[I][B]Forex Magnates,[/B][/I] arguably the best source for current news on the forex industry, has summarized FXCM’s 2013 Q4 and year-end financial metrics. (Presumably, their summary is taken from FXCM’s year-end corporate report, but they don’t cite their source.)
FXCM handles both retail and institutional trades, and the [I]Forex Magnates[/I] article summarizes both. Copied-and-pasted below are the retail metrics.
[B]December 2013 Retail Trading Metrics[/B]
Retail customer trading volume of $272 billion in December 2013, 12% lower than November 2013 and 6% higher than December 2012. Volume from indirect sources was 46% of total retail volume in the fourth quarter 2013.
Retail customer trading volume for the fourth quarter 2013 was $895 billion, 9% lower than the third quarter 2013, and 1% higher than the fourth quarter 2012. Retail customer trading volume for full year 2013 was $4.1 trillion, 14% higher than 2012.
Average retail customer trading volume per day of $13.6 billion in December 2013, 7% lower than November 2013 and 1% higher than December 2012.
An average of 370,305 retail client trades per day in December 2013, 4% lower than November 2013 and 10% lower than December 2012.
Tradable accounts of 188,130 as of December 31, 2013, a decrease of 267, or 0% from November 30, 2013, and a decrease of 2,087, or 1%, from December 31, 2012.
Here is a link to the [I]Forex Magnates[/I] article — FXCM Ends 2013 in The Green
Two metrics in the excerpt above caught my attention:
• $13,600,000,000 - the average retail customer trading volume per day in December 2013, and
• 370,305 - the average number of retail trades per day executed by FXCM in December 2013
Dividing these numbers, we get:
• $36,726 - the average size (leveraged notional value) of the retail trades executed by FXCM in December
I compared the [B]$36,726[/B] figure above to the estimate — [B]$50,000[/B] — given to us 3 years ago by Michael King at the BIS, for the [U]worldwide[/U] retail spot forex market (excluding Japan), and clearly, [B]the two figures are in the same ball-park.[/B]
Edit — The above comparison is not exactly apples-to-apples, because the $36,726 figure represents the average retail trade size at one broker during the slowest month of the year, whereas the $50,000 estimate from Michael King represents the weighted average of metrics gathered from several brokers polled during a busier time of year.
