Negative swap on both sides

[Fairman]

Negative swap on both sides

Normally, a pair pays a positive swap on one side and charges a negative one on the other. Long the high-yielding currency earns, short pays. Some broker swap tables show a negative number for both long and short.

This happens because brokers add a markup to the interbank swap. If the interbank rate is small, the markup tips both sides into the red.

For scalpers it matters only when positions straddle rollover. A forgotten trade then costs money whichever way it points, so there is no direction in which holding is free.

On exotic pairs the numbers can be large. A position held through Wednesday on one of them may lose more in swap than the trade could plausibly earn.

Scanning the broker's swap table once a month for the pairs traded takes a few minutes and reveals the quirks. Brokers also change swap rates without announcement, so a table read in January may be wrong by March.

Which pairs in the current swap table are negative on both sides, and by how much?