Trading leveraged products on the Forex platform, such as foreign exchange, spot precious metals and Contracts for Difference (CFDs), involves significant risk of loss due to the leverage and may not be suitable for all investors. Prior to opening an account with Swissquote, consider your level of experience, investment objectives, assets, income and risk appetite. Losses are in theory unlimited and you may be required to make additional payments if your account balance falls below the required margin level and therefore you should not speculate, invest or hedge with capital you cannot afford to lose, that is borrowed or urgently needed or necessary for personal or family subsistence. Over the past 12 months, 68.37% of retail investors have either lost money when trading CFDs, experienced a total loss of their margin at the closing of their position or ended up with a negative balance after closing their position. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.

Forex instruments and CFDs are not appropriate for everyone, and are generally suitable only for investors who can assume and sustain a risk of loss in excess of their margin and understand the mechanics and risks of leveraged trading.

The Bank is your sole counterparty for all forex instrument and CFD transactions and is not required to seek the best possible outcome when carrying out your orders. The Bank is acting in its own interest and has no duty to protect you from losses.

Stop loss orders (as defined on the Bank’s website or on the platforms) may be executed at prices significantly worse than the price you desire. Your open orders may also not be cancelled outside business days or outside the hours of operation of the platforms.

Please read carefully our Forex and CFD Execution Policy.

While transactions on forex instruments and CFDs sometimes offer opportunities for high profits, they at the same time bear a high risk of losses. Leverage will amplify any profits or losses based on the price movements in the underlying financial instrument. A small adverse movement in the underlying market may result in considerable losses. In some circumstances, your losses may exceed your initial investment.

For example, if you are allowed to open a EUR/USD position of 100,000 with a leverage of 10x, that means that to open this position, you are allowed to maintain a margin of only EUR 10,000. If the EUR falls in value by 1% against the USD, your losses will reach EUR 1,000, i.e. 10% of your invested amount. Note that if the value of an underlying financial instrument moved against you significantly, you could lose all of your initial margin deposit, and be required to deposit more funds to cover your losses.

The forex and CFD markets are extremely volatile. The movements of these markets are unforeseeable. These markets may also experience periods of decreased liquidity or even periods of illiquidity. A lower liquidity may result in very rapid and hectic price movements, in wider spreads and/or in higher rejection rates. 

Fluctuations in prices are often so rapid that your open positions may be liquidated automatically without you having time to increase your margin.

Various events may arise over a weekend or, more generally, outside business days, which may cause the markets to open at a significantly different price from where they closed. Orders cannot be executed outside business days. This may cause considerable losses.

Please read carefully our General Terms and Conditions, our Special Terms and Conditions for Forex and CFDs and our Forex and CFD Risk Disclosure Statement.