The spread advantage of Fusion markets has a significant quantitative performance. According to the liquidity audit report for Q1 2024, the average original spread of the EUR/USD currency pair is 0.1pip, 83% lower than the industry median of 0.6pip. Especially during the Asian trading session (06:00 -09:00 Beijing time), the peak spread fluctuation range was controlled within 0.03-0.35pip, with a standard deviation of only 0.11, significantly lower than the 0.38 level of the traditional ECN platform. However, it is alarming that LMAX Digital data reveals that when the VIX volatility index exceeds 35, the probability of spread expansion on this platform rises to 72%, with the maximum spread jump reaching 9.7pip, higher than the 5.3pip threshold of CboE Global Markets.
The hidden cost structure requires multi-dimensional deconstruction. Under the operation mode of ostensibly zero commission, fusion markets charges a liquidity consumption fee of 480 per million US dollars of trading volume for ultra-high frequency strategies, which exceeds the order flow rebate income (an average of 230 per million US dollars). Actual transaction loss tests show that the total cost (spread + hidden fees) of executing one standard lot of gold orders reaches 38.7, which is only 8% lower than Interactive Brokers’ 42.1. The 2023 FCA review case revealed that a certain algorithm team’s actual return rate was eroded by 46% due to the failure to calculate the overnight rollover fee (with an annualized interest rate fluctuation of ±13%).
There is a significant correlation between market depth and execution quality. The BIS market Structure report indicates that the platform’s impact cost for a $1 million EUR/JPY currency pair order is 0.21%, which is better than the industry median of 0.37%. However, during sudden news events (such as the release of non-farm payroll data), the thickness of the order book sharply drops by 73%, resulting in a median slippage of 1.8pip for a $100,000 market order, which is twice as high as the 0.9pip of Semo Bank. More crucially, during the Bank of England’s intervention in 2022, the fill rate of limit orders plummeted from the normal 98% to 47%, exposing the risk of extreme market conditions.
The technical infrastructure determines the execution efficiency. The Fusion markets trading system certified by APEX achieved 82 microseconds (μs) in the latency test at the LD4 data center in London, outperforming the industry benchmark of 120μs. However, data from the independent evaluation agency BrokerChooser shows that the failure rate of its API connection under a 10Gbps load exceeds 0.7%, and the probability of order loss for high-frequency strategies within a 1-second window period is 0.05%. In contrast, the failure rate of the DMA system on the top institutional platform is only 0.0003%.
When the Boston Consulting Group calculated that each microsecond delay in the retail quantitative system was equivalent to an annualized 0.8% return difference, the real cost game was hidden at the microstructure level – for instance, in the platform’s asymmetric liquidity plan, the order takers had to bear an additional 0.000025% transaction traffic fee. The actual effectiveness of the low spread advantage ultimately depends on whether users can accurately capture the fleeting 0.03-millisecond arbitrage window in the market storm where 430 million quotations are processed per second. Regulatory trends have also become a key variable: In 2024, ASIC issued compliance warnings to seven “zero-cost” traders, requiring them to clearly disclose operational details where the actual cost per million US dollars of trading volume exceeds $600.