Will wonders never cease in the Forex sector.
After seeing a slow and steady decline in the US retail forex sector the past few years – and many in the industry (including us) writing it off as a lost cause – US forex traders made a nice comeback this summer, increasing the amount of their deposits at NFA regulated US brokers during July by more than $41 million, or 7%. Total US retail FX client assets now sit at $632 million – their highest level since early 2013.
The one trend staying intact, however, is that the big keep getting (relatively) bigger, with the industry’s ‘Big 3’ – FXCM (NYSE:FXCM), Oanda and Gain Capital’s Forex.com (NYSE:GCAP) – now accounting for 72% for all US retail client assets, and likely a similarly high concentrated market share of trading volume for US retail forex traders.
And we continue to see brokers leaving the heavily and expensively over-regulated market. The #4 broker in the list above, Monex-owned IBFX recently sold out to FXCM. In May we saw FXDD sell its US client base to FXCM for $4.4 million.
So is this a reversal of fortune and the beginning of a new trend in US retail forex? Or, just a blip on a long slow decline of the sector in one of its still-biggest markets? Time will tell…