Losers Topple Gainers as Retail Trading Dominates Polish FX Markets in 2021

Seventy-two percent (72%) of traders active in Poland’s forex and over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets incurred losses on their transactions in 2021.

This is despite the fact that the percentage of traders that saw profits in their transactions increased last year.

This number includes both Polish and foreign residents trading in the Central European country’s OTC derivatives market.

While 31,478 active customers realized a profit in 2021, 80,488 suffered a loss in the same year.

Between 2020 and 2021, the total number of active traders that recorded profits and losses climbed at both ends.

While the gainers surged by 75.7% from 17,914 in 2020, the number of losers also climbed by 29% from 62,334 which was seen two years ago.

These details are contained in the 2021 forex customer performance report released by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA).

The market supervisor said these figures are based on data provided to it by entities it supervises.

In 2021, active Polish and foreign traders numbered more than 111,000 while Polish-only customers were above 53,000.

The Gainer-Loser Spread

On a whole, the total losses of Polish and foreign traders stood at zł1,158,547,060 billion while the gain was zł413,210,926 million.

Additionally, the report shows that the percentage of losing traders has been decreasing over the last four years, falling from 79.7% in 2017 to 71.9% in 2021.

While the average profit per customer fell -15% from zł15,486 to zł13,127, the average loss per customer also dropped -24.6% from zł19,089 to zł14,394.

Regardless of this, the average net result per client still remains negative, coming in at zł6,657 in 2021.

This is a -41% plunge from the zł11,370 average net per customer outcome recorded in 2020.

Meanwhile, the total number of active clients under the gainers category quadrupled since 2017, rising from zł8,165 to zł31,478 in 2021.

The dominance of Retail Trading

Furthermore, the report by PFSA shows that retail customers accounted for 99.6% of active clients last year.

“In 2021, the vast majority of investors making transactions on the forex market through domestic brokerage houses were retail clients, with a 99.6% share in the number of active clients and 83% share in the nominal value of transactions,” the Polish financial industry watchdog said.

In 2020, 80,000 Poles actively traded forex. During the first year of the pandemic, these traders recorded an FX profit of 227 million zlotys.

Meanwhile, the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW), completed its 65.03% majority shares acquisition of the Armenia Securities Exchange (AMX) yesterday. AMX is the only stock exchange in Armenia.

Marek Dietl, the President of the Management Board of GPW, noted that the Polish exchange’s goal with the acquisition is to “recreate with joint efforts the capital markets of Armenia.”