Flow Traders’ unaudited third quarter makes the compression unusually visible. Net trading income fell 43% from the second quarter to €84.5 million, while net profit dropped from €40.8 million to €6.4 million. Fixed operating expenses moved the other way, rising 9% sequentially to €64.8 million; technology expense alone reached €22.9 million, 12% above the second quarter.
The useful comparison is not simply “less ETF volume.” Flow’s disclosed ETF value traded fell only 2%, to €553 billion, while the broader market measure declined 6%. Traditional net trading income, however, fell from €131.7 million to €70.8 million. Digital-asset income slipped from €16.1 million to €13.8 million. The largest traditional declines were in EMEA, from €72.0 million to €34.4 million, and APAC, from €33.1 million to €16.4 million; the US fell from €26.6 million to €20.0 million.
Trading capital was nearly unchanged at €1.137 billion, versus €1.150 billion at the end of the second quarter. That stable denominator is why the company’s annualized return-on-trading-capital measure fell from 53% to 30%. Using the disclosed formula—four times quarterly NTI divided by average quarter-end trading capital—produces about 29.6%. This is an annualized NTI measure, not a 30% quarterly profit return.
The nine-month picture is less catastrophic than the quarter: traditional NTI was up 26% year on year, digital-asset NTI was down 46%, and net profit was down 1%. But the quarter shows how quickly earnings can collapse when trading income weakens against a cost base still expanding.