The US Senate’s failure to schedule a vote on the Clarity Act before the summer recess has forced the SEC, the CFTC, the White House, as well as executives from across the crypto industry to take matters into their own hands. On Tuesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a framework entitled “Regulation Crypto Assets”, which would grant crypto projects a legally safe option to raise capital and have their tokens traded without having to jump through the traditional hoops associated with securities registration. The following day, a consortium of crypto industry executives and policy makers met at the White House to discuss the path forward in light of the roadblocks currently holding back new digital asset regulation. During the ensuing press conference, President Donal Trump called on Congress to “take the next step by passing the Clarity Act”, adding that the bill is a “very powerful structure legislation which will keep us ahead of […] everyone else”. President Trump was joined on Wednesday by CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt. On the industry side, the gathering included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher, Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, as well as a number of other influential founders and executives. In what is turning out to be a major week for cryptocurrencies, a third event is scheduled for later today, with the CFTC holding the inaugural meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee, the main focus of which will also be crypto asset regulation. As for the SEC’s proposal, the intention is clear for all to see; the potential ruling serves as a clear workaround to certain elements of the delayed Clarity Act. The framework starts by establishing two distinct exemptions, the first allowing companies to raise up to $5 million over a period of four years, the second upping the limit to $75 million every 12 months, but with stricter financial reporting requirements. The two options are designed to make it easier for companies starting out in the crypto industry to raise capital by means of a token or coin launch, which has always been a little tricky in legal terms because such vehicles closely resemble investment contracts. “Money invested in a common enterprise with an expectation of profit from the effort of others” is essentially the SEC’s definition of a security, hence the legal minefield that has plagued the crypto sphere in recent years. Addressing this directly, the proposal then introduces a measure that states that for any crypto project that has successfully fulfilled its functional and technical obligations as laid out during the initial investment phase, the associated crypto asset would no longer be considered an investment contract. The crucial aspect here is that institutions would more freely be able to own and trade crypto assets once they are fully operational, because at that point they would not fall under the definition of an investment contract; how the initial capital was raised becomes irrelevant. While the SEC classified a number of high-profile cryptocurrencies as digital commodities back in March of this year, including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana and a dozen others, the ruling at the time did not comprehensively cover all blockchain activity within those ecosystems. The new proposal, if adopted, would establish a framework under which crypto assets tied to projects that have achieved their functional goals may cease to be subject to an investment contract. Such a ruling offers far greater legal clarity to institutional investors wishing to put cryptographic assets on their books, removing much of the legal grey area currently in place. The proposal will now go through a 60-day period during which the public may comment and offer suggestions to tighten up the wording and clarity of the text. Depending on the extensiveness of the feedback received, the SEC may then revise the proposal before submitting it to a vote, or, in the case of major changes, reopen the matter to public comment. As it stands, the Clarity Act is scheduled for a procedural vote on the 15th of September, which, if successful, would advance the bill to consideration before a final passage vote during the following days. The legal mechanism behind the Clarity Act is far cleaner and greatly more robust than anything lined out by the SEC this week, meaning a successful passage of the bill would immediately make the core of the Regulation Crypto Assets proposal redundant. Nevertheless, it is telling that the SEC is willing to introduce a stopgap to clear out the regulatory ambiguity. It is even more telling that industry leaders are meeting at the White House the following day to discuss matters further. There is also the possibility that the Clarity Act fails entirely, in which case the proposal will suddenly become a vital lifeline for the cryptocurrency industry. Two competing legal paths are emerging concurrently, and while the first is a much more elegant and encompassing solution than the second, many in the industry may be placing their bets on the alternative option. Bitcoin shot up to highs of $70,000 on Wednesday, dragging the entire cryptocurrency sphere along with it and pushing many projects to levels not seen in months. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
Structural cracks in the global economy emerged from the depths yesterday as investors fled almost every major asset class in unison. Bond yields around the world are surging, with those on US treasuries and European instruments rising to multi-year highs. In the US, 30-year treasury yields topped 5.33% on Tuesday, their highest since 2007, while German and French 10-year bonds saw their sharpest rise in over 15 years. Markets are demanding greater returns for holding long-term government debt due to inflation fears and increased geopolitical risk. It now appears as though negotiations between the US and Iran are back to square one, meaning extended high crude oil prices have to be factored into future economic forecasts. Rising oil prices mean higher prices across the board, creating additional inflationary pressures that many countries around the globe are already struggling to contain. US equities were unceremoniously abandoned, dragging the Nasdaq 100 to a 1.7% loss by the daily close, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones dropped 0.7% and 0.2% respectively. Semiconductors incurred the biggest losses on Tuesday, which explains the divergence between the tech sector and the broader market. The major indices in Germany and France lost 0.8% apiece, while those in Japan crumbled 2.5%. Precious metals had no safe haven to offer. Gold traded $80 lower by the end of the day, while silver had forfeited the better part of 4% as yesterday’s session drew to a close. Shockingly, cryptocurrencies have actually performed well so far this week. Bitcoin has risen almost 3% since Monday and is currently challenging $65,000 per coin. The lack of progress in Iran is understandably driving crude oil prices higher, with Brent Crude tapping $92 per barrel yesterday while WTI lingered behind at $85. Saudi Aramco appears to have had enough with the sordid affair and has begun loading a number of very large crude carriers inside the Strait of Hormuz. The company has not done so in three weeks, and the development is somewhat unexpected, although given the fact that all other routes continue to present their own difficulties, it is hard to blame them. The lack of movement in foreign exchange markets over the last two days illustrates the global nature of the problem quite well. There is no obvious safe currency, hence no real FX flows. Most countries are in the same boat, and the boat has a leak. The dollar is completely flat going into today’s major news event, namely the FOMC minutes from the July meeting, which was one of the more interesting ones due to 9-3 vote split among board members. While there is nothing forward-looking about the release, market participants will nevertheless be eager to get a reading on the general mood at the Fed. The dollar currency index is currently idling around 99.6 at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the rout in Japanese and Korean stock markets picked up this morning exactly where it left off, with the Nikkei 225 immediately dumping 3% and the Kospi index plummeting 6% as soon as trading got underway in the Far East, demonstrating once again the heavy semiconductor weightings present in both indices. Potentially rough day ahead. #IRAN #FOMC #DXY About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
The hard part of a limit order is not understanding what it does. It is deciding which price to put it at. Place it too close to the market and there is barely a trade in it; place it too far away and you watch the move leave without you. That single decision is where most beginners get stuck, and it is what this guide is built around. By the end you will know how a limit order actually fills, exactly where buy and sell limits go relative to the current price, how one real GBP/USD trade works out in pips and pounds on each side, and what to do on the days your order never fills at all. A limit order executes at your specified price or better. A buy limit sits below the current market price, a sell limit sits above it, and both wait for the market to come to you. The trade-off is fixed: a limit order guarantees your price, never your fill. Want to place a limit order on a live chart while you read? A limit order is an instruction to buy or sell a currency pair at a specified price or better, rather than at whatever price the market happens to be showing right now. It works as an entry order when you want into a position at a particular level, and as an exit order when you want out at one. The trade-off sits at the centre of everything else in this guide: a limit order buys you price certainty and costs you fill certainty. You decide the price, and in exchange you accept that the market may never trade there. A limit order is one type of pending order, the family of instructions that sit waiting on the platform instead of executing straight away. Here is where it sits against the other two orders you will use most: The one distinction worth holding on to: a limit order gets you a better price than the market is offering, while a stop entry order deliberately takes a worse one to confirm a breakout is real. Same waiting mechanism, opposite intentions. Read more: Types of Forex Orders: Master the 7 Types Like a Pro A buy limit order sits below the current market price. You are not trying to buy now; you are waiting for the market to pull back to a level you have already decided is worth paying, and buying there instead. Here is one worked through completely. GBP/USD is trading at 1.3480. The last swing low sits at 1.3412, and price has already bounced twice from the 1.3410 to 1.3425 zone, so that band is where buyers have shown up before. The buy limit goes at 1.3428, just inside the top of that zone rather than at its exact edge. The stop goes at 1.3388, below the whole band, and the target at 1.3508, just under the prior high. That is 40 pips of risk against 80 pips of reward, a 1:2 ratio, and at £5 per pip it is £200 at risk to make £400, roughly 2% of a £10,000 account. Read more: What is a pip in forex trading? How to calculate and use it Four situations where a buy limit is the right tool, and why the price goes where it goes: I placed exactly the trade above on a Tuesday morning and then went out for the day. GBP/USD drifted lower into the London afternoon, filled me at 1.3428, and I did not see the fill until that evening. Two sessions later it tagged 1.3508. The entire value of that trade came from a decision made before the market moved, not from watching it. A sell limit order sits above the current market price. You are waiting for a rally into a level you consider expensive, and selling there, either to open a short or to take profit on a long you already hold. The same treatment on the other side. GBP/USD is trading at 1.3455. Price stalled twice around 1.3520 to 1.3540 earlier in the month, which makes that band the obvious place sellers are waiting. The sell limit goes at 1.3532, inside the band. The stop goes at 1.3568, above the whole thing, and the target at 1.3460, back near the current price. That is 36 pips of risk for 72 pips of reward, again 1:2, which at £5 per pip means £180 at risk to make £360. Three situations where a sell limit earns its place: That last point is worth stating plainly: the same sell limit does two different jobs depending on whether you hold a position. As an entry it opens a short; attached to an open long it closes the trade at your price. The mechanics are identical. Read more: What is a stop-loss order and how to set it Both orders wait for a better price. The only real difference is which side of the market they wait on, and what "better" means when you are buying versus selling. The rule underneath the whole table is short enough to memorise: buy below, sell above. A limit order always sits on whichever side of the market is more favourable to you, which is exactly why it may never get hit. Your order rests in the market until price reaches your level, then executes at that price or better. The "or better" half gets ignored constantly, and it matters: a buy limit at 1.3428 that gets filled during a fast drop can execute at 1.3424, handing you four pips of price improvement rather than slippage against you. Read more: What is slippage and how to avoid it in trading Now the honest part, because the interesting cases are the ones where nothing happens at all. The sell limit example above is one I actually missed. Price reached 1.3527, five pips under my order at 1.3532, reversed, and fell 90 pips over the next two days. My analysis was right and my order was wrong, because I had put it at the level I wanted rather than the level the market was likely to reach. That is the whole lesson of this section. So: a limit order guarantees the price and not the fill. If being in the trade matters more than the price you pay, that is what a market order is for, and it carries the opposite cost. Read more: Market Order Explained: How It Fills and When to Use It The flow below works on any platform, because the sequence of decisions does not change even when the buttons do. Most of the work happens before you touch the order ticket. Settle the pair and whether you are going long or short before anything else, because direction decides which side of the current price your order belongs on. Long means below the market, short means above it. Get this backwards and the platform will usually reject the order, which is at least a cheap way to find out. You can place a limit order on any currency pair your broker offers, but the pair decides how reliable that order is. On majors such as GBP/USD, EUR/USD and USD/JPY, spreads stay tight and price moves in small increments, so an order at your level usually gets a clean fill. On exotics such as USD/TRY or USD/ZAR, the spread can be 20 to 50 pips wide and price jumps in chunks, which means the same order can be skipped entirely or filled far from where you expected. Same instruction, very different odds. Ready to place your first limit order on a real chart? This is the decision the whole trade rests on, and it is not "type in a number you like". Find the structural level first: a prior swing high or low, or a zone price has reacted to more than once. Then place the order just inside that zone rather than at its outer edge. In the buy limit example, the zone ran from 1.3410 to 1.3425 and the order went at 1.3428, three pips above the top of it. Placing it at 1.3412, right on the old low, would look more precise and fill far less often, because price tends to turn a few pips before the exact level everyone can see. You are trading a slightly worse entry for a materially better chance of getting one. Put both on the same ticket rather than adding them after the fill. Limit orders fill when you are not watching, which is most of the point of using them, and an unprotected fill at 3am is not a trade, it is an exposure. Size the stop from structure, not from a round number. In the example the stop sat at 1.3388 because that was below the entire support band; a fixed 20 pips would have placed it inside the zone, where normal noise would have taken it out. The expiry, or time-in-force, decides how long the order waits. Pick it from the level you are waiting for: a few hours takes a day order, a level that may need days takes GTC, and an idea tied to a specific event takes GTD. Once submitted, the order sits in your pending list, where the price can be amended or the whole thing cancelled. Check it whenever the reason you placed it changes. This is where discipline earns its keep: do not let a three-day-old order fill you into a market you no longer agree with. If the structure that justified the level has broken, cancel it. The order does not know the chart has changed. One habit that pays for itself: place the limit price inside the zone, not on its exact tick. The trades you lose to a level that missed by 2 pips cost far more over a year than the few pips of entry you give up by sitting slightly inside. A limit order is the right tool when the price you get matters more than getting in at all. Three situations where that holds: There are four situations where a limit order is the wrong tool. In each one the order either misses the trade you wanted or fills you into a market that has already moved, so the table sets out what goes wrong and what to reach for instead. The pattern running through all four is the same: a limit order needs the market to behave in an orderly way. The judgement in one line is that the faster the market, the less a limit order can be relied on; the more structured the market, the more it is worth. Read more: What Is Spread in Forex? Formula, Calculation & Examples Used in the wrong place, a limit order does not simply fail to help. It creates losses of its own, and they are worth naming because none of them look like mistakes at the moment you make them. Every one of these comes from the same root: the order was treated as a decision in itself rather than as the execution of a decision already made. The order ticket is the last step, not the plan. Read more: What is liquidity in Forex and how is it measured Read more: What is a pending order and how does it work A limit order is an instruction to your broker to buy or sell a currency pair at a specific price or better. A buy limit order executes only at your set price or lower, while a sell limit order executes only at your set price or higher. It guarantees price control, but not trade execution. The key difference is that a limit order guarantees a specific price (or better) but does not guarantee execution, whereas a stop order guarantees execution (turning into a market order once triggered) but does not guarantee the final execution price. In short, one protects your price and the other protects your participation. A limit order is a good idea when price control is more important than fast execution. It lets you set a maximum purchase price or minimum sale price. However, it does not guarantee your trade will happen if the market price never reaches your target. How long a limit order lasts depends on the time-in-force setting you choose when placing the trade. It can expire at the end of the trading day, last for a few weeks or months, or remain active until you cancel it or it gets filled. The expiry table above sets out which setting suits which situation. The risk is not in the order type, it is in where you place it. A buy limit at a level with no structure behind it simply buys a falling market at a slightly better price. The second risk is behavioural: chasing the market with a market order after the limit fails to fill, which turns a missed trade into a bad one. It depends on whether you want the price or the fill. A limit order enforces patience, which suits beginners learning to wait for levels; a market order guarantees you are in, which matters when the setup is time-sensitive. The most common beginner mistake is using a limit order to chase a fast market, where it delivers neither. Three things are worth keeping from this. Buy below and sell above, because a limit order always waits on the favourable side. It guarantees your price and never your fill, so every order needs a plan for the day it does not trigger. And the limit price belongs inside a zone rather than on a single tick, because the market rarely respects the exact level you drew. A limit order cannot make a bad level good. It executes a decision you already made, which is exactly why the decision deserves more time than the order ticket does. The fastest way to make this concrete is to place two. Open GBP/USD on a demo account, set one buy limit below the market and one sell limit above it at levels you can justify, then check back in a week to see which filled, which died, and what the market did in between. The RADEX MARKETS editorial team consists of seasoned financial professionals and market observers. Dedicated to delivering objective market summaries, macroeconomic insights, and educational content, the team strives to keep traders well-informed in a fast-paced financial environment. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Related concepts:
The ongoing turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz has forced shipping companies into exploring alternative trade routes in an effort to bypass the dangerous passage in and out of the Persian Gulf. Millions of barrels of oil are stuck in various Middle Eastern countries because the usual export pathways are closed off. Saudi Arabia has a trump card for this exact scenario in the form of its East-West pipeline, which allows for crude oil to be transported hundreds of kilometres over the desert to the other side of the country, to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. This allows shipping companies to bypass the Strait of Hormuz entirely, avoiding the dangerous waters close to the Iranian mainland and picking up the same cargo in relative safety. Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, has encouraged ship owners to do just that, but there is a problem. Unfortunately, the Red Sea presents its own difficulties, namely the presence of Houthi rebels operating out of Yemen. Terrorism in the region has been a problem for a while already, and shipping companies are beginning to shun the secondary route just as they have abandoned the first. On the 20th of July, the Houthis announced a naval blockade of the Saudi Arabian coastline and threatened vessels attempting to load Saudi oil. In an effort to avoid detection, some shipping vessels are opting to turn off their transponders to avoid potential attacks, but such operations are risky and are by no means a long-term solution. The increased pressure has tempered international willingness to navigate the Red Sea, with many companies opting to walk away completely. Asian refiners traditionally buy Saudi crude oil according to free on board (FOB) terms, meaning the price they pay is the price to pick up the oil at the loading point; all transport and insurance costs are absorbed by the buyer. Saudi Aramco has been offering a discount to Asian buyers to partially compensate for the danger of navigating through dangerous waters, but it seems what little has been conceded is no longer enough. A number of Asian refiners are now refusing to pick up the precious cargo in Yanbu because they cannot find shipping companies willing to take on the job. Insurance premiums have also shot up over the past few months, further driving up freight rates in the region. According to recent reports, at least two refiners have requested to start loading crude oil at the northern Egyptian port of Sidi Kerir, located in the Mediterranean Sea. This would allow vessels to avoid both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, paving the way for a relatively safe route around Africa. Unfortunately, such a detour would add weeks to the normal journey time, greatly increasing transport costs for the refiner. Customers in Asia are understandably unhappy about the current situation, and although routing all Saudi oil through the Egyptian terminal is not a flexible enough solution to fully replace Yanbu, the different parties involved are running out of options. The tenuous peace deal between the US and Iran is looking more fragile than ever this week and tensions in the region are flaring up once again. Crude oil prices are likewise on the rise, with Brent Crude punching back above $90 per barrel on Monday. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
If last week’s charts are anything to go by, a large percentage of traders are too busy lounging around the pool or frolicking on the beach to contribute anything towards financial markets. It is mid-August after all; who can blame them. Trading volumes on the NYSE and Nasdaq were far below yearly averages last week as holiday season entered full swing and trading desks reduced to skeleton crews. If there was one pivotal talking point to latch onto, it was the fact that the US economy showed a second consecutive month of cooling inflation, at least according to the latest CPI data. The deceleration in consumer price growth was hardly anything to write home about, coming in 0.1% lower than the previous month, the salient point is the direction of travel. Less inflation means less chance of an interest rate hike, and indeed interest rate traders reacted accordingly, swinging more heavily in favour of a rate hold in September and October, but still leaning towards one adjustment to the upside during the December FOMC meeting. The total lack of reaction in the US dollar was quite telling, suggesting that FX markets had largely pre-empted the shift over the prior two weeks. With that said, the greenback’s competitors have their own problems to worry about and the relative stability in the dollar currency index may be providing cover for broader turmoil. The euro is under pressure from the economic stagnation afflicting the European Union, while the yen remains at the mercy of low interest rates courtesy of the Bank of Japan. The Swiss National Bank has absolutely no interest in seeing the Swiss Franc appreciate in value either, turning global currency markets into a giant race to the bottom. Speaking of the yen, the joint intervention to prop up the Japanese currency has already begun to unwind, with USDJPY once again approaching 160. The DXY has remained under 100 points for most of August already and is once again on the back foot going into today’s session. Easing expectations on the dollar allowed risk-on sentiment to come to the fore-front last week; precious metals undertook a minor leg up with gold reaching $4,375 per ounce by Friday and silver closing just shy of $65. US stocks recorded modest gains overall, as the S&P 500 edged to a fresh all-time high on Thursday, while the Nasdaq 100 added 1% to its tally to close the week back above 30,000 points. Semiconductors were the driving force behind the rally, meaning the jubilation did not spread as far as the Dow Jones, which lost half a percent last week. The rebound in tech sent a number of companies flying, most notably Sandisk (SNDK), which exploded 35% higher, while Western Digital (WDC) and Micron (MU) gained 17% and 11% respectively. Dell Technologies (DELL) also continued to surprise markets last week by pushing 8% higher into unexplored territory. Not the most fascinating of economic calendars in the days ahead, but there are still a few events worth keeping an eye out for. Wednesday will see the publication of the latest batch of UK and European inflation data, both of which will factor into future interest rate predictions on their respective currencies, but the main event will be the release of the FOMC minutes covering the July meeting. Comments from different board members will be all the more interesting given that the gathering occurred before the most recent inflation reading. On Friday, currency traders will have to tune in to the July inflation figures in Japan, which will play into interest rate dynamics in the yen. On earnings calendar, Walmart (WMT) may be worth paying attention to on Thursday because it offers an independent glimpse into US consumer spending – a metric that fell sharply according to last Friday’s retail sales figures. With the macro calendar cleared, the spotlight may well return to geopolitics this week, as the US-Iran memorandum of understanding expires and diplomatic relations in the Middle East continue to sour. #IRAN #DXY #FOMC About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.
