IG Group's market cap is £1.2 billion. CMC is probably worth as much as well, so they wil have no problems meeting the requirements. ODL raised £10 million in a private placement recently, so it may be okay as well. Clearly a lot of these firms will go; the rationale of the likes of Deutsche, ABN Amro in Europe and others who will follow imminently is looking sound. What are the chances of a lot of these firms ending up as technology providers to big banks? One problem is that so many of the US firms are 'tarnished'.
Mr. Angry I wouldn't be so sure that UK firms like CMC, IG Index, and IFX will stay in the U.S. market. They may have high market caps but that does not translate into instant free floating capital to send wherever they please. Do these firms really want to set aside $15 million in capital for a U.S. registration when none of these firms have made much of an impact in the U.S. market in the first place? I doubt it. I suspect these guys will probably just cancel their NFA registrations and focus on the European and Global market. I think that makes better business sense. In any case customers shouldn't be effected much at the British firms. The smaller firms are the ones customers should be avoiding right now.
I'll try and ring them all this week and ask them. IFX is now part of City Index, which white labels Saxo. CMC wants to be a global player and not sure it would pull out of US ahead of its IPO, whenever that occurs. ODL is a strange company - I know a few guys there, but don't hear too much of what its up to.
for that ForexSaviour. I was wondering instead of creating higher min capital requirements, why dont they creat segregation requirements. Client Fund insurance, trust accounts etc......
The point though is that your dead pool is highlighting firms were people could lose their margin/deposit. Whether or not IG or CMC withdraw from the US market or not I am pretty convinced they would be in a position to repay customers. It would make no business sense not to repay at all and they can easily afford it.
Anything like CFDs on indices, stocks or commodities is forbidden by regulation in the US, so this would reduce firms like CMC to FX only over there..
The NFA pointed out in one of their recent letters (I forget which and don't feel like looking for it) that current US bankruptcy laws make "segregated accounts" a misleading way to protect customer funds. i.e. in bankruptcy proceedings the customer funds would almost definitely be tapped regardless of whether they were segregated.