OANDA Asia Pacific Expands Operations in Asia

gpcode says:

I had been an OANDA client for some years mainly because of their unique offering of box trading, but am appalled at their attempts along with Paul Murphy, a contributor to the Financial Times to call for limiting the availability of leverage in the EU to 1:50, the same as currently in the US markets after the Dodd-Frank legislation forced this to happen. OANDA has reportedly petitioned an EU regulatory body to do just that-

I don’t recall asking OANDA or Mr. Murphy to hobble my ability to grid trade or offset (hedge) trade currencies by doing this, and quite frankly will never trade through OANDA again.

A flood of traders had opened accounts outside US markets after those changes happened- I was one of them, then additional restrictions came along where my residence in the US prohibits me from trading elsewhere where I could have at least enjoyed the freedoms I once had. I am trying to supplement my lower middle class income from my full-time ‘day job’ and any writer or brokerage trying to interfere with my ability to supplement this by trading deserves to be called out for it. This reduction in leverage impairs those like me who have low amounts of capital available to trade with, and along with asinine FIFO rules literally destroyed years of research and development of grid systems and offset (‘hedging’) systems and methods that worked well at 1:100 leverage, as well as my ability to recover from losing trades- resulting in complete losses of my accounts. It should be noted that my box trading account still failed due to my lack of technique, even at leverage offered by OANDA- certainly I am not going to complain that because this technique didn’t work for me that it won’t for someone else- and I would expect that the same respect would be shown toward how I wish to trade.

Every brokerage I have ever heard of including OANDA warns a prospective trader to 1). trade only with money one can afford to lose, and 2) begin with a demo account to gain experience until one feels confident about navigating the markets. If people insist on ignoring these warnings and jump right in with live trading with higher leverage, what result should be expected?
I really don’t like to express this but my message to those attempting to influence regulatory bodies to impair those of us who don’t want your ‘help’ is unwelcome and gives reason to question motives. A more cynical criticism could be stated that at least OANDA is attempting to force these restrictions onto the freer regions that became new centers of currency trading after Dodd-Frank was implemented. Whatever the reason, respect for the many who don’t agree with you will be shown by backing off and simply trading with the restrictions you’ve chosen for yourselves.