a range of education content here including a Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced course as well as downloadable trading guides. You can access them for free in our Learn to Trade section.
 

I need help – how can I contact you?

You can contact us in a number of ways – select ‘Support’ from within the ThinkPortal and you can see our full contact information.

The three main methods are:

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