Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the INTL FCStone Quarter One Fiscal Year 2020 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Bill Dunaway, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning. My name is Bill Dunaway. Welcome to our earnings conference call for our fiscal first quarter ended December 31, 2019. After the market closed yesterday, we issued a press release reporting our results for our first fiscal quarter of 2020. This release is available on our website at www.intlfcstone.com, as well as a slide presentation that we will refer to on this call and our discussions of our quarterly results. You will need to sign on to the live webcast, in order to view the presentation. The presentation and an archive of the webcast will also be available on our website after the call's conclusion. Before getting underway, we are required to advise you and all participants should note that the following discussion should be taken in conjunction with the most recent financial statements and notes thereto, as well as the Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. This discussion may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in our filings with the SEC. Although the company believes that its forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions regarding its business and future market conditions, there can be no assurances that the company's actual results will not differ materially from any results expressed or implied by the company's forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers are cautioned that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. With that, I will now turn the call over to Sean O'Connor, the company's CEO.

Thanks, Bill. Good morning everyone, and thanks for joining our fiscal 2020 first earnings - first quarter earnings call. The first quarter of fiscal 2020 was a solid quarter for us given the difficult market conditions, which included lower market volatility generally, and the impact of declining short-term rates. Net operating revenues were up 14%, while total expenses were up 20%, which resulted in 10% decline in net income versus a year ago and 11% decline in EPS. This resulted in ROE of 11% below our target of 15%, and also below our run rate for the 2019 fiscal year. This decrease in net income was primarily driven by two factors. Lower volumes on our futures clearing business in line with double-digit declines in industry volumes on the exchange, combined with lower interest income on client assets, as well as the impact of a refocusing of the business following the OptionSellers matter a year ago. Two, increased costs as a result of both acquisitions and organic expansion initiatives undertaken in 2019, which we have discussed in prior earnings calls. These costs were around $8 million for the quarter and accounted for just over 50% of the total cost increase. These initiatives in aggregate were just slightly below break-even, but a significant improvement from earlier quarters as revenues have started to ramp up. We anticipate that these activities will be accretive in aggregate to the bottom line in coming quarters and will enhance the long-term earnings power of the company in the medium term. Looking at our segment results, Commercial Hedging recorded growth in revenues from a year ago, but was down 8% versus the immediately prior quarter. Segment income was up 62%, but that was largely due to the mark-to-market on longer tenor hedge positions executed in the prior year.…

Thank you, Sean. I'll be referring to slides and the information we have made available as part of the webcast. Specifically, starting with Slide number 3, which shows our performance over the last five fiscal quarters. The chart depicts our net income, earnings per share and ROE over the last five quarters. As shown, net income in the first quarter of 2020 was $16.3 million, which represents $10.9 million decrease over the immediately preceding quarter, which as Sean noted included the $10 million recovery on the physical coal matter, and $1.9 million decline versus the prior year. Earnings per share were $0.84 per share in the first quarter as compared to $1.40 and $0.94 per share in the immediately preceding and prior year quarters respectively. Moving on to Slide number 4, which represents a bridge between operating revenues for the first quarter of last year to the current period. Operating revenues were $276.8 million in the current period, up $12.1 million or 5% over the prior year. Similar to last quarter, this growth was led by our Securities segment, which added $12.1 million or 18% in operating revenues versus the prior year. Within this segment, Debt Capital Markets had a strong quarter adding $14.1 million in operating revenues versus the prior year, primarily driven by increased activity in our domestic fixed income business, improved performance in Argentina and the acquisition of GMP Securities. Equity Capital Markets when compared to the record prior-year quarter, saw $1.3 million decline in operating revenues versus the prior year as a result of 8% decline in volumes, as well as 13% decline in average revenue per $1,000 traded. Operating revenues increased in our Commercial Hedging segment by $9.9 million versus the prior year to $69.7 million. Exchange traded volumes increased 6%, primarily in the domestic…

Thanks, Bill. Our strategy is to become the best in class financial platform connecting clients to global markets across asset classes and offering vertically integrated execution and clearing. We help our diverse client base to access market liquidity, manage risk and maximize profits. This is a unique an increasingly valuable platform, which is generally only available from bulge bracket banks and create sticky client relationships. Our platform creates diversified transaction-based revenues, as we drive traffic across our global network, and also generate stable interest earnings on client balances. We will execute our strategy by relentlessly pursuing the following objectives. Increase the value of our financial platform by adding new products, capabilities, and market and liquidity venues for our clients. This can be done either organically or through disciplined acquisition to make up the financial franchise of choice for commercial and institutional clients looking to access markets with efficient execution as well as post-trade clearing settlement and custody services. Second, expand into client segments and geographies where we are underrepresented by acquiring suitable talents recruitment or disciplined acquisition of teams. This requires efficient on-ramps to our financial platform that are both cost effective for us as well as compelling from a client engagement perspective. Three, more tightly integrate our offerings platform and marketing strategy as well as customer experience in order to make the relationship more meaningful for the customer, stickier for the company and more valuable for both of us. Four, increasing digitization of our platform by investing in client-facing technology through an efficient makes a proprietary and industry standard platforms to better leverage our intellectual capital in driving revenue growth and providing customers easier and more efficient access to our products and services. Five, create a scalable execution and clearing infrastructure where cost per transaction are decreasing in absolute terms. Next, maintain a robust environment to dynamically allocate capital and resources to maximize long-term value to shareholders. And lastly, a multi-layered risk management program to ensure that we achieve the best risk adjusted return for our business. We believe that we continue to make good progress on all fronts and are excited about where we stand currently. With that, I would like to turn it back to the operator and see if we have any questions.

[Operator Instructions] : :

All right, operator. It doesn't seem like we have any questions at this time. So I would like to thank everyone for participating and we will speak to you again in three months. Thank you.

That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.