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I don't think that Citi is shorting. They have a bully pulpit. It is much easier for them to drive the stock down by releasing and re-releasing their negative analyst reports. (As they did yesterday....and if we continue to climb they will do it again.)
$FXCM$s
$5.00 Feb call options are ripe for the picking at .05 Won't last long with this heading up. I just picked up a few more.
$FXCM$
Didn't really expect that you would tell me. Doesn't really matter, there are only four choices....all mistakes. If you are lucky, your puts are imaginary, just like your calls. For your sake, I hope they are. I will be thinking of you and your puts while this rises.
$FXCM$
I'm out of posts so I'll answer here. When you make all that money maybe you will donate a little to "The Clubfooted Cleft Palated USMC Veterans of America"
"I just figured that you have the reasoning of a non-PC issue." Could you decipher this rather clumsily worded sentence for me so I can figure out if I am being insulted or not.
$FXCM$
I can't say "retarded" very well, I have a lot of trouble with "r's" Just curious...which puts did you buy?
$FXCM$
Yes I am handicapped, I have a club foot. Thanks for asking. They also have less time value. Why would you sell $5.00 calls that expire in March, May or August when this stock will most likely be trading higher than $5.00 by either one of those expiration dates. You never had any $5.00 call options. If you did, why would you sell when the underlying stock is going in your direction?
How did you figure out that I was handicapped? I have a cleft palate also.
$FXCM$
I notice that someone deleted your post. The mods on this board don't like anyone dissing handicapped guys like me.
You don't have to cover with options. Whatever you invest in your puts or calls is all you can lose. That is part of the beauty of option trading. The other part is incredible leverage.
I am running out of posts so I will answer you here. I know nothing about shorting stocks but I have been trading options for years...sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I rarely buy puts but here is the deal. Buy a $5.00 put...the underlying stock drops down below $5.00 and your put increases in value penny for penny as the stock drops.
$FXCM$
OK. If they were not Feb calls that compounds the ineptness of the trade.
$FXCM$
So you sold your $5.00 calls that you said you bought on Tuesday last week. If that is the case, the most that you could have paid was .05 Let me see if I am understanding this clearly. You sold your calls for breakeven at best today if not at a loss, when you could have sold last week for a several hundred percent profit, and bought much more expensive puts today when the underlying stock was trading up. Now that is a big time "simplistic" view of trading. Of course I have no way of being sure, but I doubt that you ever had any $5.00 calls. I can tell by your posting that you are an astute trader.
If you were smart enough or lucky enough to have a bunch of $5.00 calls that you paid $5.00 or less per contract for, which don't expire for four weeks, you would have never let them go today. Give me a break, I was born at night but it wasn't last night.
$FXCM$
An entire trading day....you and the rest of your shorting ilk in collaboration with one of the biggest and crookedest banks in the country could not push this stock into negative territory.
Great job!!! NOT! What a bunch of bozos.
$FXCM$
HEAR, HEAR!!
$FXCM$
Maybe FXCM needs to institute some austerity measures and not have to sell anything. Do exactly what Greece declined doing. These people run a lot of money through that business. A little belt tightening might generate a good bit of money. $FXCM$
I'm thinking that FXCM would want to hold on to Lucid because that is their entry into the UK institutional market. I don't think that they are desparate to sell anything. With this loan they are back to doing business as usual. With the European currency market heating up, their business will be better than ever. The currency business thrives on volatility.
$FXCN$
Just checked the date...hardly news.
$FXCM$
Here is some more info on that deal and some relatively new news.
http://leaprate.com/2014/03/lucid-markets-principal-matthew-wilhelm-sells-another-8-6-million-of-fxcm-shares-in-february/
Has Lucid Markets been discussed? Private institutional FX broker in UK.
FXCM bought controlling interest a couple of years ago for $170,000,000 mostly in FXCM stock. If this is old info, sorry.
$FXCM$
I wonder if FXCM's stake in Lucid Markets might be for sale also?
$FXCM$
FastMatch.....most profitable day ever last week.
5:10 PM ET 1/25/15 | Dow Jones
RELATED QUOTES
4:03 PM ET 1/23/15
Symbol Last % Chg
FXCM
2.37 -23.55%
IAPLY
14.11 -0.84%
Real time quote.
By Chiara Albanese And Jenny Strasburg
Even as some foreign-exchange brokers that focus on serving retail customers were getting hammered by the surprise surge in the Swiss franc earlier this month, other firms that deal mostly with big banks, hedge funds and other large clients were handling record amounts of business--and raking in profits.
At New York-based FastMatch Inc., which matches buy and sell orders for banks, high-frequency trading firms and asset managers, the sharp move in the Swiss currency made for the highest-volume day in the history of the three-year-old company.
FastMatch handled $24.3 billion in buy and sell orders in one day, more than double last month's daily average.
"That day was our most profitable day ever," said FastMatch Chief Executive Officer Dmitri Galinov.
A similar story played out at other brokers with major institutional clients after the Swiss National Bank's decision, announced Jan. 15, to scrap a three-year-old policy capping the value of the franc against the euro. In the minutes following the announcement, the franc leapt by roughly 30% against the euro, a swing of unprecedented magnitude for the two currencies.
At London-based ICAP PLC, the biggest so-called interdealer broker by revenue, volume that day on its EBS currency-trading platform was nearly triple the recent daily average. The platform handled some $300 billion worth of trades, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Interdealer platforms such as ICAP's don't take on much market risk but instead stand in the middle of bank and asset-management clients, earning fees as they match orders. For these businesses, profitability is closely linked to trading volume.
London's LMAX Exchange, another electronic currencies-trading venue that mostly deals with large investors, benefited as customers closed out trades, said LMAX Chief Executive David Mercer.
"We were among the winners of the day," he said, with volume surging about 40% above the daily norm the day of the announcement, to about $14 billion.
Mr. Mercer said volatility benefits firms like his, because "when you have crisis, people need access to liquidity."
Elsewhere, KCG Holdings Inc.'s Jersey City, N.J.-based Hotspot FX electronic-trading platform handled a record $60 billion in trading volume Jan. 15, about double its daily norm, according to a person close to the firm.
In contrast, many firms that help ordinary retail customers trade the currency markets lost out. Losses that might have been manageable were amplified by the use of borrowed money, or leverage, so that entire customer accounts were wiped out, and left with deficits. Firms were left trying to recover losses from clients or absorbing the losses themselves.
Last week, U.S. regulators took further steps to prevent a recurrence of such losses in the event of any future jolts to the currency markets, temporarily restricting the amount of borrowing, or leverage, used by traders by boosting margin requirements.
On Friday, Danish retail brokerage Saxo Bank Group said it expects to book a loss of up to $107 million stemming from the sharp jump in the Swiss franc.
"Clients that lost money can blame us, or they can blame themselves," Saxo Bank Chief Financial Officer Steen Blaafalk told The Wall Street Journal.
The sharp move in the Swiss franc also forced New York-based FXCM Inc. to take out an $300 million emergency loan from Leucadia National Corp., the holding company for investment bank Jefferies Group LLC. The SNB's surprise announcement had left FXCM customers owing the big retail brokerage about $225 million, and the company warned it might be in violation of capital requirements as a result.
FXCM Chief Executive Drew Niv said late last week in an update on the Leucadia deal that FXCM's entities had capital exceeding regulatory requirements and the firm "continues to operate in the normal course of business."
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday FXCM is examining fundraising options to pay off the loan, such as potentially selling noncore assets including its roughly 32% stake in FastMatch.
Mr. Galinov said his firm, which is housed inside FXCM's offices, is prepared to separate its trading entity from FXCM and is launching new services that connect asset managers' orders with each other and with banks. One service is a potential challenger to the so-called "fix," the long-standing currencies-pricing benchmark that is measured from trades executed around 4 p.m. in London each weekday.
Still, Mr. Galinov said FastMatch faces the challenge of winning back customers spooked by FXCM's troubles. Following its record-volume day, "a lot of clients were not trading with us. We're getting them back one by one."
FastMatch started out in 2012 relying heavily on retail-trading flow from FXCM, and has gradually weaned itself from dependence on FXCM.
Last week, FastMatch's daily volume topped out at just under $6 billion, still well below December's daily average.
Access Investor Kit for Schweizerische Nationalbank
Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=CH0001319265
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Visit http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US3026931069
> Dow Jones Newswires
January 25, 2015 17:10 ET (22:10 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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$FXCM$
No prob.
#FXCM$
Cool. Guess that you don't get to play.
$FXCM$
WOW! You must have got them dirt cheap because I got the first of mine on Wednesday when the ask was .05 and no bid. I got filled at .04.
$FXCM$
Option positions...puts or calls, can be closed out whenever you want before expiration. FXCM Feb 29 $2.50 put,,,last trade Friday was .65
FXCM
This BBQ post made me dribble.....my bad, I mean drool.
FXCM
"dribble"...I think that the word you were looking for is "drivel".
FXCM
I have read the terms and they are not pretty. But....this ugly loan kept them operating. I am in this trade short term and I am hoping that my wheelbarrow load of $5.00 call options that I purchased at .08 will be profitable. MY position is down .89 at the moment. How are you doing? I am simplistically optimistic.
FXCM
Agree with "toxic and predatory." Exactly why I think that now that they have breathing room, they will be looking for a lender with much better terms. If I'm not mistaken, there is no penalty for early repayment. I stand by "A loan is a loan".
FXCM
Agree with everything except your last sentence. LOL
FXCM
Exactly.....FXCM
Much smaller scale...but a loan is a loan. If I have a loan and I am not happy with my interest rate, I try to refinance to a more acceptable (lower) rate.
Same thing here. What is hard to understand?
FXCM
FXCM is a currency trading broker. They are on the other side of all trades on their site. The fact that currencies constantly fluxuate in price is the reason that this industry exists. The daily value of any currency is immaterial to their business. There is always someone who thinks a currency will decline against another and by the same token there is someone who thinks that same currency will go up. FXCM takes both of those bets. They are going nowhere.
FXCM
Ever refinance a mortgage to get a better rate?
FXCM
What is this about? You have no credibility where this stock is concerned. You are all over the place with your predictions.
FXCM
Any analysis by Citi most be looked at as suspect when you consider that they and FXCM compete in the same arena for the same customers. This report must be taken with a grain of salt only if you can't find a smaller grain.
FXCM
This guy does not sound like someone who is looking for a buyer for his company.
FXCM
Who said anything about "Pennies on the dollar"?
fxcm
f
Good info.
FXCM
Good points, all.
FXCM
That is the 30% that they are considering selling. They have a 30% interest in FastMatch. They are not talking about selling 30% of FXCM as was suggested in another post.
FXCM
that is the 30%
Right. That press release is the reason that we crashed right after it was released. I think that the selling was mostly panicked longs bailing after
hearing the drival that he was spouting. FXCM
Haven't heard about any lawsuits being filed. Just threats about "investigations".
All it takes to launch an "investigation" is the ability to put out a press release.
FXCM