US Forex brokers profitability report for Q3 2011 – OANDA back on top, profitability up
Finally all US retail forex brokers have updated their profitability stats and the result is surprising - overall profitability is
Finally all US retail forex brokers have updated their profitability stats and the result is surprising – overall profitability is up. This is despite the very volatile quarter forex markets have experienced which typically leads to high losses to forex traders. Apparently forex traders coped with this volatility better than I had expected.
Overall result is that most US forex brokers improved in profitability with FXCM jumping as much as 8% in clients’ profitability – perhaps with the removal of positive slippage. OANDA is now the most profitable broker with 35.5% of its clients being profitable in the past quarter. This calculation excluded Advanced Markets which saw profitability jump by no less than 23.8% but considering it had only 45 account – it is insignificant and skews up the data.
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Overall American market growth is simply disappointing as all US retail forex combined have added only 111 accounts in the third quarter of 2011. There are 108,490 active retail forex accounts held with American forex brokers.
* – Average profitability change excludes Advanced Markets
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** – Weighted change excludes Advanced Markets and is a more accurate estimate of the average change for the whole market.
Q2 2011 report can be seen here.
Q1 2011 report can be seen here.
Q4 2010 report can be seen here.
Q3 2010 report can be seen here.
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Do these stats also take into account the brokers’ non-US branches? Are all the accounts counted, or just the ones opened at the US branches?
I look at these schemes like lighting matches in a forest. You keep lighting them, but they mostly just extinguish and never spread. But every now and then a match hits a dry shrub and quickly engulfs its surroundings. Same thing here, many programs get launched, but very few get any traction to scale and become large so they just fizzle out quickly. The larger ones will last for months and collect millions in deposits. They eventually fall apart because the guaranteed profits that they have to pay back simply become to large. There are also the more hidden Ponzi… Read more »
I look at these schemes like lighting matches in a forest. You keep lighting them, but they mostly just extinguish and never spread. But every now and then a match hits a dry shrub and quickly engulfs its surroundings. Same thing here, many programs get launched, but very few get any traction to scale and become large so they just fizzle out quickly. The larger ones will last for months and collect millions in deposits. They eventually fall apart because the guaranteed profits that they have to pay back simply become to large. There are also the more hidden Ponzi… Read more »
I am I reading this right when it says that there are 108,490 active accounts in the US. This number seems very small when considering the number of brokers and the ever increasing world wide popularity of trading forex.
MG, Just curious…do you have any stats on CitiFXPro? and thank you for compiling this information!
Please, somebody can explain me with an example, what does mean 35.5% profi and 64.5% loss?
I think, that of 100 trades made in this broker 35.5 are winning and 64.5 are loser. if that is so, i believe that stats don´t are a good signal for a new trader.
It would be interesting to compare these stats with futures trading accounts, just to see how big fx is compared to that. But its probably not easily comparable.
Michael: only the FCM data from the CFTC, but you probably already know that.
http://www.cftc.gov/MarketReports/FinancialDataforFCMs/index.htm
although i am sure the account numbers will grow by alot over time(unfortunately)..the more forex becomes popular in the USA, the more crap and regulation will come along with it.we have seen this happen over the years
unless you are employed/invested in one of these brokers, i see this as a good thing
The reason for the slight decline of Oanda accounts is the transfer of many European accounts to their new London entity.
another reason Oanda accounts number are so high compare to others …. simply because they let you open an account as little as $1.
Spot forex is still a baby compare to other market…got long way to go.
spot forex may be a baby, but a different animal with a much different growth rate. The flexibility in leverage and lot sizes are unmatched of any other financial instrument….and will make it easier for anyone to trade, especially using a cost averaging strategy.
in reply to jon. contracts for difference also allow flexible leverage and lot sizes as well. In addition to forex you can trade indexes,stocks,commodities,energies,metals and some other good stuff depending on your broker. although its not avaliable in the us so i take it you havent heard of it