27 x leverage to gold !At $1250 gold, a single 100-ounce gold-futures contract controls $125,000 worth. Yet the maintenance margin on US gold futures is now just $4600. Thus traders running at maximum margin have leverage to gold of 27.2x! That is astoundingly risky, as a mere 3.7% gold move against these guys would wipe out literally all of the capital they bet. For comparison, stock trading is legally limited to 2.0x leverage.