Working through the impact of the margin changes at OX Securities only impacted me in a small way compared to many others. The leverage of 1:200 is ample compared to what others had to deal with. And it is only my Fed/Gold-Digger account.

Moving from 1:300 to 1:200 leverage would have been much more painful, possibly devastating if I had been entangled in a complicated series of trades. Fortunately, I heeded some rumors from a few months back. Those rumors talked about Ox lowering the leverage on automated accounts. Thankfully, I chose to avoid the “1:500” option. When the brokerage accounts were set up, I stuck with the 1:300 option. I am very glad I did.

I am still unsure how to handle lot sizes. For conservative settings with most Forex pairs, it is 0.01 lots/$10,000. I am not sure if this will hold for the lower leverage. Hopefully, I will still be fine, but will keep watching the community.

From what I have gathered, those with sizeable accounts (exceeding $500,000) were given the cruelest news. If they had 1:500 (or 1:300 or 1:200) leverage, it may have been reduced to 1:100.*** If they were already in drawdown, their accounts were squeezed badly. Some squeezed so severely that they prevented their bots from taking new trades. There were many murmurings about finding a new broker that doesn’t play these games. As a US resident, the requirements of the present algo trading bots don’t give us many options.

Desperation is not a good place to be. I will monitor the suggestions. The solutions could involve setting up offshore entities. They might also include creatively acquiring addresses in accepted countries. Being a successful bot farmer means staying VERY nimble!

*** This was included in the email I received from OX Securities. It should give insight into the impact of the leverage change:

In our commitment to maintain a secure and sustainable trading environment, we are reaching out to inform you about important updates that involves your Trading account with Ox Securities. 
 
These changes pertain to lowering your leverage to "1:200", subsequently increasing trade margin requirements, which are vital aspects of risk management and compliance within the financial markets. 

Your free margin as at end of day 27 May 2024 is XXXXXXX.

After the change, your free margin will be XXXXXXX.

Note that this is based off end of day data from yesterday and will be subject to change according to current market conditions.

Specifically, the Margin Used figure will be multiplied by a factor of 1.5.

To illustrate, if your Margin Used at 500:1 leverage is $1000, then your updated Margin Used at 200:1 will be: $2500.