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Forex Capital Markets, better known as FXCM, is a retail on-line foreign exchange broker based in New York. It provides its services through its own online trading platforms and through third party platforms such as MetaTrader 4.

FXCM allows retail and institutional clients to speculate on global foreign exchange markets in what is known as 'margin forex trading'. It is one of the largest of the online margin based foreign exchange brokers. Outside the US, in addition to forex, it also provides trading in contract for difference (CFDs) on major indices and commodities such as gold and crude oil.

History[link]

Forex Capital Markets was founded in 1999 in New York, and was one of the early developers of on-line forex trading.

In Jan 2003 FXCM entered into a partnership with Refco group, which at that time was one of the largest US futures brokers. Refco took a 35% stake in FXCM and licensed the FXCM software for its own clients to use. However, following the collapse of Refco in Oct 2005, FXCM became entrenched in the bankruptcy proceedings which carried on for a number of years.

In 2003, FXCM opened an office in London and became regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority.

In 2008, the US futures industry self-regulatory organization, the National Futures Association (NFA) obtained permission from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to increase the minimum capital requirements for ‘Forex Dealer Members’, of which FXCM was one, to $20M in staged increments in response to failures of a few forex brokers. This had the effect of driving out a number of FXCM smaller competitors and allowed FXCM to increase its client base by acquiring business from some of these companies, many of whom either ceased all operations or simply moved out of the US.^[2][3]

In 2008 FXCM continued its overseas expansion and opened offices in France and Australia.

In 2009 FXCM UK started offering a limited number of CFD to its non-US based clients in addition to its currency products.

In May 2010 FXCM acquired the UK CFD and spreadbetting provider ODL.^[4] The deal gave them a much bigger presence in the UK and an existing CFD trading and financial spread betting client base concentrated in Europe.

On December 2010, FXCM went public and began trading on the NYSE. The initial public offering price was 14.00 per share.^[5]

In February and March 2011 a number of different law firms filed class actions lawsuits against FXCM alleging fraud and racketeering because of deceptive and unfair trade practices and also misleading shareholders during the 2010 IPO.^[6][7][8][9]

In August 2011, NFA fines FXCM $2 million for slippage malpractices. FXCM reached settlements with the NFA and CFTC over the practices of $2 million and $6 million respectively, relating to not passing along positive slippage (i.e. order fills better than what order rules specified) to customers on certain order types prior to August 2010. In conjunction with these settlements, FXCM provided clients with restitution for the total amount of positive slippage, approximately $8 million.^[10]

In October 2011, FXCM completed its acquisition of Japanese FX broker Foreland Forex Co., Ltd. for approximately $17 million, net of cash and liquid assets acquired.^[11]

On October 25, 2011, three debtors, Certified, Inc., Global Bullion Trading Group, Inc., and WJS Funding, Inc. filed an adversary complaint in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida against Forex Capital Markets LLC, ODL Securities, Inc., and ODL Securities, Ltd. (“Defendants”). The complaint asserts claims under the Federal Bankruptcy Code to recover allegedly preferential and fraudulent transfers to the Defendants, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C §1961 et seq., as well as the common law. The complaint seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory and punitive damages, interests, and costs.^[12]

Operations[link]

FXCM has its headquarters in New York and offices in Dallas, San Francisco, Hong Kong, London, Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Dubai, Milan, Santiago de Chile, Athens and Jerusalem.

As well as the main FXCM brand, it also owns the FX news and research web site http://www.dailyfx.com.

Business model[link]

FXCM's main business is allowing retail clients to speculate on forex markets with leverage. FXCM promotes a 'no dealing desk' business model for its currency products where it takes prices from a number of major banks and allows clients to trade the best price at any given time. This is also known as a direct market access (DMA) model which is in contrast to a market maker model more commonly used by forex brokers.

Industry criticism[link]

There has been some criticism of the industry saying that few retail traders have the experience to make money trading forex. Drew Niv, chief executive of FXCM, has been quoted as saying that "If 15% of day traders are profitable I'd be surprised."^[13] Indeed, FXCM's own data found that the percentage of customers who were profitable ranged from 21% for those with account sizes under $1,000, to 37% for customers with account balances between $5,000 and $9,999.^[14]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official web site

Matthew Jason Russell (born July 5, 1973) is a former American college and professional football player who was a linebacker in the National Football League (NFL) for a single season. He played college football for the University of Colorado, earned All-American honors and won the Butkus Award as the top linebacker in America. He played professionally for the NFL's Detroit Lions in 1997. He is currently the Director of Pro Scouting with the NFL's Denver Broncos.^[1]

Early years[link]

Russell was born in Tokyo, Japan.^[2] He attended Belleville High School-East in Belleville, Illinois,^[3] and played for the Belleville East Lancers high school football team.

College career[link]

He attended the University of Colorado, where he played for the Colorado Buffaloes football team from 1993 to 1996. As a senior in 1996, he was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American and won the Butkus Award as the nation's best college linebacker.

Professional career[link]

The Detroit Lions selected Russell in the fourth round (130th pick overall) of the 1997 NFL Draft,^[4] and he played in fourteen regular season games for the Lions in 1997.^[5] He was expected to compete for a starting linebacker position with Stephen Boyd following the departure of Pepper Johnson. In 1999, Russell injured his knee during the opening kickoff of the first preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons, and was lost for the season to injured reserve.^[6] He had also suffered a season ending knee injury the year before. Knee injuries eventually forced him to retire after the 1999 season.

Post-playing career[link]

While a member of the Detroit Lions, Russell befriended Lions scout Tom Dimitroff, who later worked for the Patriots and hired Russell as a scout for the Patriots.^[7] Russell served as scout with the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots from 2001 to 2008.^[1] Russell is credited for persuading Scott Pioli and the New England Patriots to draft Matt Cassel.^[8] He was hired to his current position with the Broncos in 2009.

References[link]