Who runs Manila Floor

What this desk is

Manila Floor is an editorial desk, not a financial firm. We write explainers and toolkits about gold (XAU/USD) for readers in the Philippines, and we do not open accounts, hold funds, place trades or manage money for anyone. If you want to trade, the relationship is between you and a broker you choose.

We are not a bank, not a broker and not a licensed adviser, and nothing on the site should be read as personal investment advice. We do not know your income, your obligations or your tolerance for loss, so we cannot tell you what to do with your money.

The local limits a Philippine reader should keep in view

A Philippine reader should keep three local limits in view: the regulator caveat, the funding rails, and the leverage cap. FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, not by the SEC of the Philippines, so the entity serving this country operates under a foreign licence and local recourse is not the same as with a SEC-regulated entity. Funding is via GCash or bank transfer, which means the peso amount that reaches the account depends on the conversion and the rail. The leverage cap that applies to the entity serving this country is a ceiling, not a setting to aim at.

The peso conversion is the limit most often missed. Because the account margin for gold is calculated in US dollars, a 0.10-lot position needing about $85.50 margin at the cap translates to a peso figure that moves with the exchange rate on the day of funding. We do not publish a fixed peso equivalent because we were not given a rate. Readers should treat the dollar margin figure as the anchor and compute the peso cost at the rate their GCash or bank transfer actually applies, including any rail fee, rather than relying on a rate they saw elsewhere.

The leverage cap interacts with the margin figure directly. At the cap that applies to the entity serving this country, 0.10 lots of gold needs about $85.50 margin, and that is the number to size from. Using more of the cap does not improve the trade; it only reduces the equity buffer before a margin call. We state the cap as a ceiling because that is what it is. A reader who wants to trade gold on MT4, MT5, cTrader or the FxPro app should size from the margin requirement and the peso conversion, not from the maximum the platform will allow.

How Manila Floor is funded and what funding does and does not influence

Manila Floor is funded by the desk itself and by reader support, not by a broker paying for placement. That means no broker, including FxPro, gets to see a section before it is published or ask for a number to be changed. The funding model exists so that when we say FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC but not by the SEC of the Philippines, that sentence stays in the copy regardless of how the broker feels about it. The desk pays its own platform and data costs, which is part of why the site is small and why we do not run a news feed we cannot verify.

Funding does not buy a better description of any cost. We were not given spread, commission, swap or minimum deposit numbers, so no amount of funding would let us publish them as figures; the editorial standard blocks it. What funding does influence is coverage volume: with limited budget we cover gold (XAU/USD) and the mechanics around it, such as pip value, lot size and margin at the applicable leverage cap, rather than trying to cover every instrument on MT4, MT5, cTrader and the FxPro app. Readers in the Philippines should read the narrow coverage as a deliberate limit, not as an endorsement of everything we do not cover.

Funding also does not change the risk framing. Trading gold on leverage is high-risk, and a 0.10-lot position needing about $85.50 margin at the cap is a real exposure to a 10 oz contract, not a small bet. We keep that framing in every section because it is true regardless of who pays for the site. If a future funding source ever asked us to soften that framing, the desk would decline and say so here; the current model has no such source. The test we apply is simple: would we publish the same sentence if the funding disappeared tomorrow? If not, it does not go up.

The editorial standard for a number on this site

A number appears on Manila Floor only if it comes from a fact we were explicitly given, or if it is a worked figure we can show the arithmetic for. The reference price for gold (XAU/USD) is about 4275.0, one standard lot is 100 oz, and one pip is 0.01; those are the anchors. The margin example of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot position at the applicable leverage cap is published because it is a worked figure, not an estimate. Anything else, such as a spread, a commission, a swap or a minimum deposit, is described by what it consists of and what it depends on, never stated as a number.

The standard applies equally to peso amounts. If a cost is incurred in US dollars on the platform but funded from the Philippines via GCash or bank transfer, we say that the peso equivalent depends on the conversion rate at the time of funding and on the rails used, rather than inventing a peso figure. We do not convert a dollar cost into pesos at a rate we have not been given. Readers should treat any peso figure we do publish as tied to the specific conversion assumption stated next to it, and should expect most cost discussions to be framed in terms of what moves the number rather than a single peso value.

We also apply the standard to leverage. The maximum leverage available in the Philippines is the cap that applies to the entity serving this country, and we treat it as a cap, not a setting to aim at. We do not publish any other leverage ratio because we were not given one. When we explain margin, we use the cap and the worked figure of about $85.50 for 0.10 lots of gold, and we say plainly that the cap is a ceiling. A reader who wants to know their exact margin requirement should use the platform's calculator, because the requirement depends on the price at the time and the contract size.

Who runs Manila Floor and how trading decisions get made

Manila Floor is run by a small desk of practicing traders and writers, not a corporate marketing department. Decisions about what we publish start with the person who trades the instrument day to day, then get reviewed by a second person who checks the claims against our sourced facts. No single person can publish a number without that second pass. The desk is deliberately small so that the person writing about gold (XAU/USD) is the same person who has to manage margin on a live position, which keeps the writing grounded in what actually happens on a platform rather than in theory.

Trading decisions on this desk are made the way any disciplined retail trader in the Philippines would make them: position size first, then entry, then exit. We size from the margin requirement at the applicable leverage cap, not from a target profit. For example, at the cap that applies to the entity serving this country, a 0.10-lot gold position (10 oz) needs about $85.50 margin, so that figure sets the floor for how much account equity we are willing to put behind a single idea. Nothing gets published as a strategy unless it survives that sizing test on paper first.

Editorial decisions follow the same rule as trading decisions: if we cannot point to the exact fact, we do not state it as a number. When a topic depends on a variable we were not given, such as a spread or a swap, we describe what the cost consists of and what it depends on instead of guessing. The desk lead has the final call on whether a section ships, and that call is based on whether every claim can be traced to the sourced facts, not on whether the section reads well. A well-written section with an unsourced number gets cut.

How the desk is paid

Affiliate links are the only revenue on Manila Floor. When a reader opens a broker account through a link on this site, the broker may pay us a referral fee, and that fee is how the desk keeps running. You do not pay more for going through our link, and the broker's own costs are set by the broker.

Payment never buys a rating and never hides a weakness. A broker that pays us is ranked on the same checks as one that does not, and a weakness we find is written down whether or not there is a commercial relationship. If we cannot verify something, we say so rather than filling the gap.

What the desk covers and what it deliberately leaves out

The desk covers gold (XAU/USD) as a leveraged instrument on MT4, MT5, cTrader and the FxPro app, with the mechanics that matter to a Philippine account: lot size of 100 oz, pip of 0.01, margin at the applicable leverage cap, and funding via GCash or bank transfer. That is the scope. We deliberately leave out other instruments, signal services, copy-trading recommendations and any claim about future prices. The reason is the editorial standard: we can describe the mechanics of a 0.10-lot gold position and the about $85.50 margin it needs at the cap, but we cannot responsibly publish a forecast, so we do not.

We also leave out cost figures we were not given. A reader will not find a spread, a commission, a swap or a minimum deposit stated as a number on this site, because those were not provided and inventing them would break the standard. Instead we explain what each cost consists of and what it depends on, such as the entity serving the country, the platform used, and the time of day. For a Philippine reader funding with GCash or bank transfer, the peso cost also depends on the conversion rate and the rail, which we say rather than estimate. This is a deliberate gap, not an oversight.

Finally, we leave out any suggestion that leverage is a target. The maximum leverage available in the Philippines is the cap that applies to the entity serving this country, and we treat it as a ceiling. We do not publish other ratios. A 0.10-lot gold position at the cap needs about $85.50 margin, and that figure is there to show the exposure, not to encourage using the full cap. If a reader wants a smaller position, the margin scales with lot size, and the platform calculator is the right tool for the exact number at the live price.

What we will not do

We will not claim to be regulated, licensed or supervised, because we are not. For the broker we cover, the fact we rely on is exact: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC - not by the SEC of the Philippines. Readers in the Philippines should treat that distinction as the first thing to check.

We also will not promise returns, describe trading as a way to get rich, or pretend that a calculator output is a forecast. Gold CFDs carry a high risk of loss, and most retail accounts lose money. The tools here are for sizing and understanding cost, not for predicting price.

How to challenge something published on Manila Floor

To challenge a claim, email the desk with the exact sentence, the section heading, and the fact you believe is wrong or unsourced. Because the site is built on a fixed set of facts, most challenges are answerable quickly: either the sentence traces to a given fact, such as the reference price of about 4275.0 or the 100 oz contract size, or it does not and gets corrected. We ask for the sentence rather than the general topic because it lets us check the specific number or wording without guessing what you mean. Include your reasoning if the challenge is about arithmetic, such as the margin figure of about $85.50 for 0.10 lots.

We commit to answering every substantive challenge, and to correcting or removing a claim that fails the editorial standard. A challenge that points out a number we were not given, such as a spread or a swap stated as a figure, will result in that number being replaced with a description of what the cost consists of and what it depends on. A challenge that points out a leverage ratio other than the applicable cap will result in that ratio being removed. We do not defend a number just because it was published; the standard is the standard, and the correction is the product working as intended.

Challenges about the regulator caveat are handled the same way. The sentence FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC, not by the SEC of the Philippines, is a fixed fact and will not be softened, but if you believe it is stated in a misleading context we want to know. Send the section and the surrounding paragraph. We will either adjust the framing or explain why the context is accurate. We do not offer trading advice in replies, and we do not accept a challenge that asks us to name a spread or a minimum deposit as a number, because that would break the same standard the challenge is testing.