Monex Group today reported its December 2016 business revealing lower figures for the month in comparison with November which had delivered the best trading volumes since February. The decline brings the brokerage back onto the lower levels seen during the previous months.

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In terms of Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs), last month saw the Japanese broker’s figures rise to a respectable 307,856, but this month the numbers are once again down, following a pattern that has been seen across the industry.

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December Metrics

Today’s figures reveal that DARTs for the month are 269,289, the lowest since July, representing a decline of -12.5 percent percent MoM compared with December’s 307,856 . Today’s metrics also show an annual decrease of -4.8 percent compared with December 2015’s figures of 282,969.

December saw an increase in accounts at Monex rising to 1,679,863 from 1,674,318 accounts in November 2016, or an increase of 0.3 percent MoM. Looking at Monex’s FX business, the number of over-the-counter (OTC) FX accounts totalled 233,779 showing a small increase over November’s figures of 232,764, or 0.44 percent MoM.

Staying on the broker’s FX OTC business, Monex recorded an average trade value per business day of ¥140,692 ($12.0 billion) compared with ¥213,618 billion ($18.8 billion) in November, or a decrease of -34.1 percent MoM.

TradeStation also saw DARTs decrease to 89,059 in December from 105,400 in November, reflecting a fall of -15.5 percent MoM. In terms of active account numbers, December figures were 61,886 compared with 61,819 in November, or a marginal increase of 0.1 percent MoM.

Operating Revenues

Monex recently announced its November operating revenues of $34.15 million (¥4,020 million) which represented an increase of 18.2 percent over the previous month’s figures of $30.6 million (¥3,401 million) and down -7.16 percent YoY compared with $36.8 million (¥4,330 million) in November last year. Based on this month’s data, however, the forthcoming release of December revenues are expected to be down.

Overall, Monex’s trading volumes have taken several turns in recent months, partly due to strategic moves made by the company and largely as a result of the volatility seen across global markets last year following the US elections and Brexit.

Today’s figures showed fairly lacklustre results for the month, with the effects of the surprise victory of Donald Trump which produced some of the most heavily traded days of 2016 having evidently tailed off.