FX Options Trading: Basics and Strategies | Major FX Options Handling Companies [Ōnishi Tahei]

Profile of Yohei Onishi

Financial journalist. After working at a publishing company, he became independent in 1995 and has contributed articles focused on finance and economics to money magazines, business magazines, and weekly magazines. He covers many interviews with analysts and strategists at the forefront of the market, as well as top executives of listed companies. He is proficient in FX and financial trading in general.

*This article is a reprint/reedit of an article from FX Tactics.com, June 2018. Please note that the market information written in the text may differ from the current market situation.

In Japan, the number of brokers you can trade with is limited

FX options can be pursued for high returns and used for hedging, but it is also true that they are not very mainstream in Japan. This is because most domestic FX companies limit their offerings to binary options only.

Therefore, this time we will introduce where you can trade in concrete terms. First, the only entity in Japan that can trade vanilla options (standard FX options) is Saxo Bank Securities. Including precious metals like gold and silver and USD pairings, about 40 instruments can be bought and sold. The company is a group subsidiary of a Danish investment bank headquartered in Copenhagen, and it entered Japan in 2008.

Also, Covered Warrants (e-Warrants) issued by e-Warrant Securities include products investing in seven currencies (USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, CAD, NZD, and ZAR). A covered warrant is a securitized option, and you can buy and sell “call” (the right to buy) or “put” (the right to sell).

One of the differences from regular options is that there is no margin system. Moreover, losses from selling are not unlimited; they are limited to the initial amount invested. Currently, only SBI Securities and Evolution Japan Securities handle e-Warrants.