ASIC Product Intervention: Platform & Trading Condition Changes

• You’ll no longer be able to trade on plain symbols, instead you’ll see .a versions of each symbol, which are your new retail symbols (e.g. EURUSD will become EURUSD.a)
• The .a symbols are set to the new leverage levels.
• You may see two versions of symbols, the plain versions and the .a. This means that you still had open positions in the plain symbols as of the 27 March. While the plain symbols are visible to you, you won’t be able to open new positions on them
  
• If you don't see the plain symbols on your platform after 27 March, this means you didn’t have any open positions at the end of the trading day. You'll also only be able to access .a retail symbols moving forward.
• As a retail client, you’ll be able to close any existing positions on the current symbols, but as of 28 March you’ll only be able to open new positions on the new .a symbols. These are contained in the (R) symbol groups.

• Margin stop outs now occur at 50% margin level, instead of 20%. This means that you'll need to adequately fund your account and ensure that you have enough margin to support the new stop out level. 
• It’s important to note that trades will be automatically closed out where you have insufficient funds to support the new stop out requirements.
• All symbols, new and old, are subject to the new margin stop out level of 50%, as this is determined at an account level.

• See here for an example for how margin close outs will now work.

• Margin requirements for hedged trades have changed: currently a perfectly hedged position in an instrument (ie. 5 lots long EURUSD + 5 lots short EURUSD) requires 0 margin as these positions perfectly offset each other. 
• You also cannot be stopped out if you’re perfectly hedged on an account level. Under new regulations, you’re required to put down margin for hedged trades, which also means you may be stopped out of a hedged position if your margin level falls below 50%. 
• Important note: you cannot hedge your existing positions with the new .a symbols. These are separate symbols and so their margins cannot offset each other. 
• Also, the plain symbol margin calculations remain unchanged, and so hedged positions you hold as of the 27 March won’t have their margins recalculated.

• For all hedged positions, your margin requirements will be equivalent to 50% of the hedged portion of the position. Take an example where you are 1 lot long EURUSD.a, and 1 lot Short EURUSD.a. Your margin requirements, under the new regulations, would be 3334 EUR initial margin for each position. In this instance your hedge margin requirements would be (3334 x 0.50) + (3334 x 0.50) = 3334 EUR.

• Where you’re imperfectly hedged, the same equation applies to the offsetting portion of the position, and you'll require full margin for the unhedged portion. Say you have 3 trades, 2 x 1 lot EURUSD.a long, and 1 lot EURUSD short. As in the first example, your margin requirements for the offsetting positions are 3334 EUR. As you have 1 further trade of 1 lot long EURUSD.a, your margin requirements on this overall position would be 3334 (hedged position) + 3334 (unhedged) = 6668 EUR.

• You may need to program your EAs for the new .a retail symbols, as any executions on the plain symbols from 28 March onwards will be declined. Similarly, pending orders on the plain symbols will be rejected from 28 March (stop loss and take profit orders will still be accepted).
• If you have open positions from 27 March on the existing plain symbols (ie. EURUSD), your EA will need to be able to modify and close these positions. Opening new positions will require that your EA can open trades on EURUSD.a

Up to 28 March, you trade on the symbol EURUSD. This symbol has up to 500:1 leverage, dependent on what you have selected for your account leverage. On 28 March you’ll no longer be able to open new positions on this symbol. EURUSD will be set to close only, and any attempts to place manual trades, or where pending orders/EAs trigger orders on this symbol, will be declined. Instead, you'll need to open orders on the new retail version of the same symbol, EURUSD.a.

EURUSD and EURUSD.a have the same contract details except for the leverage and margin calculation settings.

You may also see 2 types of symbols if you had positions open on the 27th of March. The plain symbols are set to close only, and retail .a symbols are fully tradeable. The .a symbols can be found in the "(R)" symbol categories

• Existing positions won’t have their margins recalculated.
• Pending orders created prior to the 28 March will be accepted, however they’ll be opened at the new margin rates outlined above. 
• New market orders opened from 28 March onwards will be subject to the new retail margin levels.
• There are no new symbols on cTrader. You can continue to trade using the symbols you are accustomed to. 

• Margin stop out level remains at 50%. There is no change.
• The cTrader Smart Stop Out system is still in use.

• There is no change to the way hedged margin requirements are calculated on the cTrader platform.
• When hedging positions, margin for the largest directional volume (largest margin) is required.
• For example, if you have a 10 lot Buy EURUSD trade, and a 5 lot Sell EURUSD trade, your margin requirements for your EURUSD position would be for the 10 lot Buy trade only. There is an exception to this where you have old positions on your account. If your old positions are hedged with new positions after 27 March, your margin requirements for a smaller hedged trade may still be higher than the margin requirements for the old trade. Example:
  -You hold a 10 lot Buy EURUSD on 27 March, with margin requirements of 2000 EUR. On 30 March, you open a 1 lot Sell EURUSD trade at the new margin levels, and your margin requirements for this trade would be 3334 EUR. Your hedged margin requirements in this case is equivalent to the largest directional volume in terms of total margin, which would be 3334 EUR.
• New and old positions from 28 March onwards can be used to hedge against each other, however the margin requirements for new positions will likely be higher than any old positions. So the largest directional volume when hedging is dictated by the position side with the largest margin requirements.

• There are no new symbols on cTrader, so your EAs don't need to be reprogrammed for different naming conventions. They’ll need to account for the new leverage, however.

Currently, you trade on the symbol EURUSD. This won’t change after 28 March. While the leverage on EURUSD is currently determined by your account leverage, on 28 March it will be determined by ASIC’s new retail leverage levels. No trades will be set to close only, you can open and close trades at any time, albeit you’ll need to meet the new margin requirements for new orders. 

You need to continue to ensure you have sufficient equity to cover the 50% stop out level on cTrader, and for all hedged positions you’ll be required to post margin for the position with the largest directional volume. For example, if you have a 5 lot short and 10 lot long positions, you’ll be required to post margin for the 10 lot long position only.