BGC Net Income More Than Doubles to $68.7 Million as FMX Volumes Surge

BGC Group's third-quarter net income for fully diluted shares more than doubled to $68.7 million from $26.8 million a year earlier, the New York-based interdealer broker reported Thursday, lifted by record revenue and a one-off $35.0 million gain from selling two prediction-market units to Fanatics.

Strip out that gain, agreed in July on the sale of Water Street Labs and CX Clearinghouse, and the picture is still expansionary but more modest: pre-tax adjusted earnings rose 20.9% to $187.5 million. The gap between the GAAP headline and the adjusted figure is the first number any desk should note — more than half the reported profit was a divestment, not brokerage flow.

Revenue climbed 13.0% to $832.6 million in the three months to September 30, which the company called a third-quarter record. Total GAAP expenses grew 11.0% to $783.5 million, including a $22.6 million non-cash impairment of long-lived assets and $9.9 million of charges under a cost-reduction program.

Where did the growth actually come from?

Foreign exchange brokerage revenue rose 13.9% to $121.5 million, and average daily volume on FMX FX, BGC's electronic currency venue, jumped 43% to $18.7 billion, according to the company. Spot FX and non-deliverable forwards drove the gain, BGC said, tying the wider FX revenue increase to emerging markets, G10 forwards and its Macro Hive business.

Set against institutional FX platforms that publish monthly volumes, FMX FX remains the smallest venue but grew the fastest in the quarter, by FinanceMagnates.com's calculations:

• Cboe FX: $56.8 billion average daily volume, July to September, up 21.4% year on year
• 360T: $40.1 billion a day
• Euronext FX: $30.3 billion, up 26.1%
• FMX FX: $18.7 billion, up 43% — about twice Cboe FX's growth pace on roughly a third of its volume

FMX — the venue BGC built with backing from a group of global banks — raised revenue by more than 35% to $30.5 million. Its US Treasury cash platform averaged $83.0 billion a day, up 40%, and its share of the central limit order book market rose to 42% from 37%, the company said, citing Coalition Greenwich data.

The FMX Futures Exchange, which won CFTC approval for Treasury and SOFR futures, averaged more than 80,000 contracts a day in the quarter — nearly seven times the level a year earlier. September averaged 112,000 contracts a day after FMX listed the full Treasury futures curve in August. That acceleration, not the quarterly average, is the number that matters for anyone tracking whether FMX can mount a credible challenge in listed rates.

Fenics, the electronic business that houses FMX, grew revenue 13.3% to $181.3 million. Its growth platforms, which include FMX, rose 39.8% to $36.2 million — faster than the 22.9% they posted in the second quarter.

What did each desk contribute?

Energy, commodities and shipping — the unit expanded by the purchase of OTC Global Holdings — stayed BGC's biggest line at $287.1 million, up 18.8%, roughly a third of total revenue.

• Interest-rate products: $219.6 million, up 12.4%
• Equities: $77.3 million, up 28.0%
• Credit: $67.4 million, down 2.5% — the only brokerage line to shrink, on lower emerging-market and European volumes

Co-Chief Executive Officer John Abularrage pointed to BGC's technology bets, "from our first fully AI-brokered institutional trade to our prediction markets partnership with Fanatics." The company did not quantify the AI-brokered trade's contribution, and the Fanatics relationship now runs through a business BGC has already sold.

What changes at the top?

JP Aubin will become vice chairman and step down as co-chief executive at the end of the year, BGC said earlier this week. He is one of three co-CEOs who took over from Howard Lutnick in February 2025, leaving Abularrage and Sean Windeatt as co-CEOs.

For the fourth quarter, BGC forecast revenue of $805 million to $865 million, against $756.4 million a year earlier, and pre-tax adjusted earnings of $178 million to $196 million. The board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.02 per share, payable December 9 to shareholders of record on November 25. Liquidity stood at $917.3 million at September 30.

The forecasts rest on the growth platforms sustaining a near-40% clip into year-end — a rate that, on BGC's own second-quarter comparison, has already accelerated once but remains unproven for two consecutive quarters.