FXCM, a leading provider of online foreign exchange (FX) trading and CFD trading, reported the customer trading metrics of its retail and institutional foreign exchange business, for the month of February 2018.
The FX broker reports having had customer trading volume of $239 billion in February 2018, which is 4% lower than January 2018 and 19% higher than February 2017. It’s worth noting that February had 20 trading days, whilst January had 22. This explains why the average daily volume (ADV) at FXCM came in at $12.0 billion in February 2018, which is 5% higher than January 2018 and 20% higher than February 2017.
Client trades per day averaged 415,479 in February 2018, which is 18% higher than January 2018 and 2% higher than February 2017. Tradeable accounts were 94,801 as of February 28, 2018 – a decrease of 422, or 0.4%, from January 31, 2018, and a decrease of 14,332, or 13%, from February 28, 2017 – from a total of 112,354 active accounts as of February 28, 2018 – a decrease of 2,539, or 2%, from January 31, 2018, and a decrease of 18,164, or 14%, from February 28, 2017.
It has been a year since the company sold its US-domiciled accounts to Gain Capital Holdings Inc. and withdrew from registration in the country. Results for US operations for both 2016 and 2017 were reclassified as ‘discontinued’.
In May 2017, Global Brokerage, formerly FXCM Inc. and parent of operating company FXCM Group LLC, appointed Ken Grossman as its new CEO. Grossman has replaced disgraced CEO Drew Niv, who resigned in the wake of a financial scandal in which he was fined $7 million by the CFTC for misleading customers regarding the nature of the firm’s market making activities.
This company founded in 1999 faced a severe crisis following the Swiss ‘flash crash’, which led to a number of lawsuits, recapitalizations, executive moves, and regulatory action, including a ban from US markets. FXCM is now a Leucadia Company.
The settlement with CFTC required FXCM founders Drew Niv and William Ahdout to jointly pay a $7 million civil monetary penalty and, along with FXCM, to withdraw from CFTC registration and never seek to register or work at a company that is required to do so ever again. In sum, it means that FXCM, Drew Niv, and William Ahdout were banned from the US within the Forex industry activity.
