Research outfit Investment Trends has come out with an updated report and survey on the FX and CFD sector in Singapore.
Overall, the key findings of the latest Singapore survey which covered more than 11,000 traders and investors includes:
- The number of FX and CFD traders in Singapore has soared, as Singaporean investors have brushed off the CHF crisis and embraced volatility.
- Those traders, however, are using a lot less leverage than pre-CHF crisis.
- Mobile trading is more important in Singapore than in any other market.
- One in four traders now use their CFD/FX broker’s mobile platform for the majority of their trades, up from 19% a year ago.
To take the last points first, the survey found that nearly nine out of ten (89%) of traders in Singapore use a mobile device for their CFD or FX trading, making Singapore the leveraged trading market with the highest adoption of mobile trading as per the following table:
Interactive Brokers, IG and CMC Markets received the highest client satisfaction ratings for the mobile platform, with IG leading the industry for client adoption of mobile trading having 95% of their clients reporting use of the IG mobile platform for CFD/FX trading.
Singaporean FX traders, like their German and French peers have become more cautious post-Swiss Franc crisis, slashing their usage of leverage by half (without any other obvious external factor intervening). However, 9% of Singaporean FX traders indicate that the CHF event was actually a catalyst to start currency trading, compared to 6% of French FX traders and 2% of German traders.
According to Irene Guiamatsia, Senior Analyst at Investment Trends:
With the 21% increase in trader numbers, the Singapore CFD/FX market is the 2015 global growth leader among the seven key markets covered by Investment Trends. The trend reversal, a much needed boost for an industry that had seen several years of steady decline, occurred in a mixed environment where volatility on the local bourse presented opportunities for leveraged trading, even as reverberations of CHF crisis continue to be felt across the global leveraged trading industry.
There is also a healthy (and growing) number of next wave traders in Singapore, those who do not trade yet but intend to start in the next 12 months. An estimated 21,000 investors (up from 17,000 in 2014) intend to start trading either CFDs or FX over the next year.
To see a summary of the Investment Trends Singapore report click here (pdf).