Institutional revenues and margins continue to improve, and become a bigger part of the picture at FXCM.
Leading retail FX firm FXCM, the world’s largest online FX broker (and a member of LeapRate’s Approved List of global FX brokerage firms), announced its February trading activity levels as well as Q4-2012 results, with both impressing. (Although the stock market doesn’t seem to agree with us, as of the time of writing FXCM stock is off 5%). On the volume side of things, February retail volumes totaled $359 billion, and institutional volumes $132 billion — overall one of FXCM’s best months ever (see chart below).
The key takeaway for us, after looking at both the Feb volume figures as well as diving into Q4 financial results, is the increasing importance and success of institutional trading at FXCM. February institutional volumes were at their highest level since last June. And just as important, margins from institutional trading at FXCM are increasing and approaching retail margin levels (see second chart below). Institutional trading revenues made up 19% of FXCM’s overall trading revenues in Q4 — up from just 7% of revenues last year.
The FXCM announcement comes after we saw record FX volumes in Japan from GMO Click Securities during February, and nice volume results from Forex ECN ICAP EBS.
For the full press release on FXCM’s Q4 results and February volumes click here.
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