Yes. We apply negative balance protection to all new and existing accounts. This helps to limit your liability, safeguard your funds and mitigate the risk of cascading margin calls. Negative balance protection only kicks in when you have no open trades.

If you still have open positions, the balance will remain negative and be covered by unrealised profit and loss.

If you don’t have open positions and close your last trade, we’ll top up your balance to zero.

Price volatility and changes in global market liquidity can result in large spread increases around market openings and closings, following news announcements, and during times of uncertainty. At such times, our spreads usually widen to reflect market conditions. However, there may be occasions during which we opt to implement a fixed spread rather than allowing a spread to continue to widen.

If you leave trades open during the weekend or before markets close, or in the event that a particular market is suspended, you cannot close them until the markets reopen. Note that prices may change significantly or "gap" when trading resumes. If prices move against you, a margin closeout may be triggered when trading resumes if you have insufficient funds on your account to support your trading.

Spreads (the difference between the bid price and the ask price) typically widen just prior to closure of the markets and when they open, to reflect decreased liquidity in the global markets. These widened spreads could trigger stop-loss orders or margin closeouts when a position is open at this time.

Margin calls are an important aspect of leveraged trading. If the balance in your account falls to a level that is close to the regulatory 50% margin close out rule, a margin call will be triggered. If this happens, you might want to consider adding more funds to your account or closing positions to make sure your account balance is greater than the margin required to maintain open positions.

If one or more of your positions is close to margin closeout, you will receive a margin call alert by email. Margin call alert emails are sent at 4 p.m. ET daily. You can avoid margin closeouts by reducing the amount of margin you are using. This can be done by closing some trades.

Note: In a fast-moving market, there may be little time between warnings, or there may not be sufficient time to warn you at all. Be mindful of the “margin closeout percent” field in the account summary of the OANDA Trade user interface. The closer the margin closeout percent is to 100%, the closer you are to a margin closeout.