Monex FX Trading Volumes Up 9.6% in August as DARTs Jump 13.3%

Monex Group reported today its business metrics for the month ending August 2015, showing a comeback for its FX volumes. The monthly trading value for all subsidiaries of Monex Group Inc totaled $42.2 billion in August, up 9.6% from $38.5 billion in July 2015.

This total FX volumes figure is the highest since February 2015 when the number crashed to just $32.1 billion, and put Monex half way towards January 2015’s $51 billion. The month-on-month rise in the total FX figure for the Monex Group can not be explained by the number of trading days as August only had 21 while July had 22 trading days in Japan.

Other FX trading metrics also increased somewhat for the Monex Group in August 2015. The total number of over-the-counter (OTC) FX accounts reached 215,026, up from 213,815 in July 2015. The number of active accounts in OTC FX accounts climbed slightly to 63,723 in August from 63,612 the previous month. The average trade value per business day for Monex Group in August 2015 was 175,162 million yen, up from 155,994 million yen MoM.

Quite similar to the FX volumes, the Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) for the Monex Group were also upbeat in August 2015, up 13.3% to 351,104 from 309,814 in July.

Some business metrics for the TradeStation Group were also reported by Monex today. The number of active TradeStation accounts at the end of August stood at 67,236, up from 66,970 accounts in July 2015. However, the figure for total client assets for the TradeStation Group reached only $3,692 billion, a minor slide down from $3.847 billion in July 2015. Finally, DARTs for the TradeStation Group reached 139,882, up from 114,068 in July.

Markit Deal

It was separately announced that Monex signed with Markit (Nasdaq:MRKT) for its corporate actions service. The agreement will enable the firm to provide validated corporate actions data for all of its offered trading stocks.

“By incorporating Markit’s corporate actions data into our service, Monex becomes the only online securities firm offering such a service in Japan,” said Motoki Kitamura, General Manager, Operations Department at Monex. “Our goal is to provide individual investors with the best services and the addition of this service will provide comprehensive access to high quality corporate actions data for our clients.”

“We are so pleased to be working with Monex, who is recognised in the region as being a sophisticated online broker for individuals looking to invest in US stocks and ETFs. The addition of Markit’s corporate actions service to the Monex offering will provide customers with access to validated corporate actions data from over 160 countries and territories,” said Brian Okupski, Managing Director and Head of Corporate Actions at Markit.