As widely expected, CFTC data for January confirmed ugly truth about the impact of Swiss National Bank’s cap removal. Data proved that major decline in clients’ assets were enormous due to unexpected and even not hinted move of Swiss monetary authority.
Well-known forex broker OANDA provided results of $45M drop in adjusted net capital m/m in January. Albeit pointing to shifting of US capital to other OANDA subsidiaries, as OANDA declares, it is likely that the above-mentioned drop came after Swiss cap removal, as even other brokers show negative results for the month. Capital cushion of OANDA shows a decline below $16M from previous $61M.
FXCM showed official $225M drop on clients’ balances, saved by Leucadia’s support of $300M. As leaprate.com mentions, without fees it reached only $279M, but actual capital levels increase touched officially only $39.9M, so still there is a difference of almost $15M supporting our expectations of larger drop.
Although hit by the SNB’s move, GAIN Capital was able to get over these problems only with some scars, showing capital drop of $5.8M. Despite this relatively positive outcome, February proved to be low volatility month, where GAIN Capital reported 20.2% drop in retail volumes.

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