GAIN Capital FX Volumes Return to Pre-COVID Levels

GAIN Capital Holdings Inc has had its Retail FX volumes drop further in May. With this, the FX volumes have now dropped to volumes it had seen before the COVID-19 pandemic. This runs in tandem, for the most part, with the rest of the retail FX industry, including that of institutional platforms.

A Slow Recovery From Massive Volumes

GAIN Capital’s retail FX volumes for May of 2020 have been valued at $179 billion. This stands as 5% less than April’s numbers, when viewed month-over-month. April 2020 saw a retail volume of $188 billion, with March 2020 having seen more than twice the numbers of May, standing at $388 billion. When one considers this year-over-year, however, it shows a practically unchanged volume. May 2019 recorded a retail trading volume standing at $180 billion, just slightly above May 2020’s numbers.

When one looks at the Average Daily Volumes (ADVs), May 2020 dropped 8.6% from April 2020’s numbers. A similar pattern from the total volumes could be seen on the ADV of March 2020, as well, which means more than twice the ADV of April 2020 at $17.7 billion. However, May 2020’s ADV stood 9% higher than May 2019’s numbers, when reviewed year over year.

March Proving Extremely Fruitful

The majority of advance within GAIN’s turnover this year can be very easily attributed to the massive amounts of volumes it saw in March this year, which attributes for almost half of the total turnover for Q1 in its entirety. March had a massive 95% increase in these metrics month-over-month when one views the $199 billion that occurred in February, and stands as more than double the daily average that was initially reported in March of 2019.

There was some growth, month-over-month, within the three-month trailing active accounts within the retail OTC segment for May, however. By the end of May 2020, 98,774 accounts were recorded, 3% higher when compared to April 2020’s 93,773. When viewed year-over-year, however, it shows a 20% gain as opposed to May 2019’s numbers.

A Slow Recovery

Finally, the futures trading had dropped down more, standing now at 543,683 contracts. This stands as a loss of 31% as opposed to 2019’s numbers, but is also lower by 4% when compared month-over-month with April 2020.

As the chaotic levels of volatility that the COVID-19 pandemic caused slowly start to die down, major institutional ECNs, as well as retail platforms, have begun to recover from the chaos throughout the past two months. With any luck, things can return to normal as quickly as possible.