As we are already in the first quarter of 2024, let's take a look back at the entirety of 2023. An analysis by Finance Magnates shows that the world's biggest broker in terms of retail FX volume was the Japanese DMM Securities.
The Japanese FX market has a reputation for being the largest in the world. When it comes to FX volumes alone, volumes registered in Japan often represent around 50% of the global retail turnover. While this figure has slightly decreased, hovering around 30% in the fourth quarter of 2023, it is still impressive.
In three of the four quarters of 2023, DMM Securities led the volume rankings. Both in the first and second half of the year, DMM Securities secured the top position in the volume rankings, ending the year in first place with an average monthly volume of $1.523 trillion. The second-ranked broker in the annual ranking had slightly over $1 trillion in average monthly FX volume. Therefore, the difference was almost half a trillion dollars.
Compared to previous years, these results are very impressive. For example, in 2022, DMM Securities topped the annual ranks with an average volume of $1.29 trillion. Back in 2021, the leading broker had an average monthly volume of only $0.87 trillion. It will be interesting to see if DMM Securities is able to surpass their current result in 2024.
Japan in the Bigger Picture
FX trading volumes recorded in Japan were the highest in the first quarter of 2023, exceeding 6.6 trillion USD monthly. However, for the rest of the year, this number never surpassed $5.3 trillion. In the case of DMM Securities, Q1 marked the period of the highest volume, with January peaking at $2.14 trillion. However, contrary to the rest of the industry, DMM Securities achieved a very good result in the last quarter, registering over $2.1 trillion in volume in December.
Also the Japan Exchange Group released its trading overview for 2023, showing record activity in the Japanese stock market. In the cash equity market, the annual trading value for the main floor of domestic common stocks reached 943.7637 trillion yen, an all-time high.
