Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Gain Capital, US’ second largest retail forex broker, recorded a retail over-the-counter (OTC) trading volume from retail clients of $191.9 billion in August 2016, the lowest since December 2013. The figure represents a decline of 9.8% over the month and an annual drop of 50.6%.
“August average daily volume was significantly lower and is the result of reduced market volatility which has impacted many of the retail brokers in our industry,” said Glenn Stevens, the brokerage’s CEO. “We expect that the lead-up to the US presidential election and continued uncertainty relating to global interest rates will lead to a return of volatility and subsequent improvement in average daily volumes in line with levels seen in early 2016,” he added.
The broker had in August a daily retail trading volume of $8.3 billion on average, which is a decrease of 17.6% from the previous month and 54.9% from a year earlier.
The broker also posted a monthly drop of 13.6% in its trading volumes from institutional clients via electronic communication network (ECN) to $150.1 billion. The figure, however, is slightly up by 0.3% from the same month a year earlier. Daily trading volume in the segment averaged $6.5 billion. This is 21.1% below the values reported in July and 8.4% less than in August 2015.
In the retail segment, active accounts dropped by 2% over the month and 10% year-on-year to 135,634. This is the lowest number of active OTC accounts the broker handles since April 2015 when such accounts exceeded for the first time in a long time the 100,000 threshold.
For the institutional segment, Gain Capital also published data about swap dealer activity. August trading volume in the segment went up by double digit to $72.6 billion, or an average daily of $3.2 billion. Meanwhile, the broker handled of 8,638 active futures contracts in August and processed on average 28,271 futures contracts per day.
Earlier this month, Gain Capital reported its institutional brand GTX saw a 19.8% increase on the month in total daily average volume to $9.7 billion in August due to its swap dealing facility.
Gain Capital’s main competitor, Forex Capital Markets (FXCM) is yet to publish its monthly trading metrics for August.
New Jersey-based Gain Capital has global presence across 180 countries in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific regions. The broker serves retail and institutional clients alike on the exchange-traded and OTC markets, using the trading brands Forex.com, City Index, GTX, and Gain Capital. It offers trading in forex, commodities, bonds, indices, and global equities, among others.
The brokerage has, through its subsidiaries, licenses from the relevant authorities in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan.
Recently, its unit GTX SEF received a status as a fully-registered Swap Execution Facility (SEF).
