Japanese broker GMO Click (GMO) released its report on the trading activity of April 2018 today. The firm saw a precipitous decline in its over-the-counter (OTC) FX trading volumes, despite an increase in the number of user accounts.

In December of 2017, GMO saw a drastic cut in trading volumes as it finished the year with its lowest monthly trading volumes since August 2014. The broker bounced back in the first quarter of this year but seems to have hit a slump in April.

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The broker’s FX Neo service saw trading volumes of ¥680 billion ($6.21 billion) last month. This was down from ¥943 billion ($8.61 billion) in March – equivalent to a 28 percent reduction.

More users – fewer trades

The reduction in trading volumes in April took place despite a rise in the number of FX Neo trading accounts. At the end of March, the firm had 529,044 accounts registered to the service. In April, this figure increased to 533,333. This represented a 0.81 percent increase for the month.

GMO’s is not the only firm to have experienced a positive first quarter to 2018, only to see declining trading volumes in April. The Japan Exchange Group (JPX), which operates multiple securities exchanges including the Tokyo Stock Exchange, also saw a decline in trading volumes for the month after having seen steady increases in the first quarter of 2018.

Indeed, the decline seems to have been an industry-wide affair. According to Reuters, Q1 of 2018 saw an uptick in investor activity in cash currency trading that tanked by 30 percent in April when compared to January. GMO did not see a decline of this size in trading volumes from January to April, but it still saw a decrease of 18 percent between the two months.