FCA manipulation reports rose 17% as the overall market-abuse total fell

The Financial Conduct Authority received fewer suspicious transaction and order reports in 2025, but more reports of suspected market manipulation. Its annual total fell from 4,528 to 3,806, a reduction of 722 or 15.9%. Within that total, manipulation reports rose from 581 to 679, an increase of 98 or 16.9%, while insider-dealing submissions fell by 821. Reconstructing the monthly asset-class rows reveals where the increase occurred: equities added 66 manipulation reports and commodities 51, partly offset by a fall of 25 in fixed income. The total describes reports of suspicion received by the FCA; it does not establish how much abuse occurred.[1][2]

The distinction is consequential for intermediaries. Brokers, investment firms and trading venues operate surveillance systems intended to detect unusual orders and transactions and decide whether reasonable suspicion warrants a report. A firm looking only at the falling national headline could draw the mistaken inference that the burden of investigating market manipulation must also be shrinking. In fact the published manipulation numerator moved the opposite way. The regulator's own tables permit that reconstruction without identifying individual reporting firms or their alert thresholds.[1][2][3]

The numerical bridge is exact at the published category level. In 2024, 3,945 insider-dealing reports plus 581 manipulation reports and two classified as other produced 4,528. In 2025, the corresponding entries were 3,124, 679 and three, adding to 3,806. The 821 reduction in the first group, 98 increase in the second and one increase in the third reconcile to a net decrease of 722. A report may represent suspected conduct, not a verified offence; these are counts received by the authority rather than judicial determinations.[1][2]

The change also alters the distribution of attention. Manipulation accounted for approximately 12.8% of all STORs in 2024 and 17.8% in 2025, an increase of about five percentage points. Insider-dealing reports still dominated, but their share fell from about 87.1% to 82.1%. Percentage points, not a five-percent growth rate, are the appropriate unit for that comparison. The composition changed even though the absolute number of submissions declined.[1][2]

Equities and commodities account for the increase

The asset reconstruction changes the interpretation of the 16.9% increase. Equities and commodities together added 117 reports, more than the net rise of 98; fixed-income reports moved in the opposite direction, and FX added six. There was no uniform increase across every reported market. A surveillance team using the national percentage as a common growth factor for all asset classes would miss that composition.[1][2]

Commodity manipulation reports increased from 112 to 163, or 45.5%, while equity reports increased from 383 to 449, or 17.2%. November's commodity row rose from five to 43, contributing 38 of the 51 additional commodity reports. That concentration in one month is a reason to investigate the reporting pattern, not to infer one new scandal or 38 separate offences. The public table cannot identify whether connected events, several reporting firms, improved detection or unrelated suspicions produced those submissions.[1][2]

What the reporting categories can establish

The reporting categories have different analytical meanings. Insider dealing generally relates to trading, attempting to trade or other activity connected with inside information. Manipulation can encompass conduct that creates false or misleading signals or distorts prices, including behaviour visible in order placement and cancellation. An alert engine designed around corporate announcements and pre-announcement buying is not interchangeable with one designed to find layering, spoofing or wash trading. A different mix of suspicions may therefore alter surveillance workload, even when the total volume of reports decreases.[3][4]

It would be unsound to calculate the incidence of actual manipulation by dividing 679 by the number of transactions executed on British venues. The FCA has not published a matched total of eligible orders in these two annual tables, the cases may involve repeated suspicious events, and reports can arrive through different routes. It would be equally unsound to conclude that a 16% drop in STORs demonstrates weaker enforcement. Reporting reflects the activity detected, the thresholds used, the reporting population and the decision to submit; each can change independently.[1][2][3]

The foreign-exchange label is particularly easy to mishandle. It is the asset classification in the regulator's received-STOR table, not the global OTC currency market, the population of every UK-licensed FX broker or a proxy for all CFD activity referencing currency pairs. A retail CFD trade referencing a listed equity can raise a manipulation suspicion about that underlying share. Conversely, many OTC currency trades may sit outside a particular reporting route. A small FX row must not be interpreted as proof of negligible abuse across currency markets.[1][2][4]

The separate seven-broker examination

The aggregate comparison becomes more interesting beside the FCA's October 2026 Market Watch 86, which examined surveillance at seven retail brokers. That publication described shortcomings in alert calibration, escalation, risk assessments and the governance of monitoring arrangements. It does not publish a list allowing those seven firms' STOR submissions to be isolated within the national totals. The two records therefore address different levels: the annual table describes all received submissions; Market Watch describes supervisory observations in a specific sample. They cannot be joined into a broker-by-broker dataset.[3]

Nevertheless, there is a testable institutional question. If national manipulation reports are increasing while some supervised brokers have deficiencies in their detection systems, how much of the change is genuine underlying activity, and how much is firms changing what their systems see and report? The current public records cannot identify that contribution. Answering it would require matched firm-level STOR rates, alert volumes, product mix, risk assessments and changes in detection settings, with confidentiality constraints. It should be asked rather than assumed.[1][2][3]

This is also why a regulator's instruction to strengthen surveillance should not automatically be described as evidence of past manipulation by that firm's customers. A defective feed or poorly calibrated model can miss suspicious events; it can also generate false positives. A suspicious transaction report is a referral for assessment, not an adjudication. The threshold is reasonable suspicion, not proof of an offence. Strong controls include escalation discipline and documented decisions not to file as well as a suitable obligation to file when the threshold is met.[3][4]

The direction of the annual change does not necessarily establish the direction of enforcement workload. One complex case might contain thousands of related orders but produce one report. Multiple firms could submit reports about the same episode. A case that crosses borders may require consultations outside the UK. The public tables count received STORs, not investigative hours, prosecuted cases, convictions, recovered losses or the number of trading accounts involved. These are separate operational measures.[1][2][4]

What a meaningful surveillance comparison would contain

A broker making its own annual assessment should report more than the number of external notifications filed. At minimum it would reconcile the population of received orders and executed trades against the feed that actually reached the surveillance engine, then disclose internally the number of generated alerts, investigations, closures and STORs. It would distinguish scenarios for manipulation from those for insider dealing; report changes in thresholds and products; and examine whether any account group or newly connected platform escaped coverage. These are analytical controls, not findings that the FCA has certified a universal checklist.[3][4]

The numerator should also be paired with the right denominator. STORs per million eligible orders measures a different thing from STORs per active account or per million pounds of notional exposure. These rates cannot be compared across product mixes without adjustment. A broker specialising in liquid shares may have many micro-orders; another dealing in OTC derivatives may have fewer tickets with large economic exposure. If one outsources monitoring, the reporting duty and governance obligations do not disappear with the outsourced function.[3][4]

There are benign explanations for the national mix shifting. Equity-market volatility, public-company announcement patterns, increased automation, more effective detection, fewer cases involving inside information or changes in reporting firms' interpretation can all affect the categories. There could also be deterioration in reporting by some firms. The published data do not disaggregate these possibilities. The one thing they disprove is the proposition that manipulation notifications fell simply because the total fell.[1][2]

The data version matters. The 2025 page records numerical corrections on 18 February 2026 and a column-alignment amendment on 8 September that did not change its content. The comparison here uses the corrected values available on 12 November. All twelve monthly manipulation totals reconcile to 679, and summing the four asset classes produces the same result. The corresponding 2024 rows reconcile to 581. This checks the category comparison without treating the received reports as an immutable count of underlying incidents.[1][2]

What readers can reasonably ask of the next disclosure

For users of brokerage services, an increase in manipulation STORs is not itself evidence of higher execution costs, poor fills or financial harm. A trader might be affected by actual manipulative activity, but proving that connection requires a specific market event, relevant order data and supervisory findings. The aggregate counts do not supply them. The customer implication is a need for brokers and venues to demonstrate that their detection coverage remains effective as trading methods change.[1][2][3]

The FCA already publishes monthly counts by asset class. A more informative next step would add comparable, anonymised information on the reporting population and relevant order activity, while maintaining stable definitions. Those denominators would help distinguish changes in the rate of reporting from changes in market activity or in the firms covered. Such disclosure would have to protect confidential investigations and surveillance methods. The existing tables establish the direction and location of the reported change; they cannot identify its cause.[1][2]

The aggregate decline therefore deserves a qualified reading. Insider-dealing reports contracted sharply, while manipulation reports increased mainly in equities and commodities. The FCA's separate seven-broker review makes the completeness of surveillance a current operational question, but supplies no basis for attributing the national movement to those firms. Future evidence should connect reporting activity, coverage and outcomes before anyone treats a lower annual total as proof of safer markets.[1][2][3]

Report an error or submit an update