Going against the trend, Australia's AxiTrader enters the U.S. Retail FX market. At a time when we are seeing a number of foreign FX brokerages abandon the heavily-regulated U.S. market (e.g. Forex Club), and even U.S.-based firms close shop domestically to focus on foreign markets (e.g. GFT), along comes AxiTrader going the other way. Australia's…
Read moreAustralia's ASIC requiring more capital, but only for market makers. Australia's financial regulator ASIC has put into effect (as of January 31, 2013) its new minimum capital requirements for retail brokers, including FX firms. Minimum capital is now AUD$ 500,000 (about USD$ 515,000), up ten-fold from just AUD$ 50,000, which was the lowest minimum capital…
Read moreInvestors seem to be betting that increased trading volumes are here to stay. With no other news out there as the catalyst, it seems as if ICAP's healthy January trading volumes reported earlier this week have triggered a buying frenzy of both its shares, and those of leading UK spreadbetting firm IG Group. Over the…
Read moreAssuming data is to be believed, GMO Click did $756 billion of spot FX volume in January. We have often been (and remain) somewhat skeptical of volume and related data we see coming out of Japan. However, even if somewhat exaggerated, GMO Click's January is one for the books. The company (which is publicly traded…
Read moreIncludes the first Forex-focused real-time Social Sentiment Indicator. Two leading financial products companies have announced that they're joining the list of those developing FX apps for tradable's trading app platform. After Dow Jones announced last month the launch of an FX Select news app on tradable's app store, we now see: CorrSight, a leading provider of…
Read moreClaims Halifax has taken U.S. retail FX traders – the CFTC wants penalties, and wants trades undone. The CFTC has filed a complaint (in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois) against Australia's Halifax Investment Services, claiming that the Australian broker has solicited U.S. retail FX clients, and has taken on U.S. clients. The CFTC wants monetary…
Read moreICAP EBS volumes soar 22%; CME Group's FX futures volumes up 21%. Two leading FX aggregators, ICAP's EBS division (spot FX ECN) and the CME Group (FX futures), reported very healthy January trading volumes. CME Group's FX futures volumes were up by 21% over last January (but just 9% over a surprisingly strong December) to average…
Read moreAdds Mitsubishi UFJ and Nomura as liquidity banks. France's Tradition S.A. announced that two leading Japanese banking groups, Mitsubishi UFJ and Nomura, are joining nine other banks (Barclays, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, SEB, Standard Chartered, State Street and UBS) in backing Tradition's yet-to-be-launched spot Forex ECN, to be called ParFX. Tradition had previously…
Read moreDo regulators have to also pay fines themselves for making administrative errors? In a fairly quick and somewhat bizarre about-face to the story we broke earlier today (that CySEC and UFX Markets had "compromised on" an €100,000 fine for UFX Markets' regulated parent company Reliantco, for undisclosed actions), CySEC has now issued a new letter recalling…
Read moreAlthough the fine remains shrouded in mystery as to what UFX was actually charged with doing. Cyprus' financial regulator CySEC disclosed today it had fined UFX Markets (or more specifically, its regulated parent holding company Reliantco Investments Ltd) the sum of €100,000, The fine followed a CySEC investigation "for reasonable suspicion of committing possible violations" of Cyprus'…
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