Forex Trading Conditions

The Trade Tickets in Saxo Bank's trading platforms are colour-coded to indicate the availability of the price quoted to you:

• Green - live streaming prices are available for auto execution
• Yellow - prices are available on an RFQ (request for quote) basis. A dealer will manually quote the client, which makes the prices green and therefore tradable.
• Purple - the market is closed (trading and RFQ not available).

The primary method used to execute a trade on a Saxo Bank platform is to 'trade on quote'. "What you see is what you get".

When you click on a 'green' tradable price, you will be executed on that particular price, or in the rare event, not executed at all.

If the price moves too much - either up or down - from the time you place the trade, to the time when the request arrives at Saxo Bank, the trade request might be rejected. This goes for the scenario where the price has moved significantly against the client as well as movements significantly in favor of the client.

Other retail Forex brokers don’t have a concept of 'trade on quote'. When you trade on competitors' platforms and click on a buy or sell button, the trade request is converted into a Market order – meaning you can be slipped unlimited and do not know upfront which price you will get.

Trading FX with Saxo Bank on 'green' tradable prices gives transparent pricing as you know upfront which price you will be filled at. That is the price that will be displayed for you on the FX Trade Ticket prior to opening a trade.

Various order types can be used to enter or exit the market at certain price levels. See Order Execution.

Different spreads are provided for different bands. The spread is tightest in the smallest band. For trade amounts above the largest bands prices, will be quoted manually on a request for quote basis (RFQ). Deep liquidity removes the delay and the need for manual intervention in the major and most commonly traded currency pairs.

See a full overview of the default spreads on all FX crosses.

Each time you trade, a reload period begins. If you continue to make consecutive trades in the same currency pair within the reload period, the spreads may widen beyond the fixed spread as your dedicated liquidity is reduced.

After twenty (20) seconds with no new trading activity in the given currency pair, the reload period elapses, and full, dedicated liquidity and normal spreads are available again. 

All open FX positions held overnight are subject to a debit or credit interest rate revaluation to reflect the position being rolled over to a new Value Date. The operation known as the Tom/Next Rollover is applied to spot positions held at 17:00 Eastern Standard Time (New York time) on any given trading day.

The ‘rollover’ is made up of two components, namely the tom/next swap points and financing of unrealised profits or losses. The accumulated combined rollover credit or debit is added/deducted from the previous opening price of the position. Read more about Tom/Next Rollover.

There is a minimum trade size that applies to Forex trading with Saxo Bank. For most currency pairs it is 5,000 units of the base currency, however variations occur. Precious metals can be traded as low as 1 ounce. 

Trades cannot be executed below the Minimum Trade Sizes (except for closing an open position below the minimum trade size).

Full details can be found under 'Prices'

Saxo Bank is open for Forex Trading from Monday morning 5:00 local Sydney time to Friday afternoon 17:00 Eastern Standard Time (New York time). 

Most FX spot positions have a value date of T+2. This means they settle two business days after the day of execution. There are some exceptions to this; USDTRY, USDRUB and USDCAD, which all have a value date of T+1.

When netting open FX positions, Saxo Bank uses FIFO rules, which means the first position you open is the first position to be closed.

Example: You are trading EURUSD opening the following positions:

The first long position 1) will net out with the first short position 3), the second long position 2) will net out with half of the second short position 4), leaving only one short position of 1M EURUSD at the end of the day.

FX Forward Outrights are traded with a predefined value date in the future.

You are able to select your preferred value date up to six months ahead on more than 120 currency pairs traded as FX Forward Outrights. 

Closed Forward Outright position are netted out when the value date of the position equals the current spot value date i.e. the position is changing from a forward to a spot.

When the value date on a not closed Forward Outright position equals the current spot value date, it will be subject to tom/next rollovers and will be treated as a normal spot position from that point onwards.