Retail Forex Market Volume is $237 Billion/day – Latest Forex Magnates Quarterly Report
What is found below is the most complete retail forex volumes survey and estimation that has been compiled in recent

What is found below is the most complete retail forex volumes survey and estimation that has been compiled in recent years. This survey is the result of discussions and surveys made with hundreds of brokers, liquidity and software providers and other market participants. Although this figure is not perfect it is as accurate as a survey of this very private market can get. This survey humbly started in Q2 2009 and two years later it encompasses almost all significant brokers out of a list of several hundred that operate in this market.
For the first time this report also includes the little known Russian, South Korean and Japanese markets.
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The total of about 500 micro and small brokers are aggregated into one estimated number. For the first time FXCM has overthrown all other brokers and is now the number one broker based on volume (outside Japan), this however may not be the actual case as Saxo Bank’s figures may be higher but no data is available for 2011 yet. It is also interesting to note how Oanda has dropped several places only due to better estimation of its actual retail Forex volume. Interbank FX’s actual volume is much lower than any previous estimate and it too dropped quite a few places.
This report consolidates all Japanese brokers under one position as the Japanese (and South Korean) market is very different from others and deserves separate mention.
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Overall result is this: retail Forex market volume is $237 billion daily and almost $5 trillion monthly.
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I fail to realize, why isn’t MBT more popular than all those bucket shops? Do people just like to give away money?
actually this is not the first time FXCM has overthrown all other brokers
the volume transacted means STP or it is also considered the volume generated by a broker in-house (dealing)?
But then where are other players like eToro? Marketiva? Instaforex? These brokers are pretty known in Asia and they have hundreds of thousands customers… are they less than 4xp? or Bforex? or XTB? I don’t think so…
I have to say that I think it’s wrong to add up the volume of the brokers into a single retail market volume. Most of these brokers don’t push liquidity into the market and adding them up create a misrepresentation of the market size.
Just my 2 cents.
— Asaf.
Michael, thanks for the answer. I didn’t know that etoro did not want to partecipate to the survey. Regarding Marketiva and Instaforex, I think their volume is not so bad… I think it can be even bigger than 4xp, xtb and bforex, this is why I commented your article… and from what I saw on facebook, those three brokers (marketiva, etoro and instafx) have quite a large number of fans
Thank you too! I really like your website and I’m starting to follow it every day!
That’s some big numbers. What else can I say? 🙂
dear michael
Thank you very much for this unique report
could you do the same thing with global banks
So what steps has LMAX taken to handle or curb HFT on their exchange? Are there any kind of minimum orders submitted : orders filled ratio that is enforced to prevent fake pending.