GAIN Capital sees retail volumes drop 6% MoM in May

GAIN Capital Holdings Inc (NYSE:GCAP), a major online trading services provider, has just reported its operating metrics for May 2015.

There are no surprises if we consider the broader picture that the Forex industry has shown so far for last month – most companies registered decline in trading activity in monthly terms and improvement (or slight decline) in annual terms. The same pattern seems to be displayed by GAIN’s results for May 2015 too – we are hardly surprised that the company reported a drop in retail Forex volumes compared with April 2015 and an improvement in these when compared with May 2014.

What is a piece of a surprise is that FXCM Inc (NYSE:FXCM) managed to post a rise in retail FX volumes in monthly terms in May 2015, whereas GAIN could not. One possible explanation is that April 2015 was an exceptionally strong month for GAIN’s retail business, as the acquisition of City Index added momentum to volumes growth. Therefore, April 2015 achievements are hard to beat.

Let’s look at the particular numbers.

Retail Metrics

• Retail OTC trading volume of $334.8 billion, a decrease of 6.2% from April 2015 and an 86.6% increase from May 2014.
• Average daily retail OTC trading volume of $15.9 billion, a decrease of 1.7% from April 2015 and a 95.5% increase from May 2014.
• Active retail OTC accounts of 147,600, an increase of 0.6% from April 2015 and 55.0% from May 2014.

Institutional Metrics

• Total institutional trading volume of $390.6 billion, a decrease of 10.5% from April 2015 and 14.7% from May 2014.
• Average daily institutional volume of $18.6 billion, a decrease of 6.2% from April 2015 and 10.6% from May 2014.
• GTX trading volume of $361.0 billion, a decrease of 11.7% from April 2015 and 14.2% from May 2014.
• Average daily GTX volume of $17.2 billion, a decrease of 7.5% from April 2015 and 10.1% from May 2014.

Exchange-based Futures Metrics

• Futures contracts of 677,590, a decrease of 0.7% from April 2015 and a 23.0% increase from May 2014.
• Average daily futures contracts of 33,880, an increase of 4.3% from April 2015 and 35.4% from May 2014.

To view the official press release by GAIN Capital, click here.