CFTC April FCM Financials Show Continued Contraction in US Forex Industry

In what isn’t much of a surprise, the CFTC ’s monthly report of April FCM financials shows a decline in the size of the US Forex industry. Falling below $600m to $595.2m in US retail Forex customer assets, $7.5m of the $8.7m drop was due to ILQ’s exit from the country, which was announced this past April. By not transferring its business to other US regulated entities, it appears many of the accounts that were housed at ILQ have either moved funds to other jurisdictions or exited the market. Overall, trading in April was viewed as mediocre by many Forex brokers around the world, with reported volumes falling at lows for the year.

Beyond the retail account figures, the financials show that with the exception of FXDD, which announced its exit after the compilation of data for this report, US Forex brokers were comfortably above their net capital requirements. As such, after seeing the retail exit of ILQ and FXDD this year, and Alpari in September 2013, no remaining firms appear to be in danger of ceasing operations in the country. However, worth noting is that of the firms on the list below, as well as CitiFX Pro, which isn’t obligated to report segregated retail Forex numbers to the CFTC as it is a bank, only three are pure Forex plays; FXCM, OANDA and GAIN Capital.