Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Danish forex bank Saxo Bank outperformed US retail giant Forex Capital Markets (FXCM) in terms of trading volume in December 2016, according to the latest reports of the key market players. As a result, Saxo Bank took the lead and became the second largest forex broker after Japan’s GMO Click Securities.
The statistics does not include the metrics of UK forex brokers, including IG Group, Plus500, CMC Markets, Oanda, and others, since they do not publish such data.
Both Saxo Bank and FXCM saw their December trading volumes drop by double digits, compared to the preceding month. Saxo Bank generated a trading volume of $253 billion and FXCM posted a volume of $235 billion last month. While Saxo Bank’s metrics increased by an annual 12%, FXCM reported a decline of 27% over the year.
December was a rather slow month for most brokers, since they all reported a double-digit monthly decline in trading metrics, with the exception of Exness and FX Prime, which recorded a drop of just 5% and 3%, respectively. Year-on-year, brokers showed mixed results, ranging from a drop of 33% (Gain Capital) to a growth of 80% (FX Prime).
GMO Click Securities continued to head the ranking with a trading volume of JPY 109.8 trillion, or about $956 billion, which is significantly higher than that of the second on the list.
Retail forex trading volume | Retail forex accounts | ||||||
December 2016 | November 2016 | m/m change | y/y change | December 2016 | m/m change | y/y change | |
$956.2 bn | $1.2 trl | -17.2% | +41.7% | 466,630 | +0.7% | +9.2% | |
$253 bn | $344 bn | –26.5% | +12% | – | – | – | |
$235 bn | $353 bn | -33% | -27% | 178,782* | +0.4% | +0.5% | |
$201.2 bn | $212.2 bn | -5.2% | +11.8% | 38,417* | –5.3% | +5.2% | |
$189.1 bn | $257.0 bn | -26.4% | –33.4% | 129,036* | -1.6% | -12.2% | |
FX Prime | $100.2 bn | $102.8 bn | –3% | +80% | 169,940 | +0.3% | +2.1% |
*indicates active accounts
Meanwhile, some other brokers that offer forex, but specialize in stocks and futures as well, posted daily average revenue trades (DARTs), or the daily number of transactions that generate revenue, for last month, instead of trading volumes. They also posted a monthly double-digit decline in trading metrics. No changes in ranking were recorded for December. Please note that E-Trade has not publish such data yet. For more information, please see the table below:
Broker | DARTS | m/m change | y/y change | Total accounts |
592,000 | -19% | –6% | 385,100 | |
269,289 | -12.5% | -4.8% | – | |
Monex Inc. | 181,477 | -10.8% | +4.5% | 233,779 |
TradeStation Group | 89,059 | –15.5% | -19.1% | 61,886 |
