January 14, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

US retail forex brokers continue to bleed client assets

CFTC monthly November data show a further 4% decline in client assets held by US forex brokers. (Over-) regulation continues to take its toll in the US retail FX business. CFTC's just-released November data showed continued erosion of assets held by US retail FX traders at their brokers. This wasn't a case of clients migrating…

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January 13, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

FXCM ends a solid 2013 with a mild 12% drop in December volumes

Overall, FXCM retail volumes were up 14% and institutional volumes 72% (!!) in 2013. Leading retail forex broker FXCM closed the books on a very strong 2013 with (not unexpectedly) weaker December volumes metrics. Seasonally slow December came in at $272 billion retail volumes (down 12% from November) and $146 billion institutional volumes (down 24%).…

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January 13, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

Alpari introduces Binary Options on demand

Alpari Russia binary options traders can now tailor their own expiry times Alpari Russia has issued a brief press release outlining the introduction of a new feature for its binary options trading module. The technology provider of the Russian arm of the major forex brokerage has made available a fresh addition to its platform by…

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January 13, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

Canadian securities regulator warns against unlicensed binary options brokers

Warning includes RBOptions, 24options.com, GOoptions.com and TradeRush.com Binary options brokerages are coming under scrutiny under one of the ten Canadian regulators as the British Colombia Securities Commission (BCSC) has issued a warning to investors about binary options trading platforms. The particular firm under the crosshair of the regulator is called RBOptions and claims to be…

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January 13, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

China to speed up Yuan convertibility

The central government wants a piece (or rather, a big chunk) of the reserve currency pie Over the weekend China’s forex regulator State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement that acceleration of the Renminbi convertibility is one of the major goals for authorities. With the Shanghai Free Trade Zone being the test bed…

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January 13, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

CySEC rejects binary options broker ShortOption’s CIF license application due to questionable shareholder

Apparently the company failed to provide evidence of professional qualifications of the main shareholder as the law requires Last Friday the CySEC has issued a statement clarifying that it has rejected the application of ShortOption for a CIF license due to a questionable shareholder within Stardor Limited, which is the company behind the binary options…

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January 10, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

Barclays to close Barclays Margin FX due to difficult EMIR regulations

Barclays Margin FX clients being encouraged to move to FXCM. LeapRate Exclusive: LeapRate has learned that UK bank Barclays (LON:BARC, NYSE:BCS) has decided to shut down its retail / margin FX business, Barclays Margin FX. Barclays has operated its margin FX business as a white label of FXCM, with FXCM winning Barclay's business back in…

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January 10, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

GAIN Capital concludes a solid 2013 with a mild 9% drop in December volumes

Monthly declines are attributed to the holidays break and subdued volatility in most FX markets GAIN Capital Holdings (NYSE:GCAP) has just released a press release about its December volume metrics and we are observing some consolidation following last month’s record institutional numbers. Not a big surprise considering that the rest of the big players are reporting…

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January 10, 2014 BY Gerald Segal

CySEC warns investors about Live Binary

The company has never been regulated under the jurisdiction and doesn’t claim to be In its usual vague tone the Cypriot regulator has added another name to the list of binary options companies it issued a warning against. The brokerage is LBinary.com and according to the website the company operating it - Live Binary Ltd…

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