FXCM Group today reported its execution quality metrics for September 2020, which showed stable rates across its average spreads for cryptocurrency and certain FX instruments.
For the cryptocurrency pairs, the company averaged 29.2 pips on BTC/USD, a slight decrease from August.
However, September’s spread was significantly lower when weighed against the 44 pips the company charged when it first reported spreads metrics for its bitcoin instrument two years ago, which in itself was below the industry norm at the time.
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While no-fee platforms are exerting pressure on legacy brokers to lower their fees on mainstream tradeable assets, the same cannot be said of their effect on cryptocurrency. Perhaps it is the inherent risks associated with crypto trading, such as heightened volatility, but overall, fees remain higher in the crypto sphere in general.
For the Ethereum and Litecoin instruments, FXCM charged on average 1.1 and 0.3 pips, respectively, also a touch lower from the months prior.
FXCM has recently expanded its crypto offering with the launch of a cryptocurrency basket for its retail clients.
Named CryptoMajor, the product groups five Cryptocurrencies all into one tradeable derivative, therefore, allowing traders to collate multiple instruments in one go, without the need to independently manage them. Instead of adding more exposure to a major cryptocurrency, FXCM’s CryptoMajor is made up of Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Ether, giving an equal weighting for each coin in the basket.
The FX broker introduced the new asset type earlier in 2018 when it began testing the service with its already installed Bitcoin offering.
FXCM also published its price improvements/slippage statics for September 2020, which showed the following highlights.
- 56.8% of orders executed at price
- 28.1% of orders executed with positive slippage
- 15.1% of orders executed with negative slippage
Additionally, the company reported on its execution speed, which is measured from the time a customer’s order is received to the time of filling. The average order execution time was 24 milliseconds in September. Although an important factor in determining where orders are routed, it is only one factor. Some brokers already provide a good speed of execution but fail to provide price improvement or Liquidity .
According to figures stated in the report, the average spreads on the EUR/USD, GBP/USD, and XAU/USD pairs were 0.1, 0.3, and 0.4 pips, respectively.
The following table shows the exact figures in September:
Additionally, the online brokerage disclosed its Effective Spread statics, which displays its quoted spread for its top FX pairs, and compares the figures with actual spreads, at which trades were already filled, with the difference being displayed in a table key.
