December 18, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Institutional volumes return to FXCM in November

FXCM sees best overall month for FX volumes since June. Leading retail FX firm FXCM, the world's largest online FX broker, announced its November trading activity levels, with retail volumes coming in at $305 billion for the month, and institutional at $90 billion. Comparatively (see chart below), retail volumes were down 6% as compared with October (but were…

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December 18, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Why is LMAX only worth £3.6 million?

LMAX lost another £4.5 million in the first six months of fiscal '13. LMAX's spinoff to management (backed by ex-Betfair Chairman Ed Wray) was certainly not unexpected, as we had blogged about Betfair's likely exit from LMAX just several days prior. But the value at which it was done, at a company valuation of just £3.6 million, with £2.4…

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December 17, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Latest CySEC FX broker – ForexTime

Ex-Alpari execs founded ForexTime in New Zealand two years ago. New Zealand based ForexTime has just received a Cyprus Investment Firm license, and is planning on expanding its marketing activities in Europe. ForexTime was set up in New Zealand two years ago by former Alpari executives from Russia. ForexTime also, somewhat interestingly, has an office…

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December 17, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Alpari volumes drop to $85 billion

Alpari's last report of monthly volumes in November 2010 was $160 billion. Retail FX broker Alpari, which along with FX Club dominates the Russian FX market but also operates worldwide, held a press conference last week in Moscow and released some operating and financial data. The key metrics reviewed include: Monthly volumes in 2012 have…

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December 17, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

FXCM presses the CFTC on customer protection

Advocates broker disclosure of Balance Sheet and Income Statement. LeapRate Exclusive -- LeapRate has learned that FXCM, the world's largest retail FX brokerage (and a member of LeapRate's Approved List of global FX firms) , has written a formal letter to the CFTC, encouraging the CFTC to implement several changes in its regulation of futures…

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December 14, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Hotspot FX volumes down 5% in November

Will Hotspot FX soon have a new owner? Hotspot FX reported that volumes in its Forex ECN system fell in November to average $21.6 billion daily, down 5% from October's $22.7 billion -- and down 22% from last-year November's $27.9 billion. What's been interesting most of our readers though, it seems, is the future of…

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December 12, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

Leverate's Sirix social platform increases client activity

Leverate shares data from a recent client installation. Forex software platform provider Leverate announced today that its Sirix social platform, at an unnamed FX broker client, resulted in 1.5 million client visits (over a month), 240,000 trades, and a 55% increase in the time traders spent in the environment. Leverate also pointed out the importance of…

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December 12, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

tradable's trading apps link to Citi liquidity

Will trading apps replace traditional trading platforms? Denmark-based trading apps provider tradable announced that its trading apps platform -- which now is in working beta testing with six FSA-regulated, UK-based brokerages -- now links to Citi's CitiFX TradeStream. It is unlikely that platform providers such as MetaQuotes are shaking in their boots, worrying that traders…

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December 12, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

IG Group Q2 revenue improves over Q1

IG Group continues to grow its market share in its key markets. Although overall activity remains well below last year's levels across all of its key markets -- similar to trends we see worldwide -- leading UK-based online trading firm IG Group continues to increase market share, reporting Q2 activity (quarter ended Nov 30, 2012)…

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December 11, 2012 BY Gerald Segal

LMAX to be shut down? Or sold?

New Betfair CEO taking the axe to many parts of the business. An interesting article in this weekend's Sunday Times speculated that new Betfair CEO Breon Corcoran was going to use the company's half-year results announcement this coming Thursday to outline an overhaul of many parts of the business, and cost cutting measures -- and a…

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