When news of key global events are published, as news releases, subtle or substantial impact on financial markets often create periods of price instability for trading instruments. In order to protect against any market volatility, the leverage on those trading instruments is capped at 1:200 which can lead to higher margin requirements.
Higher margin requirement period
When important news involves a trading instrument, orders opened 15 minutes before the news release and 5 minutes after will have margin held at a maximum leverage of 1:200.
This measure reduces a traders' risks of price instability during significant economic events.
5 minutes after the news release, the leverage restrictions are lifted and margin is recalculated based on the equity of the trading account and its set leverage.
Example
The following news release impacts USD:
- 12:30 USD Personal Consumption Expenditure Core (YoY) High
Between 12:15 GMT+0 and 12:35 GMT+0, any new orders opened on currency pairs involving USD will have margin held at a maximum leverage of 1:200.
Several news releases within 30 minutes of each other that involve the same trading instrument can lead to higher margin requirements for a longer period of time.
Several news releases impact USD/EUR:
- 12:30 USD PCE Core (YoY) High
- 12:30 USD Personal Consumption Expenditure Core (YoY) High
- 13:00 EUR German Consumer Price Index (YoY) High
In this case higher margin requirements will extend the entire period, beginning 15 minutes before the first news release (12:15) and ending 5 minutes after the last news release (13:05).
News alerts
Exness sends out an email to traders once a day (at midnight server time), with a list of all affected instruments and the minimum margin requirements applicable for them.
The mailbox tab of your trading terminal will also receive this email daily and can be used to see which instruments are affected.
News release schedule
Traders can find the dates of all upcoming news releases with the Economic Calendar found on the Exness homepage.
You can filter the news based on the trading instrument, with the three red sticks indicating news releases of high importance.