Public Company | |
Traded as | NASDAQ: FXCM |
Industry | Financial Services |
Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | New York City, United States |
Key people
|
Drew Niv, CEO Co-founder |
Services | Financial broker, foreign exchange |
Number of employees
|
804 |
Website | www |
Forex Capital Markets, better known as FXCM, is an online Foreign exchange market broker based in the United States.
The company provides 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". Outside the US, FXCM also provides trading in contract for difference (CFDs) on major indices and commodities such as gold and crude oil.
Following a large increase in the price of Swiss francs on January 15, 2015, the company announced that it may be "in breach of some regulatory capital requirements." On January 16, FXCM announced that it had secured a $300 million loan with a 10% coupon from Leucadia National Corp in order to meet its capital requirements. On January 20 further terms of the loan were released, showing that the coupon rate might rise to 17% and that asset sales and other limitations were imposed. Citigroup analysts quoted by Bloomberg said that the terms of the loan “essentially wiped out” the value of FXCM’s stock.
Forex Capital Markets was founded in 1999 in New York, and was one of the early developers of online forex trading. In January 2003, FXCM entered into a partnership with Refco group, one of the largest US futures brokers at the time. Refco took a 35% stake in FXCM and licensed the FXCM software for use by its own clients. Following the collapse of Refco in October 2005, FXCM became entrenched in the Refco bankruptcy proceedings for a number of years.
In 2003, FXCM expanded overseas when it opened an office in London which became regulated by the UK Financial Services Authority.