A Call To Action

It is easy to forget, once the hubbub subsides, that we still have a real need to lend our voice to the decision makers at the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in regard to their proposed regulation changes.  In case you’ve forgotten, or in case this is the first you’re hearing of it, the CFTC is proposing some regulation changes in regard to Forex trading.  You can read the entire proposal on their website by searching for RIN 3038-AC61.  Most of the changes mentioned will more directly impact Forex Dealers in the United States.  Also written there is a proposed leverage change from 100:1 to 10:1 that will virtually destroy the retail trader’s ability to make meaningful income off their trading accounts.  I could go into detail with the math and try to explain that to you or you could read the statements being sent to you by your brokers, most of who have done exactly that, but this is a call to action article so I’d like to talk to you about what it is you can do.

If you haven’t done so yet, please send your respectful comments and thoughts to secretary@cftc.gov and you MUST have “Regulation of Retail Forex” in the subject line.  If you’ve already submitted comments and you had anything else in the subject line, please resubmit them so that they’re not lost through some loophole in the email filtering system.

Because we’re talking about a regulatory agency changing their rules and not trying to pass a law it can be a tricky thing when we try to go beyond contacting the CFTC directly.  However, Congress is the governing body over all these regulatory agencies; therefore it may behoove us to go one step further.

Please visit the House Committee on Financial Services and the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs website, find a representative from your state and contact them with your concerns.  If it is a representative from your own district that’s even better, but regardless you must call them, write them, visit them if you can and make sure they understand what will happen to you personally if this regulation change goes through.

The Forex Dealer Coalition has allowed a unified voice for Forex brokers and they’ve hired a lobbyist in Washington to speak for them.  As much as that does help in our rally against this proposal we cannot merely hope that our broker represents our best interest against these changes.  So, call your broker and ask questions about what they’re rallying against as a member of this coalition, or if they’re even a part of it.  If there is something you feel is missing from their argument let them know and ask them to add it.  There was one broker, in particular, that I talked to this week that seemed lackadaisical in their approach, following up every comment with, “well, you can always move to our UK branch.”  I don’t know what that tells you, but it tells me that they may not care as much about this as we do.

The important thing is that we don’t just send one email and believe that we’ve done all that we can.  We must keep pushing because, as hard as it will be to get them to hear us now, it will still be a lot easier to stop these changes than it will to reverse them.   Working together now will help us find what is effective in dealing with regulators and how we, as a trading community, can start to work together to have a voice with our legislators and regulatory agencies.  Because if this does go through in the US, it may only be a matter of time before other countries try it as well.  However, if we can prove that we’re willing to stand up for our trading rights as a whole and stop this train in its tracks then it may remove it from consideration across the board.  Let’s do what we can now.  Let’s do what we can together.

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