FX Trading Share Falls Sharply Across Retail CFD Market

Foreign exchange is taking a smaller role in retail CFD trading as activity continues to shift toward other asset classes.

Industry data for the second quarter shows currency pairs accounting for 13.7% of reported trading volume, compared with 26.8% a year earlier.

Average monthly FX volume fell from about $6.4 trillion to $4.2 trillion over the same period.

By contrast, trading across index, commodity, equity and crypto CFDs increased from $17.4 trillion to $26.3 trillion.

The overall CFD market therefore expanded despite the decline in currency trading.

فہرست

01

FX Loses Share as Other Markets Attract More Volume

02

Largest Brokers Are Even Less Dependent on FX

03

Q2 Trading Activity Weakened Across Most Brokers

04

About WikiFX

FX Loses Share as Other Markets Attract More Volume

The change is not simply a result of weaker total activity.

Forex volume declined while other CFD categories grew, leaving currencies with a much smaller share of the market than a year earlier.

The trend remains visible even after excluding brokers whose estimated asset mix changed sharply because of adjustments to the underlying data model.

Among 32 brokers with more consistent historical figures, the FX share fell from 20.5% to 11.7%, with 30 recording a lower proportion of currency trading.

That suggests the shift extends beyond a small number of large firms.

Largest Brokers Are Even Less Dependent on FX

Trading volume has also become more concentrated among the largest firms.

The five biggest brokers in the dataset accounted for 41.8% of volume attributed to named firms, up from levels below 40% in previous years.

Yet currencies represented only about 4% of their combined trading volume, compared with 10.9% a year earlier.

The numbers show that scale in the retail CFD market is increasingly being built around products other than traditional currency pairs.

Metals, stock indices, equities and digital-asset CFDs have taken a larger role in client trading activity.

Q2 Trading Activity Weakened Across Most Brokers

The shift away from FX occurred during a generally weaker quarter for broker trading volumes.

Overall retail CFD volume declined 9.3% from the previous quarter, while the median broker recorded a fall of 12.6%.

Among 51 brokers present in both periods, 47 reported lower monthly trading volume.

Separate account-level data also showed trading activity per active account declining across most of the same broker group.

This means the lower FX share is appearing alongside softer client activity overall rather than during a broad trading boom.

About WikiFX

WikiFX is a global forex broker information and verification platform. It provides broker profiles, regulatory records, licence information, trading-platform data, risk alerts and industry updates covering forex and CFD markets.