Virtu Financial Reports 55% YoY Decline in Revenues for Q1

Market maker Virtu Financial published its financial results for the first quarter of 2015 this Friday.

The New York-based firm saw a drastic decline in revenues compared to the same period last year.

According to results released by the firm, Virtu saw total revenues of $363 million in the first quarter of this year.

That was a 55.5 percent decrease on last year when the trading company reported revenues of $815.1 million.

That decline was down to significant decreases in Virtu’s Execution Execution Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Read this Term services and market making business.

With regard to the latter, Virtu reported total revenues of $279.2 million for the last quarter, down from $432.5 million in the same period last year.

Execution services-based revenue saw a more precipitous decline, with revenues falling from $383.8 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $83.5 million for this year.

As a result, the firm suffered losses of $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2019. Last year the market maker made $410 million in profit.

Not all bad

Those figures are, however, slightly misleading.

For one thing, the costs of Virtu’s $1 billion acquisition of Investment Technology Group (ITG) - which was completed on March 1st of this year - had to be integrated into its financial results.

Conversely, last year’s results were skewed by Virtu’s sale of BondPoint. The company made approximately $337.6 million from that deal.

Volatility Volatility In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, or stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Trad In finance, volatility refers to the amount of change in the rate of a financial instrument, such as commodities, currencies, or stocks, over a given time period. Essentially, volatility describes the nature of an instrument’s fluctuation; a highly volatile security equates to large fluctuations in price, and a low volatile security equates to timid fluctuations in price. Volatility is an important statistical indicator used by financial traders to assist them in developing trading systems. Trad Read this Term has also been extremely low thus far in 2019, meaning that trading firms, both institutional and retail, have been reporting lower revenues.

That was something Douglas Cifu, Virtu’s chief executive officer, hinted at as he commented on his firm’s first quarter results.

“Our businesses performed well given the reduced opportunity set in the first quarter of 2019 and our execution services results were quite strong relative to the market environment,” said Cifu.

“Since closing the ITG acquisition on March 1st, we have worked diligently on integrating the comprehensive buyside and sellside solutions to serve our clients.”