This month, like every month, I’m releasing a monthly online retail Forex volume survey. The report I released in May estimated the total daily volume at over $105B. June’s report estimated the volume at $128B, the increase was mainly due to several more brokers being added to the list.
This month there aren’t any significant changes to the survey results except FXCM which reported that it applies a more conservative and methodical approach to its volumes calculation. There isn’t an industry standard to as how volume is calculated and each broker reports pretty much what he wants. FXCM were the first broker to report official volume and Net Capital figures back in 2007 and was soon followed by a small number of other Forex brokers who sought similar transparency.
I hope other brokers will adhere to these conservative reporting methods as well and that the regulators will release official volume reports just like they do with Forex brokers’ Net Capital.
Due to this change, Oanda leaps to the first place with FXCM and Gaitame following with almost identical figures.
The numbers were officially, and to some extent unofficially, released by the brokers themselves or are educated estimations based on industry rumored figures:
The figures are incomplete as some brokers such as FXDD, FX Solutions and CMS simply don’t report or disclose their numbers.
Moreover, it’s important to note that is very hard, if at all possible, to discern the retail trading volume (individual traders) and institutional trading volume as they are typically jointly reported by the brokers. Therefore, these numbers might reflect some institutional trading volume as well.
Two request for the future surveys: what percentage of the retail FX business comes from the U.S.? Some of the industry analysts estimate 25%, but that seems too low.
According to public reports, GAIN says 59% of volume is from the U.S., FXCM reportedly has 45% U.S. business, DBfx says 45%, CME futures 60% U.S., etc.
It seems that U.S. retail FX is more than 25% of the global FX trade. Could it be as high as 40%??
Also, you should include the futures exchange (e.g. CME, The ICE and others) retail FX volumes into the report. It looks like CME is doing $12 Billion a day in U.S. retail FX, making it larger than FXCM’s U.S. retail business. That may surprise some.