The CFTC released U.S. retail client asset data for the month of January, and not much changed, with overall U.S. client assets holding steady at $741 million, about the same as at the end of December.
One observation we made was that each of the four smallest firms (by assets) among the “top 12” U.S. firms each saw a decline in client assets of between 1% and 18% – PFGBest, FX Solutions, Alpari and FX Club. This is certainly consistent with our expectations that increasing regulation and cost-of-regulation in the U.S. is going to squeeze out of the U.S. market all but the larger firms, which can justify the higher costs with large-enough volumes.