Trading activity fell at 45 of 51 retail brokers in the second quarter of 2026, according to FM Intelligence calculations. The median broker handled $3.06 million in monthly volume per active account, down 9.7% from the first quarter.
Account growth and trading activity moved apart during the quarter. A larger client base did not reliably produce more client flow, so a rising headline account number said little about how much those clients traded.
The full broker-by-broker breakdown is on the FM Intelligence DataLab portal.
Axi Tops the Distribution at $10.70 Million
Axi recorded the highest per-account figure among the 51 at $10.70 million a month, up 13.5% from the first quarter. Its monthly volume fell 12.4%. Its estimated account base fell faster, by 22.8%.
That combination runs through much of the ranking. A ratio can rise because volume grew, because the account count shrank, or through both, and the direction on its own says nothing about whether trading economics improved.
Aggregate monthly volume on the matched account series fell 7.3% to $30.5 trillion. A separate FM Intelligence volume ranking puts the quarterly decline at 9.3%, drawing on a different set of first-quarter totals.
Six Brokers Increased Activity per Account
Six of the 51 firms increased monthly volume per active account between the two quarters. In four of those cases the ratio rose while the estimated account count was falling.
Only two brokers grew both active accounts and monthly volume. The rest added accounts and lost volume, held their account estimate flat, or declined on both measures.
- Retail Broker Accounts Hold Near 7.4 Million as Trading Activity Cools
- Interactive Brokers' Q2 Growth Came From Its Balance Sheet, Not Higher Rates
- Retail CFD Broker Volumes Fall 9% to $30.4 Trillion in Q2 2026
The equivalent first-quarter study put the median at $3.40 million across 52 brokers, with a 17-fold spread between the highest and lowest observations.
The Range Between Top and Bottom Runs to 21 Times
The weighted industry ratio, total volume divided by total active accounts, fell 7.0% to $4.12 million. That is a shallower decline than the median, because the weighted measure gives the largest firms more influence.
Active accounts themselves held near 7.39 million, down 0.4% on an excluding-Japan basis. The denominator barely moved. The fall came from volume.
XTB is at the low end of the range, and its figure is not directly comparable with the rest. Its estimated 851,000 active accounts include investment accounts alongside CFD accounts, after XTB moved to combined client reporting from the first quarter.
Per-account figures are ratios of aggregates, not observed trading by an individual client. They shift with product mix, leverage and how each firm counts a low-frequency account.
Seventeen brokers reported unchanged account estimates for the quarter. That limits how finely close rankings can be read.
The calculations draw on the Quarterly Industry Report series. They cover the 51 named brokers present in both quarters and exclude the aggregated other-brokers row.
The complete ranking, the quarterly gainers and decliners, and the account-versus-volume split are on the FM Intelligence DataLab portal.
