Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Forex giant Forex Capital Markets (NASDAQ:FXCM) generated in February 2017 a trading volume of $239 billion, which represents a drop of 24% from the preceding month and by 34% over the year. Trading volume from operations in the US market, which the broker exited last month, amounted to $38 billion, or half that a month earlier. Non-US volume went down by a monthly 21% to $201 billion in February, posting a decline of 33% year-on-year.
FXCM stopped servicing US clients as of 24 February after the local regulators banned it from operating in the country. The group’s US arm was charged with taking positions against customers, concealing that a key market maker was tightly related to the broker, and misrepresenting its “No Dealing Desk” platform as providing no conflict of interest with customers. Its US customer base was acquired by peer Gain Capital, which is now the largest market player there.
In February, FXCM handled 175,827 active retail client accounts in total, of which 45,395 were in the US and the remaining 130,432 were outside of the US. Meanwhile, retail tradable retail accounts, or such with sufficient funds to place a trade, totaled 109,276 at the end of last month, of which just 143 were operated by US clients.
Daily trades per customer averaged 73,316 in the US and 408,446 outside the US.
The broker did not provide data about its institutional forex operations. Following are more details about its retail business:
It seems February was a poor month not only for troubled FXCM. Meanwhile, Gain Capital reported for February a retail trading volume of $170.2 billion, which represents a double-digit drop on the month and over the year. FXCM’s US client transfer to Forex.com, a brand of Gain Capital, was finalized on 24 February, but the broker’s reort did not indicate whether it included the newly-added more than 47,000 new accounts.
FXCM Group operates via several other subsidiaries, including UK-licensed Forex Capital Markets Ltd. and Australia-regulated FXCM Australia Pty. Ltd. It is majority owned by Global Brokerage Inc., which until recently was known as FXCM Inc., and 49.9% owned by US lender Leucadia National Corp.
