Gold Loses Ground in Retail CFD Trading as Currency Pairs Gain

Preliminary data shows metals CFDs still make up the majority of retail trading volume, though currency pairs are gaining ground.

The share of currency pairs in retail contracts-for-difference (CFD) trading rose to 16% in the third quarter of 2026, up from 10% in the previous quarter.

This shift occurred as FX trading volume rebounded by 8% from the second quarter, but the market remains about 2% below its first-quarter level.

Metals Still Lead by Wide Margin

Metals contracts, led by gold, made up about 69% of retail CFD trading volume in the third quarter, according to FM Intelligence data.

That figure is down from 78% in the second quarter, marking a nine-percentage-point decline for the category.

Despite the drop, metals still hold a more than four-times larger share than currency pairs, the second-biggest category.

This dominance has persisted for more than a year, with metals CFDs comprising over 60% of global broker volume in the first half of 2025.

The preliminary analysis suggests metals volume is about 4% lower than in the second quarter, while FX volume is roughly 70% higher.

Quarter of Yen Intervention and Rate Hikes

The currency gain came in a quarter marked by significant central bank activity.

Japan's Ministry of Finance bought yen on July 30, and the US Treasury joined the next day in the first coordinated intervention between the two governments since 2011.

In September, the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2023, and the Bank of Japan followed two days later.

These moves drove a 45.3% surge in Cboe FX's USD/JPY volume that month, the fastest gain among its five largest pairs.

The yen also became more volatile, with annualized volatility in USD/JPY rising to 9.0% in the third quarter from 5.4% in the second.

FX Starts From Low Base

Before this quarter, the trend ran the other way, with FX making up a shrinking share of total volume.

In the second quarter, FX made up 13.7% of monthly volume tracked by FM Intelligence, down from 26.8% a year earlier.

The preliminary sample for the same quarter puts the figure at just 10%.

The largest brokers trade even less of it, with EC Markets, the top name in FM Intelligence's broker volumes tracker, booking about $0.06 trillion of its $2.1 trillion in average monthly second-quarter volume in currency pairs.

Listed brokers' own reports do not all follow the preliminary mix, as seen with XTB, where commodity CFDs generated 70.8% of the gross result on financial instruments in the third quarter, up from 60.5% in the second.

Platform Shifts and Final Data

The full preliminary analysis also splits volume between mobile and desktop platforms, where the shift was larger than in the instrument mix.

FM Intelligence will publish its final quarterly report once the remaining brokers submit their data.