I read an interesting article today (Aug. 19, 2015) in the FAZ about how many CFD traders there were in Germany.
Here is a brief summary of the numbers mentioned:
There are 47,000 active traders in Germany. Eighty-three percent think about investments (trading) on a daily basis. That compares to around 10 percent for the overall population.
On average, CFD traders trade 3.2 hours a day, four days a week.
Eight percent, or around 3,600 people, make their living from CFD trading.
The CFD traders surveyed said that while they followed economic and financial news, 87 percent of their trading decisions are based on chart analysis.
Many CFD traders have given up
Only 27,000 Germans are active customers of CFD brokers, and 18,000 traders gave up trading during the last year.
CFD brokers like Capital.com, XM, EuropeFX or FXCM were able to reactivate 10,000 old accounts and acquire 10,000 new customers.
The target group of investment-savvy Germans is estimated at one million people. It consists of investors who actively trade stocks, ETFs and structured products (Zertifikate).
The narrower target group for CFDs and highly speculative leveraged securities in the structured products market probably consists of 90,000 investors.
The most important instrument is CFDs on the DAX, which account for 70 percent of trading volume. This is followed by CFDs on the Dow Jones (17 percent) and on EUR/USD (7 percent). Gold and crude oil play only a minor role.
In Germany, only 5 percent of the broadly defined group of investment-savvy Germans trade CFDs. This compares with 10 percent for the United Kingdom, the largest CFD market and the pioneer in this field.
One final comment: the number of professional traders mentioned in the article – 8 percent of all traders – is realistic, but I suspect it is in fact much smaller.
The survey didn’t cover traders who focus exclusively on listed instruments such as stocks and futures and don’t trade CFDs.
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