The new net capital numbers are out. Here is the link to access the report:
http://www.cftc.gov/stellent/groups/...cmdata0508.pdf

The following firms have net capital below $10 million

Advanced Markets $5,017,000
Bacera $5,387,000
MG Financial $6,001,000
Forex Club $7,380,000
Hotspot $7,843,000
Friedberg Mercantile $8,167,000
CMC $8,426,000
Ikon $8,462,000
MB Trading $8,660,000
Easy Forex $8,662,000
IFX $9,141,000

In particular you will notice that three firms are far below the upcoming increase to $10 million. Advanced Markets, Bacera and Money Garden. In fact, they are struggling just to meet the current $5 million net capital requirement with Advanced Markets a scant $17,000 above the current law! That kind of capitalization does not inspire much confidence and traders really need to beware doing business with them.

The following firms have net capital below $20 million

GFS Forex $10,829,000
Alpari $11, 668,000
ODL $15,182,000
I Trade FX $15,828,000
FX Solutions $18,088,000
CMS Forex $19,306,000

The following firms have net capital above $20 million

PFG $20,275,000
Interbank FX $22,980,000
Gain Capital $44,293,000
GFT Forex $58,304,000
FXCM $70,794,000
Oanda $164,256,000

As always conduct your due diligence and make sure the firm you are trading with will be able to comply with the new law.

I phoned a CSR at FXDD and he stated that FXDD should be registered with the NFA and licensed with the CFTC mid September of this year (2008). They did remove the announcement from their home page that they were applying however....

The capital requirements the CSR did not know about other than... "why would FXDD apply if they could not eventually meet the 20 million"?...
Take all of this with a grain of salt and I am sure forexsavior will report when he has the info...

Great Thread!

ES

The situation at Olint is deteriorating rapidly as David Smith has shuttered a local office in Jamaica that he says was the subject of a bomb threat while his fund suffers an apparent bank run. In a grim letter to shareholders Olint states:
OLINT Local Offices Closed « Real Investments For Life

Jamaican News is keeping up with the story and Radio Jamaica states:
Radiojamaica.com... today's news... today

David Smith is spinning hard but regardless, it appears that Olint is doomed. Again the question is will there be enough money to go around or was this a Ponzi scheme all along?

And if it was a Ponzi scheme did I Trade FX, where David Smith was once a leading principal, knowingly or unknowingly help facilitate it?

To their credit, I Trade FX has been desperately trying to shake this guy like a bad cold. But as Winston Churchill once said of Italy’s disastrous alliance with Germany during World War II, “How much easier is to join bad companions, than to shake them off…”

And we’re not going to take this anymore! So sayeth the investors of Olint who are pouring onto the Internet in Jamaica to rage against David Smith’s Machine. Here is just a sampling: OLINT Local Offices Closed « Real Investments For Life

That about sums it up. Pay the people and move on man (of course when you say “man” be sure to pronounce man with the proper Jamaican accent.) This is yet another lesson on what can happen to you when you give your money to someone who ain’t got no license man.

Browsing the web I came across this article on a very unique marketing ploy that I Trade FX was using to attract clients in Jamaica last November:
David Smith’s Olint partners with iTradeFX in a US$100 giveaway to Jamaicans | Silicon Caribe

David Smith was depositing $100 of his own money into individual I Trade FX accounts? This is highly irregular to say the least and while I have heard of plenty of companies that give signup bonuses to customers I have not heard of individuals doing this for customers.

What it indicates is that Smith was not some passive, minority shareholder in I Trade FX. It sounds like he was pretty involved in the firm judging from this promotion.

Congratulations to the customers of FXLQ who are on the verge of being made whole, an unusually rare occurrence when a forex dealer goes bankrupt. Here is hoping some of that luck rubs off on the poor sods at Olint.

But the customers of FXLQ won’t have Rob Gray to thank, that’s for sure. At the last second Gray tried to scuttle the Receiver’s plan to have GFT and Ikon buy the customers of this formerly disgraced and dismembered firm.

Gray said “NYET!” to the sale in a formal court objection (someone please explain how Gray is able to strut around in public, and before a court no less, after faking a $35 million bond?)

The Receiver then proceeded to obliterate Gray in court in a rollicking motion filled with such goodies as this: http://www.robbevans.com/pdf/forexlqreplyreceiver01.pdf

“Utter disregard” for the rules? That’s our Robbie boy!

So where is this mythological $3 million being kept hidden? You don’t happen to have a safe house in the Turks & Caicos do you Robbie boy?

Ouch. It is finally hitting Robbie boy that FXLQ is DONE. Finished. Kaput. Bereft of life it rests in peace. But he can’t let go. One can picture him clinging to the fax machine as a couple surly movers try to haul it out of the office.

But my favorite little nugget has to be this statement found in Ikon’s motion to the court:
http://www.robbevans.com/pdf/forexlq...nglblmkt01.pdf

Taking a quick look at the IFX affidavit Mr. Belogour says:

Yet there Robbie boy was telling the court on July 3rd, only a few hours after getting a vague “sure we’re interested” shrug of the shoulders from IFX , that IFX markets could be used to distribute customer funds.

Classic Gray. Just keeps on Bullsh*tting them to the end. And it certainly is the end. Oh Robbie boy the pipes, the pipes, are calling…

Yesterday the Turks and Caicos Government froze the assets of David Smith and raided his home and place of business. Armed with a search warrant from the Supreme Court the Financial Crimes Unit of the Government swooped into action, grabbing computers, files and other knick knacks as their investigation of him reaches an apparent climax. Radio Jamaica is reporting that in the end Smith could face criminal charges:
Radiojamaica.com... today's news... today | Said, Have, Olint, News, Could | OLINT’s boss could face criminal charges in Turks and Caicos - * RJR News understands that Head of OLINT Limit...

Worries are growing that the collapse of Olint could have repercussions across Jamaica as the investment scheme is said to have $600 million of Jamaican money tied up in it. Good Grief. Now we are at the point where forex hucksters can crash a nation’s entire economy?

Invest for Life has the full story: Olint Assets Frozen(Story updated) « Real Investments For Life

On a Separate Note: Sources are telling me that the I Trade FX “David Smith $100 Bonus” promotion last winter lasted only a few days before it got shelved. I Trade FX should be releasing their official response to the NFA complaint in the next few weeks.

Stay Tuned…

The Olint Soap Opera Continues

“I am now indemnifying all the directors and employees as I am the only one that was aware of these activities and I am now at this stage unable to pay out and am making this proposal to you.” – David Smith, per Nationwide News.

It sure is beginning to look like Olint was a Ponzi scheme. A news report is stating that David Smith admitted the following in a leaked email obtained by Nationwide News: olint broke provider investforlife

1. The club is broke and most likely bankrupt
2. The older investors got their money out while the newer investors are the ones “carrying the losses.” Is that not the very definition of a Ponzi scheme?
3. He overstated his rates of return to club members.
4. The collapse of the fund was due to; competition from competitors, regulatory scrutiny, shoddy bookkeeping.
5. In particular Smith is blaming the Jamaican Government for raiding his company in 2006 as that loss of his records apparently precipitated an accounting fiasco resulting in “double payments” to some members. He then states that he didn’t report these “double payments” to his customers because he was afraid of a bank run which he once again blamed the Jamaican Government for starting.
6. Smith was only trading 50% of the funds while accounting for 100%.
7. He closes stating that Olint was “not a Ponzi scheme” and to give him another year to make it all back.

But no sooner had this report been read over the airwaves than David Smith himself called in screaming that he never wrote the email and that it was bogus. Smith said, “I had not written the email. It’s absolutely not true. And if you really think about it do you think my house is that big that I had to email my own wife?”

So who is to be believed? Well, with David Smith’s credibility in tatters my gut tells me the email is legit. But who knows for certain. What is certain is that Olint is El Busto.

Still, no word of any arrests in the Turks and Caicos. The investigation goes on and there will certainly be more to come.

So says this article from the Jamaica Gleaner in December of 2007. As part of the $100 promotion that I Trade FX was offering to Jamaican customers via Jamaica Forex Broker | Jamaica FOREX | Jamaica Trade FX Online: Go-Trade Jamaica Smith is said to have “created the platform” that customers were using in this promotion, which was in fact I Trade FX’s own platform: Jamaica Gleaner News - Olint's Smith creates new online forex trading platform - Friday | December 7, 2007

The article further states:

The more I read about David Smith the more I see the name of I Trade FX popping up. And the more suspicious it looks for I trade…

It’s hard to know what to believe about Olint these days with newspaper headlines like this “David Smith Alive and Kicking” courtesy of the Jamaica Observer:
'David Smith alive and kicking' - JAMAICAOBSERVER.COM

So where did these “rumours” come from? Who knows. So much about this Olint case is cloaked in secrecy. An email is leaked by an unknown source purportedly written by Smith stating the fund is a shambles forcing Smith to deny it. But later in the week Smith’s own lawyer hints that the email was in fact legit:
OLINT Crash - Email Very Genuine(with letter) « Real Investments For Life

Earlier this week Jamaican radio reported that Olint’s accounts at brokers like FXCM, Oanda and FX Solutions have been frozen and that David Smith is being investigated by the Department of Justice for possible money laundering (although none of these firms has gone on the record stating they even have any David Smith accounts at their firms, possibly because of client confidentiality agreements.)

And Government officials in the Turks and Caicos remain tight lipped and unwilling to shed any light on David Smith’s now defunct operation. In such an environment “rumours” will take hold. It is time someone in authority in Jamaica or the Turks and Caicos step forward and tell us all what the hell is going on.