Foreign Exchange and CFDs brokerage GAIN Capital has just reported on the company’s trading volumes for the month of May. Just like the bulk of its peers outside of Japan, the company registered an increase in trading activity throughout the month.
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For the month of May, retail clients of GAIN Capital transacted a total of $219.5 billion, which is higher by 18.6 percent when compared to April and lower by 1.7 percent when compared to a year ago. The rise was driven by pockets of Volatility activity that was unlocked in the aftermath of the French election and the challenges which Donald Trump’s administration faced throughout the month.
Average Daily Volumes (ADVs) increased 2.2 percent month-on-month to $9.5 billion per day. The figure was lower by 6.9 percent year-on-year.
The institutional segment of GAIN Capital’s business continued to perform strongly with the company’s electronic communications network GTX posting a 63 percent rise when compared to May 2016 for a total of $247.2 billion transacted daily. The number is also higher by 7.2 percent when compared to the month of April this year.
GAIN Capital’s swap dealer facility also registered an increase last month with transactions rising 18.6 percent month-on-month to $59.4 billion. The number is lower by 6 percent year-on-year.
Futures trading declined to a total of 528,199 contracts, a drop of 27.6 percent when compared to a year ago and by 3 percent when compared to April. Declining stocks volatility must have played a significant role in driving trading activity across futures.
Active accounts in the retail segment totalled 135,070, a number which is flat year-on-year. Futures trading accounts declined about 10 percent when compared to May 2016.
The second quarter of 2017 appears to be stabilizing revenue flows for retail brokers as FX volatility looks somewhat higher when compared to the dismal first quarter of the year. Q1 of 2017 effectively offset the strong period of activity in Q4 2016, when the US election results underpinned trading activity.
