Guess how many US brokers are left? 40,30, 20? Guess again

When you hear the word ‘regulation’ what immediately comes to your mind? Is that something good or bad? To me, that is always something grey, bureaucratic, NFA, cumbersome, rigid, etc. Now we have one more reason to frown when we hear that word.

So how many US brokers do you think have survived the NFA requirements tsunami which swamped the Forex industry in the past year or so? Given the competitiveness in the market and the abundance of online and offline ads you might say 50 or maybe 30 or even 20 if you are a real skeptic.

Actually it’s closer to 14. Yes, that much.

Back in October 2008 there were at least 29 of them. That’s a 60% decrease in 6 months…
With NFA inventing new impractical requirements every couple of months and FXCM acquiring one broker’s customer base after another the US Forex industry is undergoing a significant consolidation process. What used to be thriving and very competitive industry is now becoming more and more regulated and centrist and this is really bad news for consumers. The less competitive the market the worse is the bargaining power of the consumer.
NFA failed in its bid to make the markets better and made them worse by making all the wrong moves that were possible.

The Forex survivors, so far, are (registered with NFA as of March 2009):

Oanda
FXCM
Gain
GFT
FX Solutions
IBFX
PFG
CMS FX
IG Markets
Forex Club
MB Trading
Alpari – Just entered the US market
Ikon (Tradeview)
Easy Forex
I-Trade – sold its retail business to FXCM
ODL – sold its retail business to FXCM
ACM – Withdrew its NFA registration
GFS– announced its exit from US market
FXDD - is in registration process, though it might encounter few problems…

Give the NFA a few more months and the number of brokers goes below 10. Guaranteeed.

Michael

gulp :-0

you make it sound like regulation is a "bad" thing ??

if something, anything however slight is done to protect the millions of mug punters who are lured into gambling in the world's biggest casino/lottery, then surely that's a good thing ?

unless one has a vested interest in continuing to milk naive and stupid newbies ?

or did I miss the whole point of your post which is really to steer people to your website where you state:

"A bit about me:
I currently work for ParagonEX, provider of trading software for Forex brokers, as a Sales and Marketing Executive"

?

rathcoole_exile said:

or did I miss the whole point of your post which is really to steer people to your website where you state:

"A bit about me:
I currently work for ParagonEX, provider of trading software for Forex brokers, as a Sales and Marketing Executive"

?

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Well put rathcoole. :clap: New traders are getting ripped off everyday. without some sort of regulation there would be complete, and mass, destruction of new traders.

RT...

rathcoole_exile said:

you make it sound like regulation is a "bad" thing ??

if something, anything however slight is done to protect the millions of mug punters who are lured into gambling in the world's biggest casino/lottery, then surely that's a good thing ?

unless one has a vested interest in continuing to milk naive and stupid newbies ?

Click to expand...

the whole idea was to show that the regulation minimized the number of brokers. that's it. you can debate whether that's good or bad. some bad brokers are out but some good are out as well (cmc, acm, odl) and this is bad for the consumer (traders).

rathcoole_exile said:

or did I miss the whole point of your post which is really to steer people to your website where you state:

"A bit about me:
I currently work for ParagonEX, provider of trading software for Forex brokers, as a Sales and Marketing Executive"

?

Click to expand...

yes, the idea is to steer people to a website with quality posts, unlike many "forex" websites out there. and if i get business from that, is that bad?
aren't you making money from this forum yourself?

not as much money as I'm making from it, they give me a stipend of £12k a year and 20% of advertising revenue to post here

arabianights said:

not as much money as I'm making from it, they give me a stipend of £12k a year and 20% of advertising revenue to post here

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are you doging tax on that 12k.

*IP trace

yes. now go and report me to the HMRC like you legally have to.

I have a pretty good defence mind, what with obviously (I thought!) making that up and alll....

I dont legally have to do anything. I'm not your accountant. You want me to be. We can spend more time together and you can hear my annoying voice instead of just seeing what I type.

Do you actually get anything for posting/being an advisor on here?

miko432 said:

yes, the idea is to steer people to a website with quality posts, unlike many "forex" websites out there. and if i get business from that, is that bad?
aren't you making money from this forum yourself?

Click to expand...

err, no.

in fact like all the Advisers and especially the Moderators, I sacrifice quite a bit of my own time to attend to T2W

miko432 said:

y if i get business from that, is that bad?

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well strictly speaking you are breaking the forum regulations by not initially declaring yourself as a Vendor and becoming badged as such.