FNG Excusive Interview
London based Prime-of-Prime institutional FX services provider IS Prime set up shop in Hong Kong four years ago, and has seen significant growth as the Asia region has continued its emergence on the global FX scene. FX News Group spoke to Will Robbins, IS Prime’s Head of Asia in Hong Kong, to find out more about the trends in the region and the reasons behind the firm’s success.
1 March 2021 - IS Prime, part of ISAM Capital Markets, has launched a new trading GUI and risk system with Reactive Markets, particularly aimed at its growing client base of FX hedge funds and asset managers.
11 February 2021 – IS Prime, part of ISAM Capital Markets, has expanded its institutional sales team with the appointments of Daniel Lewis and Jodie Barrett.
January volumes were in line with 2020 monthly averages, but profits slipped rather markedly. Losses were driven by a rebound in USD and EUR retracement. Gold volumes were up primarily from its move lower early in January, and gold showed consistent profitability for brokers overall during the month. The latter part of the month was relatively flat but closed with an uptick in volume due to US equity volatility impacting the broad market.
Activity in the first two weeks of December was enough to make the month a relatively strong one for brokers despite volatility waning as the month progressed. Early month profitability was driven by retail clients shorting EURUSD into what ended up being a broad-based USD selloff. As the holidays approached, markets became range bound and profitability and volumes suffered, but full month figures ended up in line with 2020 averages.
22 December 2020 – embargoed until 14.30 GMT - IS Prime, part of ISAM Capital Markets, has partnered with FDCTech to extend its liquidity distribution to the innovative Condor FX Pro trading platform.
Buoyed by early month volatility that arose surrounding vaccine news, November volumes exceeded October’s even though activity trailed off sharply late in the month. The vaccine news prompted a sharp gold selloff that many brokers were on the wrong side of, but total monthly profits far exceeded the depressed figures from October and finished in line with 2020 monthly averages. December is historically a slow month in the markets, but with Covid cases still surging and a Brexit deadline looming, this year could prove to be an anomaly.
27 November 2020 – For the sixth consecutive year, IS Prime has reported impressive growth, with a 30% increase in turnover y/e 31 March 2020. Reported figures from the London-headquartered FCA regulated Prime of Prime broker show a rise from £27.6m y/e 2019 to £36m y/e 2020.
A key and often overlooked issue that we have been seeing time and time again, with LPs and brokers alike, is that of inaccurate market data. In times of extreme market volatility and high volumes, such as we have experienced recently over the US election results and the announcements in the press regarding a Covid-19 vaccine, these issues have become particularly apparent.
As the US 2020 US Presidential race draws to a close on Tuesday, with polls opening on the morning of November 3rd, ISRA takes a look at the market conditions around the election, and discusses how brokers can better prepare their businesses, and protect themselves from market shocks.