Access and barriers to entry
Barriers-to-Entry Analyzer
Overview of US FCMs (futures brokers): regulatory capital, segregated customer funds and market concentration. The Net Capital Requirement is the real regulatory barrier to entry.
What does it measure?Retail accesses futures through brokers (FCMs). Here you can see how many there are, how much customer money they manage, and how hard (expensive) it is to enter the business — that is, how concentrated it is and where the barriers lie.
Registered FCMs
73
US futures brokers
Customer funds (seg)
$381.8B
total in segregation
Top-5 concentration
54%
of segregated funds
Min. capital barrier
$1M
median $26M
Table 1. The 15 FCMs with the largest segregated customer funds (retail scale).
| # | FCM | DSRO | Customer funds | Adjusted net capital | Excess |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JP MORGAN SECURITIES LLC | CEI/NFA | $62.9B | $25.7B | $17.6B |
| 2 | GOLDMAN SACHS & CO LLC | CBOT/NFA | $43.5B | $21.2B | $14.9B |
| 3 | BOFA SECURITIES INC | CBOT | $38.6B | $21.1B | $15.7B |
| 4 | MORGAN STANLEY & CO LLC | CME/NFA | $35.7B | $26.7B | $20.9B |
| 5 | SG AMERICAS SECURITIES LLC | CME | $25.3B | $6.2B | $3.7B |
| 6 | CITIGROUP GLOBAL MARKETS INC | CBOT/NFA | $24.2B | $18.0B | $12.2B |
| 7 | BARCLAYS CAPITAL INC | NYME | $23.1B | $9.3B | $5.2B |
| 8 | STONEX FINANCIAL INC | CME | $12.8B | $982M | $379M |
| 9 | BNP PARIBAS SECURITIES CORP | CBOT | $11.5B | $5.6B | $4.0B |
| 10 | MIZUHO SECURITIES USA LLC | CME | $10.8B | $1.5B | $831M |
| 11 | INTERACTIVE BROKERS LLC | CME | $10.6B | $10.5B | $8.4B |
| 12 | WELLS FARGO SECURITIES LLC | CME | $10.2B | $10.0B | $7.6B |
| 13 | MAREX CAPITAL MARKETS INC | CME | $10.0B | $915M | $359M |
| 14 | UBS SECURITIES LLC | CBOT | $9.9B | $4.2B | $3.1B |
| 15 | ADM INVESTOR SERVICES INC | CBOT | $7.7B | $498M | $145M |
Source. CFTC — Financial Data for FCMs · Data as of 2026-06-30 · official file
Methodology. Official CFTC data by FCM (net capital, segregated funds 4d(a)(2), retail forex obligation). “Customer funds” approximates the scale of the business, not the number of retail accounts (which no US regulator publishes). Top-5 concentration measures the competitive barrier.
LatAm benchmarks · access context
Argentina and Brazil
In LatAm there is no public broker registry comparable to the CFTC's. The retail access barrier is, above all, macroeconomic: inflation, policy rate and exchange-rate regime. Here, the live data from the two benchmark central banks.
Table 2. Macroeconomic context of the two benchmark LatAm markets — conditions that shape retail access and behavior.
🇦🇷 Argentina
BCRAYear-over-year inflation
33.8%
2026-07-31
Monthly inflation
2.1%
2026-07-31
BADLAR rate (private banks)
25.9%
2026-09-03
International reserves
US$50.5B
2026-09-02
🇧🇷 Brazil
BCBIPCA (12m inflation)
4.4%
2026-07-01
Selic (target rate)
14.00%
2026-09-16
Real / US dollar (PTAX)
R$5.13
2026-09-04
Unlike the US market —where the access barrier is broker capital and regulation— in LatAm the barrier is, above all, macroeconomic. In Argentina, high inflation and exchange controls push retail toward hedging instruments (USD, CEDEARs, crypto) rather than listed futures. In Brazil, with more contained inflation and a developed B3, retail access to derivatives is more institutionalized. These indicators describe that context; they are not a recommendation.