Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The exit of US forex giant Forex Capital Markets, or FXCM, has had a positive impact on the rest of the market players, with the exception of Interactive Brokers, indicated the latest data provided by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The biggest gainer was Gain Capital (the operator of Forex.com), which purchased the US clients of the exiting broker and the total amount of client deposits it handled jumped 114% to $271.4 million at the end of February.
The market, however, shrunk to $507.4 million, which is down by 4.7% from the preceding month and 2.2% from February 2016. Since late 2015, the market has been underperforming and the February metrics are at very low levels.
FXCM stopped servicing US clients as of 24 February. It was removed from the CFTC register and deleted from the monthly regulatory statistics.
With the exit of FXCM, the market has shrunk to just four brokers authotized to provide retail forex trading services.
Interactive Brokers was the only one to post a drop in retail forex client assets after the exit of FXCM. Client deposits with the broker went down by a monthly 8.1% to $33.6 million. Meanwhile, Oanda Corp. and TD Ameritrade Futures&Forex reported a monthly increase in client assets of 9.9% and 6.9%, respectively.
In February 2017, FXCM group’s US arm was forced to exit the US, where it was the largest market player, and sold its clients there to peer Gain Capital. The broker was charged with taking positions against customers, among others.
In February, the FXCM group of companies handled 175,827 active retail client accounts in total, of which 45,395 were in the US. Meanwhile, 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.
Forex broker
Total retail forex obligation Feb ’17
Total retail forex obligation Jan ’17
M/M change
Total retail forex obligation Feb ’16
Y/Y change
Forex Capital Markets LLC
–
$183,422,554
–
$176,554,674
–
Gain Capital Group LLC
$271,410,137
$126,888,959
+113.9%
$128,725,139
+110.8%
IBFX INC
–
–
–
$43,118,441
–
Interactive Brokers LLC
$33,633,836
$36,585,526
-8.1%
$35,129,896
-4.3%
Oanda Corporation
$147,849,819
$134,545,222
+9.9%
$94,818,495
+55.9%
Wedbush Securities INC
–
–
–
$40,598,869
–
TD Ameritrade Futures & Forex LLC
$54,476,510
$50,972,744
+6.9%
–
–
TOTAL
$507,370,302
$532,415,005
-4.7%
$518,945,514
-2.2%
