Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
US forex broker Gain Capital [NYSE:GCAP], the operator of the Forex.com brand, said on Monday its retail and institutional trading volumes both increased in September 2016 from the preceding month when they hit the lowest since December 2013. September volume from over-the-counter trading went up by a monthly 8.3% to $207.8 billion, while institutional volume via electronic communication network (ECN) increased by 24.1% on the month to $186.3 billion.
On a yearly basis, Gain Capital saw its retail volume drop by 40.3% and that from institutional operations up by 28.7%.
“Q3 2016 was marked by lower volatility and narrow average true ranges for many products, which resulted in lower customer engagement and a decrease of GAIN’s quarterly retail revenue per million of nearly 30% below our 1H 2016 levels,” said Glenn Stevens, Gain Capital’s CEO. “However, we have seen a significant increase in volatility and engagement in early October and expect this to continue over the course of Q4 and into FY 2017 as a result of Brexit concerns, the US presidential election and continued uncertainty relating to global interest rates,” he added.
The broker had a daily trading volume of $9.4 billion (up 13.2% m/m) in the retail segment and $8.5 billion (up 29.8% m/m) from institutional operations. Last week, Gain Capital reported the trading volume of its institutional brand GTX grew in September 14% on the month to $254 billion.
Active OTC retail accounts declined by a monthly 1.9% to 133,009, a new lowest since April 2015. No such data was available for institutional clients. However, the broker said active futures accounts numbered 8,594 in September, which represents a decrease of 0.5% from August and an increase of 0.3% from a year earlier. The broker handled 669,340 futures contracts during the month.
For the institutional segment, Gain Capital also published data about swap dealer activity. Last month trading volume in the segment declined by a monthly 6.8% to $67.7 billion, or up by 15.9% over the year. This was an average daily volume of $3.1 billion.
Gain Capital’s main competitor, Forex Capital Markets (FXCM) is yet to publish trading metrics for the month of September.
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.
