Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
US forex giant Forex Capital Markets (NASDAQ:FXCM) reported on Thursday its preliminary trading volumes for 2016 from retail and institutional operations alike posted a decline of 8% and 1%, respectively, compared to the preceding year.
The broker also reported an annual drop in volumes for the last quarter of the year of 7% in the retail segment to $893 billion and 31% from institutional clients to $77 billion. If compared to the preceding quarter, however, FXCM saw an increase of 2% in the retail segment and a jump of 20% in the institutional one.
In December alone, FXCM’s trading metrics dropped by double-digits both over the month and year-on-year. Retail monthly volume stood at $235 billion and institutional volume was $25 billion.
In December, the broker handled an average of 484,611 retail client trades and 34,649 institutional client trades. The retail metrics were down both over the month and over the year, while institutional ones represented a drop month-on-month, but posted a significant annual increase.
FXCM also provided account data for the retail segment.
Retail clients operated 178,782 active accounts at the end of last month, which is 650 less than a month earlier. Tradable accounts, or such with enough funds in them to place a trade, numbered 155,353 last month, or down by 575 from November.
On Tuesday Gain Capital, another leading US forex brokerage, reported for December a trading volume of retail over-the counter (OTC) operations of $189.1 billion (down by monthly 26.4%) and a institutional trading volume of $202 billion (down by monthly 11.2%).
The FXCM Group is 50.1% majority owned by FXCM Inc. The rest of the group moved to the hands of Leucadia National Corporation in 2016 as part of a definitive agreement the two companies signed to amend the conditions of their credit letter agreements.
