No Bucket Shops just don't pass the trade to the market, they take the risk that all profits they'll take the loss on and profits they make the entire profit on, as 99% ish lose, that's a pretty good bet IMHO. So there negative values, aren't really negative so they can afford to forget in the hope they'll come back and lose more, they still made there account balance before the trade after all Downside is there taking a loss on all the profits made, but hey they make enough as they don't just get commisions but all the losses. But still likely down after all, although most where playing the long, news comes out market moves up, zero risk game so maybe not ?? After all couldn't drop below 1.20000 before the news and no reason to believe they'd stop supporting 1.20000. People flagged as profitable they likely pass to the market, so they'll have some exposure. FXCM ( nearly ), ALPARI ( wiped out ) aren't bucket shops these days, 10 years ago yes but not these days. Remember when FXCM in it's bucketshop days, gave guaranteed SL's, I used to play news and spikes, 10 SL, hold for 100, 50/50 made loads to they blocked my trades before news LOL, this trade with a 10SL would of exited at -10 no issue at all back then.
How ironic that years ago when I was shopping for an FX spot broker these companies like Oanda with dealing desks were labeled as bucket shops in a derogatory tone.
Stop trading with high leverage unless you have a lot of reserves. OP owes the money period. It's not the fault of IB or SNB. IB couldn't have capped price without any available sellers. Stop trading with high leverage unless you have a lot of reserves.
if the amount is something you can handle like a 1k or 2k, then pay up. if it's big amount like 40k or 50k then don't pay just yet. wait for things to settle down. it's always easier to negotiate with collective bargaining. im sure there are a lot of traders who lost a lot of money. going after people, using lawyers cost a lot of money. they'll probably pardon some of your loses like other brokers. try to find other traders who've lost money with your broker and try to do it collectively. if you're going to court, do it with lots of other traders, it'll save money and they might agree to settle out of court for far less. i lost 15k myself but i only had 2.5k in my account and oanda forgave my debt. i don't think i've ever been so happy to lose 2.5k. anyways, i'm truly sorry for your loss. my friend had 20k in his account which is now toast. but he was also with oanda so he doesn't have anymore debt. anyway hopefully you'll come out of this mess even stronger than before. i only keep what i can afford to lose in my trading account. dont' do anything reckless, and you'll be ok. let us know how it turns out. whatever you do, don't pay in full. they will settle for less. and i personally think they should just forgive the loses. they're a big company and it was an unexpected move. i still can't believe the size of that move. i've only been trading for a year, so never seen something like that happen.
As said, most of us are poor these days, object if trading it to build reseveres via trading. Its only happened once in 10years this bad, so I think its a risk we have to take, the potential gains still outdo the risk. Owes it or not, still SUCKS!
At the end of the day the only speculator class that got walloped by this was the retail guys. They were the only ones running stupid leverage. All fx retail traders should think about that. If the well informed hedgefunds aren't trading so big, why are they ?
Errr not true, several UK banks too large hits, big investor worth 2.9bil lost his main fund and is giving up trading, sure there are others. Retail just hasnt got the reserves to go from a 5k account theyve built in there spare time to -15k in minutes.
A useful conclusion that came out from this thread is that there are firms that explicitly state on their website and the fine print that negative balances do not have to be paid (FXCM?) while others have set a precedent that they would not pursue those claims (Oanda). So if your strategy is concentrated, leveraged bets, and you prefer to have tail risk insurance, go with a firm that fits. Those firms tend to have lower minimums than IB also.
Dont think FXCM are wiping out negatives, guaranteed SLs was many years ago. alpari people that where flat have still possibly lost there accounts. Madness!