KCG Hotspot to publish daily FX volume. M&A on the cards?

KCG (NYSE: KCG) has today announced that its FX ECN, KCG Hotspot, has begun publishing daily spot FX volumes to the public via the firm’s corporate website.

“We’ve long been advocates for moving the FX industry toward greater transparency,” stated John Miesner, Managing Director and Head of Global Sales at KCG Hotspot in a commercial statement.

“We have decided to start with our own volume data. This has been driven in large measure by what our clients want. It also reflects KCG Hotspot’s commitment to being clear and open. We support other such efforts that progress the FX marketplace’s move toward the forms of transparency shown in other asset classes, such as standardized reporting and the release of more current data by all platforms” concluded Mr. Miesner.

Hotspot volume statistics are being made available to the general marketplace, with today’s release including daily volumes for the prior 30 days on a rolling basis. Hotspot also will continue to publish volume statistics on a monthly and quarterly basis, as it has since 2010.

Hotspot’s 12-month moving average is up more than 13% through May 2014, making it the only reporting venue to continue to post a year-over-year increase in average daily volume compared to the prior period. Despite this move in a positive direction, KCG Hotspot has experienced suboptimal performance over a period of time prior to this, with parent company KCG having taken a long-term view in retaining it as a business unit in order to return it to profitability, under the steerage of KCG, itself having returned to fine fiscal health after its acquisition by GETCO following the 2012 algorithm failure which came close to ruining the entire firm.

Whether the move toward separate reporting for KCG Hotspot post-recovery signals the company’s intention to attract potential merger and acquisition activity, only time will tell.

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