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US online forex brokerage Gain Capital Holdings reported on Wednesday its preliminary trading volume both from retail and institutional operations posted a monthly increase in January. The broker’s trading volume from over-the-counter (OTC) retail forex trading was $318.7 billion last month, or 12.3% higher over the month, while its institutional electronic communication network (ECN) forex volume grew by a monthly 26.8% to $188.5 billion.
Compared to the same period a year earlier, Gain Capital’s January retail trading volume stayed flattish, while the institutional volume went up 15.4%. In the retail segment, the broker saw a daily OTC volume of an average $15.9 billion in the first month of 2016. The figure represents an increase of 4.9% over the year and of 23.5%, compared to the previous month. The broker’s clients operated a total of 143,766 active OTC accounts at the end of January, which is 2.2% less than in December 2015. Compared to January 2015, active accounts jumped by 49.5% last month.
Meanwhile, Gain Capital executed 812,097 retail futures orders in January, or an average of 40,605 per day. The total number of such contracts was 11.2% higher than in December, while on an annual basis the figure represents an increase of 9.35.
In the institutional segment, the broker had an average daily ECN volume of $9.4 billion. This represents an increase on both a monthly and a yearly basis of 39.5% and 21.2%, respectively. The average volume from swap dealer activities was flattish on the month at $58.3 billion in January, which is an annual drop of 31.7%. The daily swap dealer volume averaged $2.9 billion.
The ECN volume consists of spot forex volume executed via Gain Capital’s proprietary trading platform and non-deliverable forward (NDF) volume executed through the its Swap Execution Facility. Swap Dealer volume, on the other hand, includes spot, forwards, swaps, options and NDF executed through the broker’s registered swap dealer.
GAIN Capital is the second largest forex broker in the US in terms of retail forex obligations after Forex Capital Markets, or FXCM, according to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Meanwhile, FXCM’s January trading volume from retail operations went down by 13% on the year to $331 billion, while its institutional volume dropped by an annual 51% to $36 billion. Over the month, its volume for the first month of the year increased in the retail segment, while staying relatively unchanged in the institutional sector.
Gain Capital operates under the trading brands Forex.com and City Index for retail clients and GTX, and Gain Capital for institutional operations . It offers trading in forex, commodities, bonds, indices, and global equities, among others. It is active in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions.
Source: Gain Capital
