CFTC Releases Data: Four of the Five Brokers Saw Retail FX Deposits Drop in December

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has published its monthly report for December 2021, revealing a month-on-month decline of 2.15 percent in retail FX deposits compared with the $555.8 million reported in November 2021.

The report covers data for FCMs that are registered as Retail Foreign Exchange Dealers (RFEDs) and those included as broker-dealers that hold retail forex obligations in the United States, namely Gain Capital Group LLC, IG US LLC, Interactive Brokers LLC, Oanda Corporation and CHARLES SCHWAB Futures & Forex LLC.

Only IG US Saw Increase on Amount of Retail Forex Obligation

The chart listed below summarizes all the data published this year. For purposes of comparison, the month-on-month change of the recent months has been outlined to illustrate the disparities.

According to the agency, the FX funds held at the five registered brokerages hit over $543 million in December 2021. Four of the five brokers listed notched a fall in Retail Forex Obligations: Gain  Capital (-$1,774,748 or -0.85%), Interactive Brokers (-$744,568 or -1.44%), OANDA (-$8,733,914 or -4.45%) and CHARLES SCHWAB (-$904,493 or -1.43%).

Only IG US's retail FX deposits slightly grew by 0.54 percent from $35.7 million in November 2021 to $35.9 million in December 2021.

OANDA Lose in Market Share While IG US Gains

Looking at the market share of these five brokers, distribution changed slightly in December relative to the month prior.

Although IG US has the lowest market share, it saw an increased of 1 percent in its market share compared with the previous month.

For the fall in retail forex obligation, OANDA decreased in market share of 1 percent. Gain Capital is still the leading one of 38 percent market share. The remaining two broker's market share also kept unchanged. Interactive Brokers has the fourth largest market share of 9 percent while CHARLES SCHWAB has the third one of 11 percent.