CFTC Data Shows Retail FX Deposits Held at US Brokers Drop $23M in December

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has published its monthly report for December 2020, revealing a drop of $23M in retail FX deposits from the $582 million reported in November to $559 million.

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 TD Ameritrade Futures & Forex LLC.

IG US Reported a Slight 1 Percent Increase

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.

In December, only one of the five FX firms listed notched a slight increase in Retail Forex Obligations, namely IG US, which saw its total amount of retail forex deposits increase by $323,911 from $24,540,193 to $24,864,104, or nearly 1 percent month-over-month.

The deposit Interactive Brokers received halted its upward route in November, shrinking 2 percent from $71,442,127 to $69,745,093 despite the increase of its customers' assets.  

Further, Gain Capital's client funds continued its upward rally, up 5 percent from $290,398,163 to $306,033,349. Over a monthly timetable, TD Ameritrade increased 4 percent in its customers' assets to $408,143,700 compared with the reported 389,852,465 in November.

Looking at the market share of these five brokers, distribution remained almost the same in December relative to the prior month.