Have you ever fancied yourself as a foreign exchange dealer, with flickering screens bringing the latest rates to your fingertips in a market which boasts turnover of US$1.5 trillion a day?
Societe Generale's eFXTrade product brings an online forex trading service to the retail investor via a personal computer.
'The system does away with the need to phone your dealer,' said Nelson Wong, general manager at eFXTrade. 'If the dealer is busy, often the little fish get left out. With this product you can make your own decisions in your own time at the click of a mouse.'
Customers need US$10,000 to open an account, and they are able to leverage their positions at up to 12.5 times the deposit.
The product brings a level of transparency to a market which has traditionally relied on conversations between the dealer and customer. Two windows appear on a user's screen, showing the bid-offer prices in the market and those quoted by Societe Generale. Trades are executed in seconds and positions are revalued on a real-time basis.
The system has many risk-management features, including allowing the user to set limit orders, access a 24-hour hotline and receive trading statements.
Technical analysis is possible through a short-term charting facility, while historical data can be accessed through the eFXTrade Web site.