Frequently AskedQuestions
Find out more about trading, deposit and withdrawals, login problems, platforms issues and more.
General Information
Leverage in trading generally means borrowing a certain amount of money needed to gain exposure to a particular market, with a relatively small deposit.
Leverage allows you to take a position of much higher value than the monies deposited in your account and is commonly expressed as a ratio.
For example, if you have a balance of \$100 and a leverage of 1:30, you essentially have up to \$3,000 worth of instruments across all active trades.
Yes. We allow the use of EA on our MT4 and MT5 trading platforms.
We do not provide support for these automated strategies however as they are available from third-party providers and suggest you contact the source directly should you experience any difficulties related to the settings or methodology of your chosen EA.
We offer our clients the most popular trading platform to trade with, the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 along with its mobile platform counterpart so you can trade on the go.
Additionally, we also have the award-winning platform – TradingView. With TradingView you will get access to an advanced charting package, automated trading capabilities, frequent trading strategy ideas, webinars, custom indicators and more.
So be thorough when deciding which platform to trade on, as each platform provides traders with a different experience.
Yes, we want to provide you with the opportunity to become familiar with the trading environment and test our platform before you apply for a live account.
Our demo account normally lasts for 30 days. You can open a demo account by clicking here now.
Trading Accounts
We don’t want to see you go. However, if you wish to close your live account with us, simply call or submit your request to us – please refer to our ‘Talk with us’ page for details.
If you wish to make changes or update the details on your trading account, you may request this by emailing us – please refer to our ‘Talk with us’ page for details.
If you have not yet funded your live account, you can apply to have the currency of your account changed. To do so please contact our Client Services team directly – please refer to our ‘Talk with us’ page for details.
If you have funded your account but have not yet traded, you may change your account currency with some potential costs and a time delay. Please note however that you may be subjected to bank transfer fees and the market foreign exchange rates as we put in the request to transfer from one currency account to another bank where the other currency accounts are held. Please contact us if you wish to put in this request.
If you have already started trading on your account, unfortunately, you will not be able to change the currency in your account. If you still wish to trade in another currency, the best option we recommend is to open an additional live trading account.
Please refer to the Compare Our Offering page for the account currencies available under each Eightcap entity.
You will be asked which currency you would like your Eightcap trading account to be held in during your application. Note the currency you have selected is also the currency you will deposit funds in.
There is a maximum of five (5) trading accounts per entity type.
An entity type in this context is identified as either an individual trader, joint account traders, company or trust trader. For example, as an individual trader you can open up to a maximum of five trading accounts but if you wish to open a joint trading account between yourself and another trader, you will have the option of another additional five accounts under this entity title. Provided that all documentation has been presented and approved for each entity type, there is no limit to how many entities clients may wish to trade under.
Under special considerations and approval by management, clients may be able to request beyond the five account limit.
We offer two types of accounts, Standard Account and Raw Account.
Both of them provide the same trading conditions, extras and features. However, clients will get to enjoy tighter spreads on the Raw Account and there is a commission for every trade you place on that account.
Find out more about our Account Types here.
Our demo account takes less than a minute to set up whilst our live account application may take approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.
Provided that all required documents are submitted (ID, proof of address etc.), your live account can be set up within 24 hours (during normal business operating hours) of you submitting your application.
Funding & Withdrawals
No, you do not need to deposit right away. However, you will only be able to trade on the financial markets if you have funds in your accounts.
Find out more about our funding methods here.
Most of our payment options are instant. If you have funded via credit card, funds will usually be available in your account within seconds of completing the transaction.
However, if you have funded via bank transfer, funds will need to clear before they appear in your trading account. This can take 1-3 working days, depending on your location.
Login Problems
For Live accounts – This is either one of the following errors: incorrect login number or password. If you are still having issues after attempting to re-enter your login details, please contact us.
For Demo Accounts – This means you’ve either entered the wrong login number or password, or your demo account has expired.
Platform Issues
To reset your MT4 or MT5 chart data, you will need to go to Tools > History Center and select the pair and the time frame you want to reset. Next, select ALL of the data and click Delete twice (to select all – click the first record, hold SHIFT and scroll all the way down to the bottom to select the last record while holding the SHIFT key).
By default you are unable to run more than one MT4/MT5 platform from the same place at the same time.
If you wish to run two instances of MT4 or MT5 platform on your PC, you will need to install a second instance of the platform but in different directories on your PC. When you are running the installer, there is a setting button on the same page of the licence agreement. Click on the button and rename the destination folder and continue. It will then install another copy of MT4/MT5 on your computer.
Our MT4 and MT5 platforms automatically updates whenever there is a new version released by Meta Quotes.
Live updates failing to run automatically are commonly due to restrictions in Windows. Users of Windows Vista, Windows 7 or up will need to make sure MT4 or MT5 is set to Run as an Administrator so that it can perform the live updates automatically as required. To run the platform as administrator, right-click on your desktop icon, and click Run as administrator. When you re-open MT4 or MT5 you will be prompted to complete a Live Update.
Trading
‘Market gapping’ refers to the price movement of an asset, i.e. currencies, stock indices, commodities, etc. during a period where no trading has occurred.
Gapping in the market is seen as the difference in the price of an asset between its closing price at the end of one trading period and its opening price at the next trading period; they typically occur overnight or over the weekend. On occasion, gaps can also occur over shorter time frames.
If you hold a position overnight on a Wednesday, the normal financing charges that are credited/debited on a daily basis are three times the normal amount. Charging triple swap on Wednesday roll-over period accounts for the settlement of trades over the weekend, as swap rates are not charged during this period due to the market being closed.
Our swap rates are calculated automatically in the trading platform. However, for your information, swap rates may be calculated using the following formula:
Current long/short rate * number of lots = swap debit/credit in second currency
If you have any further questions regarding our swap rates, please contact us directly.
We currently offer cash CFDs which do not have an expiry date. As CFDs are traded on margin, you will only pay or receive an overnight financing rate linked to the relevant benchmark rate for the particular currency in which your position is denominated. This means you can keep them running for as long as you choose.
If you are buying a currency or an instrument, you are considered in a ‘long’ position. If you are selling on the other hand, then you are in a ‘short’ position.
For example, if you buy 1 lot of AUD/USD, this means you open a long position for 100,000 of AUD against USD. If you sell 1 lot of USD/GBP this means you open a short position for 100,000 of USD against GBP.
Please note that it is your responsibility to monitor your positions at all times. We do not offer guaranteed stop-loss.
You will be notified on your trading platform screen when your account equity drops to 80% of the required margin. In this case, you may choose to make further deposits into your trading account in order to keep or open more positions.
Once your account equity falls to or below 50%, we will liquidate your positions starting with those that are losing the most against the market.
Again, you cannot rely on us to close out your positions for you. We strongly encourage that you have exit strategies and stop-loss orders set in place to help protect you against potential market movements. Stop-losses are not guaranteed and may be subject to slippage during volatile market conditions.
Margin is the amount of money required to open or maintain a position. This is not a fee or a transaction cost, it is simply a portion of your account equity set aside and allocated as a margin deposit.
Margin requirements can vary depending on the market you are trading, where you hold your account and the size of your trade. If you do not have sufficient free equity available you will be unable to open a position on the trading platform. The free margin amount shown in the trading platform is the amount you have available to use should you wish to open additional positions.
Margin is normally expressed as a percentage of a position size (e.g. 2% or 5%). Margin can be calculated using the following formula:
Margin Requirement = (current market price x volume) / account leverage
For example:
EUR/USD is quoted at the current market price of 1.35645, your account has a leverage of 1:30 and you would like to trade one standard lot. Your margin calculation would be: (1.35645 x 100,000) / 30 = \$4521.5
In this example the margin on this position would be \$4521.5, therefore in order to open a position of this size you would require at least \$4521.5 in free equity in your trading account.