StoneX’s 109% customer-asset rise becomes 13% after R.J. O’Brien is restored to the denominator

StoneX Financial’s customer assets in U.S. futures segregation more than doubled in the year to August 2026, rising from $6.616 billion to $13.847 billion. Taken alone, the regulated entity’s 109.3% increase looks like extraordinary organic expansion. The acquisition of R.J. O’Brien changes that picture. RJO was still reported as a separate futures commission merchant in both Commodity Futures Trading Commission datasets. At August 2025—one month after StoneX completed the acquisition—RJO held $5.868 billion of customer assets in segregation. By August 2026, its separately reported balance had fallen to $233.3 million while StoneX Financial’s balance had risen. Putting both legal entities back into the denominator produces a much smaller, but still substantial, like-for-like increase: combined segregated customer assets rose from $12.484 billion to $14.081 billion, or 12.8%. Roughly four-fifths of the apparent $7.23 billion growth in the StoneX line is therefore explained by comparing the principal entity with a prior-year figure that excluded most of the acquired FCM.[1][2][4]

A legal-entity migration can look like operating growth

The CFTC reports each registered FCM separately. It does not consolidate entities merely because they share an owner. That is the correct regulatory presentation: StoneX Financial and R.J. O’Brien & Associates retained separate registrations and separate capital, segregation and customer-asset figures at the reporting dates. For group analysis, however, a reader must reconcile the acquisition. StoneX said the transaction expanded its client float by nearly $6 billion—close to RJO’s $5.868 billion of segregated customer assets in the August 2025 CFTC data. The subsequent movement is consistent with substantial transfer or consolidation of balances into StoneX Financial, although the public dataset alone does not identify account-level migrations. The August 2026 StoneX line held 98.3% of the two entities’ combined segregated customer assets, up from 53.0% one year earlier. RJO’s separate line retained 1.7%. That is strong evidence of legal-entity concentration, not proof that individual customers were transferred without consent or that the RJO entity is being closed. Those questions require company confirmation.[1][2][4]

Capital shows the same denominator problem

Excess net capital also appears to surge if StoneX Financial is viewed alone. The entity’s excess rose from $198.5 million to $287.2 million, an increase of 44.7%. RJO’s excess net capital simultaneously fell from $98.4 million to $18.3 million. On a combined basis, excess net capital increased from $296.9 million to $305.5 million—only 2.9%. The movement is again primarily a reallocation between regulated entities rather than new capital appearing at the group’s two FCMs. This is not a criticism of the consolidation. Moving customer accounts and regulatory capital into a principal FCM may be the mechanism through which StoneX expects to obtain operational and capital synergies. StoneX explicitly targeted at least $50 million of capital synergies and $50 million of expense savings when it closed the acquisition. The CFTC figures may show the early architecture of that plan, but they do not measure realised group synergies or capital released to the parent. Adjusted net capital, net-capital requirements and excess net capital are regulatory measures at each FCM. They should not be added to shareholder equity or treated as cash available for distribution without examining restrictions, intercompany balances and legal-entity requirements.[1][2][3][4]

Customer assets are not revenue, deposits or corporate cash

The CFTC’s “customers’ assets in segregation” field is the amount an FCM reports in segregated accounts under the Commodity Exchange Act for domestic futures and options customers. It is not StoneX revenue, not the notional value of customer trading, and not necessarily the same as the “client float” used in an acquisition announcement. The August 2026 StoneX Financial figure of $13.847 billion exceeded the reported segregation requirement of $13.444 billion by $403.9 million. RJO reported $233.3 million of assets against a $213.8 million requirement, an excess of $19.5 million. Those segregation excesses are distinct from excess net capital. The combined customer-asset increase of $1.597 billion could reflect net customer inflows, market movements, settlement timing, transfers from other account categories, acquisitions beyond RJO, or changes in how accounts were booked. The monthly CFTC table is a point-in-time snapshot. It does not provide average balances or a bridge between dates. For that reason, the 12.8% like-for-like increase should be described as growth in reported segregated assets at the two FCMs—not as 12.8% growth in clients, revenue or trading activity.[1][2][3]

Why the distinction matters for acquisition reporting

Large financial acquisitions routinely create misleading year-on-year comparisons because the acquired legal entity remains visible in one dataset while the buyer highlights growth at another. The problem is especially acute in regulated businesses, where account migrations can move billions between entities without changing the group’s aggregate customer relationship. StoneX’s announcement provides the essential acquisition boundary. It completed the RJO purchase on July 31, 2025, said RJO supported more than 75,000 client accounts and roughly 300 introducing brokers, and described an expansion of client float by nearly $6 billion. The August 2025 CFTC report was therefore already post-acquisition but before most of the apparent migration reflected in the 2026 comparison. A clean comparison requires adding StoneX Financial and RJO in both periods. It does not require assuming that every RJO dollar became a StoneX dollar. Indeed, the combined balance grew by more than the amount remaining at RJO, which indicates genuine net expansion or other balance movements alongside the migration. The same principle should be applied to future disclosures. If StoneX reports FCM scale or growth using only the surviving principal entity, it should disclose the acquired entity’s prior-period balance or provide a pro forma denominator.[1][2][4]

FXBrokers.ai used the CFTC’s unrounded dollar fields for both entities and both dates, then summed matching columns before calculating changes. No figures were converted from StoneX’s investor materials. The comparison deliberately excludes other StoneX subsidiaries because the question is the U.S. FCM customer-asset and capital perimeter shown in the regulator’s monthly table.[1][2][3]

The acquisition boundary that changes the comparison

A reported year-on-year growth rate can increase when a newly acquired business is included in the current period but absent from the prior-year denominator. Restoring the acquired operation to the historical comparison creates a different, potentially more informative organic-growth benchmark. Neither is intrinsically false: the consolidated growth rate measures the business as legally owned at each date; the pro-forma comparison asks how activity changed on a more comparable perimeter. The useful disclosure is a bridge showing the acquired balances and activity separately, not an allegation that the company concealed the transaction.[1][2]

Customer assets are also a stock at a point in time, not the sum of revenues earned from those customers. Integration can increase the reported balance without immediately increasing client retention, clearing volumes or profitability at the same rate. To test whether the combined platform has genuinely developed beyond the acquired book, the next reporting period needs a like-for-like base, client retention information and measured organic movement rather than only the consolidated headline.[1][2]

What remains unresolved

The records establish a clear numerical result: StoneX Financial’s reported 109.3% increase becomes 12.8% when RJO is included on both sides, and the 44.7% increase in StoneX Financial’s excess net capital becomes 2.9% on the same combined basis. They do not establish how many accounts migrated, when each transfer occurred, whether all RJO customer types moved, or how much of the targeted $50 million capital synergy has been realised. They also do not show that any regulatory requirement was breached. Both FCMs reported positive segregation excesses and positive excess net capital in August 2026. To evaluate the finding, FXBrokers.ai would ask StoneX to confirm the extent and timing of customer-account and capital migration between RJO and StoneX Financial; explain whether RJO will remain a separately active FCM; provide a bridge for the $1.597 billion combined increase; and state how much of the announced expense and capital synergies had been achieved by August. That response could separate true organic growth, acquired balances, market movements and legal-entity consolidation. Until then, the CFTC data support the narrower finding: the group grew, but nowhere near the rate implied by reading StoneX Financial’s standalone line without the acquired denominator.[1][2][4]

Report an error or submit an update