Problem IC MARKETS - FORCED-CLOSE of SELL ORDER - DEMOLISHING 90% of EQUITY BALANCE

[azizkhan]

Dear sir(s),

IC MARKETS - ILLEGITIMATE FORCED-CLOSE of SELL ORDER - DEMOLISHING 90% of EQUITY BALANCE

I would like to humbly request for FPA assistance and expertise .... to look into my issue .... to determine whether ICM had illegitimately forced-close my SELL ORDER #100445575 ... on 2023.12.04 01:41:15 .... the exact extract of which ... is as taken from the Account History ... is as typed below:-

FORCED-CLOSE of SELL ORDER #100445575 .... of 0.74 LOT on 2023.12.04 01:41:15

short on 2023.11.09 01:26:19 SELL 0.74 lot XAUUUSD 1950.64 0.00 0.00
forced closed on 2023.12.04 01:41:15 2116.37 353.471 -12,264.02 so: -236.5%/-476.5/201.5

(note: the MT4 logs for the dates preceding this event ... and subsequent to this incident ... are attached herewith)

From the extract ... I could see this .... "so: -236.5%/-476.5/201.5" .... which I do not really comprehend .... being the reason for the Forced-Closure of the SELL ORDER #100445575.

At the time of the Forced-Sell of SELL ORDER #100445575 ... I was trading in a Hedging Mode ... whereby all my Orders are hedged against each other ... except for a few small orders ... to the amount of 0.05 LOT .... that were entered by my Expert Advisor.

My Equity Balance as at 2023.12.02 0601 was US$2,236.34 ... which is the time of about just preceding the incident .... (as can be seen from the screenshot as attached below).

Since I was trading on a Hedging Mode ... whereby all my OPENED/FLOATING Orders are hedged against each other ... whether they be SHORTs or LONGs ... my SELL ORDER #100445575 ... which is coincidentally was a MANUAL Entry ... (as against automatic entries controlled by my EA) ..... should NOT be Forced-Closed .... as long as my Equity is ABOVE the compulsory Free Margin.

But what I do not understand is the reason for my Sell Order to be triggered .. and Forced-Closed ... whereas my EQUITY BALANCE was US$2,236-34 ... with a FREE MARGIN of US$2,030-86 ... on the Close Date of last Friday .... and with the same Free Margin on the Opening Date of of the incidence ... i.e. on MONDAY 04-DEC-2023.

And the price of Gold had only moved up by about 800 PIPS (8,000 points) on Monday .. and with my Floating/Opened Order of 0.05 LOT ... that would only take out about US$400-00 out of my Equity Balance ... leaving a Free Margin of about US$1,630-00 ... still available.

Even if the Spreads were wide/high to about 100 points or so .... it should not have affected my EQUITY Balance ... so as to result in a Forced-Closure by the MT4 System ... because ALL my Orders were Hedged against each other.

The Required Margin was only US$205-48 .... (as can be seen from the attached screenshot below) ... meaning that my Free Margin was far more in excess than the Required Margin to trigger the Forced-Closed of my Floating/Opened Sell Order ... that is .... with all of the rest of the Opened/Floating Orders being hedged against each other .... (as can be seen from the attached Excel screenshot of my Balancing Control Sheet).

And I had been practising this Hedging Mode Method for a few months now ... without any undesirable result ... except for the incident on 04-DEC-2023.

(note: I am actually currently trading on another 3 Live Accounts with ICM .... with each one of them on a different Live Server ... and curiously .... NONE of the 3 Live Accounts were affected at all ... (trading on the same date and time as my Forced-Close incident)... eventhough all of the 3 Live Accounts were Trading on the same method of my Hedging System.)


As it is ... with my limited reasoning ... I would like to humbly request that the Experts here in Forex Peace Army to assist me and to explain ... (with numbers ... percentages .... and Dollars) ..... as to why when my Equity ... which was sufficient .... and .... that my Free Margin was enough .... in my Account ... (at the Time of the Forced-Closed-Sell Trigger) ... that could explain clearly .... as to how the Forced-Closed Sell Order could have been triggered ... which could explain the reasoning behind that Forced-Sell Trigger.

(note: Could this be a glitch on the IC Markets Live Server-12 .... on that particular time and date of the incident ... ? ... If it is ... could I recover my lost Equity ... ? .... If my Equity could be recovered ... I would gladly donate 10% of the Recovered Equity to the FPA Donation Box. )

(note 2: I had attached herewith the Trading Logs that were copied from the Log Journal of this ICM Live Acc no: 1200114315-LIVE-(01))
(... somehow ... I could NOT find a way to attach the LOG files ... as I had stated above ....)

(note 3: I had also printed out the Chain eMail with ICM Staff ... inquiring about the reason as to why there was a Forced-Sell Order on my Hedged Trades.)

(note: I am also attaching a screenshot of my Hedging Control Lot Sizes .... in Excel ... from which I would check and balance out any active trades that were placed by my Expert Advisor ... with my Manual Balancing Trade Entries.... before going away from the PC.)

 

[azizkhan]

Does anybody know what this "Comment" actually mean ?

 

[compu-forex]

You were stopped out by the spread.

Do me a favour and drag your trade on to the XAU chart and take a sceen shot of the exit. It should look something like the attached screenshot.

That was the exit that I had on gold with another unrelated broker. That spread of $47 or 47 000 points cost me 5 000 euro. I made a case to them(again this is not ICM), and managed to get a goodwill settlement of 3 000 euro. I'm not happy about it but sometimes you are going to get hurt in this game.

Be aware, that hedging does not protect you - you were exposed to massive spreads to the tune of 2 lots. Gold is like that so be aware.

 

[compu-forex]

Does anybody know what this "Comment" actually mean ?

That comment means stopout, margin %(-236) and free equity(-476) and total equity remaining(201)...I think

 

[4evermaat]

(note: the MT4 logs for the dates preceding this event ... and subsequent to this incident ... are attached herewith)

No complete trading records were ever attached. This appears to be a complex case. But even with simple cases, it always starts with a complete trading record for each account being audited.

Since I was trading on a Hedging Mode ... whereby all my OPENED/FLOATING Orders are hedged against each other ... whether they be SHORTs or LONGs ... my SELL ORDER #100445575 ... which is coincidentally was a MANUAL Entry ... (as against automatic entries controlled by my EA) ..... should NOT be Forced-Closed .... as long as my Equity is ABOVE the compulsory Free Margin.

Even with a 100% "locked" position (or so-called client hedged), it is still possible for a spread spike to create a margin call for both positions. Probably a price spike.

Although fx brokers allow hedging via metatrader, real accounting (including the broker's backend) is done with netting. As there is mathematically ZERO advantage to the trader to hedge their own position. But that debate is for a separate thread.

As it is ... with my limited reasoning ... I would like to humbly request that the Experts here in Forex Peace Army to assist me and to explain ... (with numbers ... percentages .... and Dollars) ..... as to why when my Equity ... which was sufficient .... and .... that my Free Margin was enough .... in my Account ... (at the Time of the Forced-Closed-Sell Trigger) ... that could explain clearly .... as to how the Forced-Closed Sell Order could have been triggered ... which could explain the reasoning behind that Forced-Sell Trigger.

for free?

Does anybody know what this "Comment" actually mean ?

Did you ask IC Markets support team? They should explain it to you.

so: -236.5%/-476.5/201.5

Usually this means Stop Out: Account margin level was -236.5%, Account Equity was at -476.5, and Margin $ is 201.5

Which means the broker's stop out level was triggered and that info was captured at the time of the SO and auto-parsed as a comment for any trade triggered by SO.

This is when you have insufficient funds to cover a position. Most casinos brokers are at 50% stop level, which (along with 1:400+ leverage) allows a client to effectively trade out their entire account balance....and also go negative.

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Additional questions were sent to your DM. Please check

 

[azizkhan]

You were stopped out by the spread.

Do me a favour and drag your trade on to the XAU chart and take a sceen shot of the exit. It should look something like the attached screenshot.

View attachment 89208

That was the exit that I had on gold with another unrelated broker. That spread of $47 or 47 000 points cost me 5 000 euro. I made a case to them(again this is not ICM), and managed to get a goodwill settlement of 3 000 euro. I'm not happy about it but sometimes you are going to get hurt in this game.

Be aware, that hedging does not protect you - you were exposed to massive spreads to the tune of 2 lots. Gold is like that so be aware.

I am not so sure as to how to go about dragging the XAUUSD trade chart ... but I can do this part ... scroll back on my Trade Account chart to this date .... 04-DEC-2023 ... and take a screenshot as I have attached below.
(note: I had also attached in my earlier posting the following screenshot)

 

[azizkhan]

You were stopped out by the spread.

Do me a favour and drag your trade on to the XAU chart and take a sceen shot of the exit. It should look something like the attached screenshot.

View attachment 89208

That was the exit that I had on gold with another unrelated broker. That spread of $47 or 47 000 points cost me 5 000 euro. I made a case to them(again this is not ICM), and managed to get a goodwill settlement of 3 000 euro. I'm not happy about it but sometimes you are going to get hurt in this game.

Be aware, that hedging does not protect you - you were exposed to massive spreads to the tune of 2 lots. Gold is like that so be aware.

Since my trading with IC Markets on the XAUUSD .... I had never seen the Spread on XAUUSD go past the 150 Points (15 pips) mark .... 'cause most of the time whenever there are US Economic news .. I would be at my PC watching my Gold trades.

 

[azizkhan]

No complete trading records were ever attached. This appears to be a complex case. But even with simple cases, it always starts with a complete trading record for each account being audited.

I have got the relevant Trading Log files ready to be attached into my thread-posting ... but the website does not allow *.logs extension files to be attached.
But what I can do is this .... open up each individual date log file ... and convert them each into PDF-printed files.
Would that be acceptable ?