The data shows that in July, the assets of retail foreign exchange customers in the United States increased by 0.94% compared with June, reaching $565,438+00516952, exceeding $500 million for the third consecutive month, but not as good as $578 million in the same period last year. In April this year, the assets of American retail foreign exchange customers fell below $500 million, the first time in seven years.
In the triennial survey of 20 13, the Bank for International Settlements regarded retail foreign exchange transactions as a separate category for the first time. According to the 20 16 triennial survey released in September this year, the average daily trading volume of global spot foreign exchange has been stable at 2 trillion to 2. 1 trillion USD/day. Among them, the average daily trading volume of retail foreign exchange exceeds 200 billion US dollars. The three-year survey shows that the average daily trading volume of retail foreign exchange has increased from185 billion dollars in 20 16 years to 238 billion dollars in 20 16 years. Previously, the agency estimated that the average daily trading volume of retail foreign exchange reached the peak of 41500 million USD in 20 12 years.
Comparing foreign exchange retail transactions, foreign exchange futures and foreign exchange futures options, we find that foreign exchange futures and foreign exchange futures options have advantages that foreign exchange retail exchanges do not have. Looking back on the development history of the foreign exchange market, foreign exchange futures and foreign exchange retail business have grown together. The forward foreign exchange market started trading on May 1972 with 16. After the emergence of foreign exchange electronic platforms in the 1990s, this innovation led to a sharp increase in retail foreign exchange trading volume.
The foreign exchange retail market, also known as the customer market, refers to the foreign exchange trading behaviors and places between banks and individuals and corporate customers. Banks play an intermediary role in foreign exchange transactions with customers. On the one hand, they buy foreign exchange from customers, on the other hand, they sell foreign exchange to customers to earn the difference between foreign exchange buying and selling. It is also a foreign exchange service business provided by banks to customers, and it is the basis for the existence of the foreign exchange market. It is worth noting that the foreign exchange retail business also uses leveraged trading, which is equivalent to trading forward contracts through margin.
Although the foreign exchange retail business has been declining in recent years, it also has its unique attraction. The trend of retail foreign exchange market mainly depends on fluctuations. Despite many restrictions and strict supervision, the retail foreign exchange market is still active, and the daily trading volume in the world currently exceeds 282 billion US dollars.
In institutional foreign exchange transactions, the holding period of positions may be relatively long, and the spread between spot and futures and the spread between futures contracts with different maturities may be large. However, the time for retail foreign exchange traders to hold positions is often short, ranging from a few days to a few minutes. They buy and sell futures contracts with the strongest liquidity, so the price difference between contracts for differences and futures is basically irrelevant to retail investors in trading strategy.
From the perspective of transaction cost, it may be difficult to directly compare foreign exchange retail transactions with foreign exchange futures and foreign exchange futures options for two reasons: first, the costs of foreign exchange futures products under Shangzhi are relatively transparent, while foreign exchange retail business is an OTC product, and its related costs and expenses are not transparent; Second, because there are many foreign exchange retail brokers, there may be risks and expenses that are not made public, and there is no unified charging standard.
Specifically, there are three modes of foreign exchange retail business: agency mode, entrustment mode and market maker mode, in which the agency mode mainly compresses the bid-ask spread to collect commission, the entrustment mode does not collect commission but provides customers with a large spread to obtain income, and the market maker mode does not collect commission or earn spread, but provides customers with foreign exchange contracts as their counterparties, does not lock in risk exposure, and obtains spread income and liquidity income through transactions.
The table shows the transaction costs under various modes.
However, from the perspective of risk management, foreign exchange futures and foreign exchange futures options still have comparative advantages. The important advantage of forex futures trading is that it can reduce risks through centralized clearing by clearing houses, while retail foreign exchange brokers face bilateral credit risks when providing foreign exchange difference contracts.