Japan-headquartered retail Forex broker Monex Group, Inc. (TYO:8698) this morning reported its operating metrics for February 2015.
The second month of the year was rather challenging for the Forex broker, with global Forex volumes staging a drop in monthly and annual terms. The reasons for such a decline may seem obvious to many given that February is the shortest month of the year. However, for Monex’s Japanese operations the number of business days was the same in January and February. Regarding the US business, January got only one more business day compared with February.
As we rule out this seasonal factor, we have only a handful of possible reasons to explain the trading activity decline. One is the waning of the traditional January enthusiasm. Another concerns the measures taken by Forex companies across the globe to better tackle risks associated with Forex trading – the latter includes cutting leverage and is likely to have pushed many FX traders away from the field.
And now let’s attack the numbers.
- The monthly Forex volume across all subsidiaries that form Monex Group amounted to $32.1 billion in February 2015, marking a massive drop of 37% against the $51 billion result achieved in January 2015. This is a rather dismal piece of news from the broker, as January also saw Forex volumes fall. On an annual basis the drop was also rather pronounced, as February 2015 volumes were 27.4% lower than in February 2014.
- Daily average revenue trades (DARTs) across all subsidiaries of Monex Group amounted to 337,371 in February this year, with the result down by 6% against January 2015 and down by 6.8% against February 2014.
- The Japanese business of the group — Monex Inc., recorded a drop of 36% in average trade value per business day compared with the levels recorded in January 2015. DARTs also staged a drop – they were down by 3.7% month-on-month.
- TradeStation — the US-based subsidiary of Monex Group, saw DARTs decline 9.6% against levels seen in January 2015, whereas the number of active client accounts rose slightly (by 1%) in monthly terms.
The full announcement by Monex Group on its February operating metrics can be found here.