The post Knight Capital-Getco merger sale of non-core assets continues, with reverse mortgage originator Urban Financial sold for $80 million. KCG Group -- the company resulting from the merger of Knight Capital and Getco -- has announced the sale of Urban Financial for $80 million to an investor group led by financier Brian Libman. Urban is…
Read moreNot quite Japan, but retail trading is rapidly becoming an important part of the global forex market. An interesting article in The Australian Financial Review highlights the growing importance of retail forex trading in Australia, Japan and elsewhere around the globe. The conclusions of the article should not be surprising to our readers -- our Retail…
Read moreLobby group GFMA has been actively fighting a Europe-wide financial transaction tax. The Global FX Division of financial sector lobby group Global Financial Markets Association (or GFMA) has hired Andrew Harvey as Managing Director, Europe. This represents a very senior hire for GFMA -- Harvey joins from Morgan Stanley where he was COO of Derivatives Operations.…
Read moreAvaTrade now regulated in Europe, Australia, Japan, and the BVI. Leading Ireland-based forex broker AvaTrade, a member of LeapRate's Approved List of global regulated forex brokers, has announced that it has become one of the few forex firms to receive regulatory approval of the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission. Quite a number of forex brokers are…
Read moreUnclear what the CySEC warning against HFX is about, however. Cyprus financial regulator CySEC has sent out a release warning investors against HFX Global Ltd., and their website www.hfx.com. It is unclear, however, what the warning is about, and why it was issued. The CySEC warning just states that HFX is not and never was…
Read moreThe great reawakening of Japan's Retail Forex industry leads to a restatement of our index. LeapRate's Retail FX Volume Index, sponsored by Leverate, hit another all-time record in June, rising nearly 3% to $329 billion daily. Forex industry trading volumes continue to sit about 20%-25% above last year's levels. The increased activity in the retail FX…
Read moreSwissquote reports healthy Q2 profits at the corporate level as well, as clients and assets grew. Leading Swiss online brokerage Swissquote (a member of LeapRate's Approved List of global regulated Forex brokerage firms) announced today that FX volumes increased a whopping 37% during Q2, to average CHF 30.5 billion ($32 billion) per month, up from…
Read moreCME Gold options open interest hits 1,808,693 contracts on July 22. As Gold prices have recovered nicely from their sub-$1,200-per-ounce lows late last month, up more than 10% to the mid-$1,300's currently, interest in Gold trading has risen in step. The CME Group has reported that open interest levels in Gold options have now hit an…
Read moreJapan's Forex sector is on fire, driving record trading volumes and financial results for forex brokers. Monex Group of Japan, a mid-size Japanese forex broker which also owns TradeStation and IBFX in the US, reported Q2 results today which, as expected, showed healthy gains across the board in revenues, net profit, and client assets. Monex…
Read moreCedar Finance, based in Cyprus, claims to be in the process of obtaining a CySEC license. Binary options platform provider Tradologic has announced that it has added Cedar Finance, an existing binary options broker, as a new client using its binary options platform. Cedar has been around since 2011, operating using an independent platform. The…
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