Monex Reports Strong FX Trading Volumes for February 2016

Japan’s Monex Group has today reported its business metrics for the month ending February 2016, showing the highest FX trading volumes of the last twelve consecutive months for the firm. The monthly FX trading value for all subsidiaries of Monex Group Inc totaled $42.9 billion in February 2016, up about 33.6% YoY from $32.1 billion in February 2015 and about 13.2% MoM from January’s figure of $37.9 billion.

Taking a closer look at the Monex February report, we can see that the number of OTC FX accounts increased MoM from 221,293 to 222,404 and the number of active OTC FX accounts was up from 63,265 to 63,477. Average trade value per business day in OTC FX also increased MoM from 201,340 to 204,044 (in million yen).

The monthly pickup in FX volumes can only in small part be explained by the fact that the number of trading days in February 2016 was 20, while January 2016 only had 19 full business days in Japan. This also cannot explain why the Daily Average Revenue Trades (DARTs) for the Monex Group were down slightly MoM, from 359,627 to 354,366.

In contrast to the strong Japanese FX figures, the group’s American subsidiary, TradeStation, experienced a monthly decline in DARTs in February 2016, down from 145,099 to 138,033 per business day. Last week it was reported that TradeStation is exiting the retail foreign exchange business in the U.S. and clients will be transferred to OANDA. It was also revealed that OANDA additionally acquired the clients of IBFX in Australia.