The US rules setting a minimum security deposit of 2% on major currency pairs and 5% on the rest, equivalent to caps of about 50:1 and 20:1 for retail forex accounts.
Retail forex in the United States is run under CFTC regulations with the NFA as the self-regulatory body. Firms offering it to retail clients must register, typically as retail foreign exchange dealers or futures commission merchants, and the NFA sets the minimum security deposit that each must collect.
The structure differs from Europe in three visible ways: leverage is higher on majors than the 30:1 European cap, the fifo-rule and the prohibition on offsetting positions apply, and CFDs on shares and indices are not generally available to US retail clients because those contracts must trade on a registered exchange.
Firms also face substantial minimum capital requirements, which is why the number of US retail forex brokers is small compared with Europe or Australia.
Example: 1 standard-lot of EUR/USD at 1.0840 is $108,400 of notional. A 2% security deposit is $2,168. The same lot in an exotic pair at 5% requires $5,420.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Margin and leverage. A $5,000 deposit can control a $100,000 position, which is 20:1 leverage. Because the loss is measured on the full $100,000, a 2.5% move against you halves the deposit and brings a margin call, and a 5% move uses all of it.
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