It appears the Swiss National Bank decided to wait til they saw the whites of the eyes of the 'speculators'. The SNB's surprise decision to scrap the EURCHF ceiling has unleashed major pain across the hedge fund community as speculators, according to CFTC data, are the most short Swiss Francs (long the USD) since June 2013. Holding a huge 24,171 contracts short USDCHF futures (which surged 24 handles on the news) will not go unnoticed by the margin clerks...

Speculators are the shortest Swiss Franc (against the USD) since June 2013...

Which explains the massive liquidations...

Here are the 10 "halts" (courtesy of @NanexLLC) in Swiss Franc futures...

For a sense of the move - that 24 handle surge cost each contract holder $30,000 - almost 9 times the initial margin required for hedge traders.

And now with margins set to triple as of tomorrow's close... we suspect things get a little more volatile.

Charts: Bloomberg