Why most retail CFD accounts lose money: the brokers' own figures

Many brokers must publish the share of their retail CFD accounts that lose money: what the figure means, where it comes from and what the brokers we review publish.

Retail CFD accounts that lose money, as published by each broker

Each broker’s own figure from its risk warning, for the entity named in our review and checked on the date shown there. Figures from different entities and periods are not directly comparable.

Where the percentage comes from

In the European Union, the restrictions on CFDs that ESMA agreed in 2018 include a “standardised risk warning, including the percentage of losses on a CFD provider’s retail investor accounts”. That is why EU-regulated brokers show a sentence such as “X% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider”. Other regulators require similar warnings, and some brokers publish the figure for entities outside the EU too.

The chart above shows the figure each broker we review publishes in its own risk warning, for the entity named in our review, with the date we checked it.

How to read the figure

It covers the broker’s retail accounts over a recent period, not traders in general.
It is the broker’s own figure for one entity; entities in other countries can publish different numbers.
A lower figure does not mean a better broker: the client base, products and period differ.

Why most accounts lose

The figures are high across the industry for reasons that do not depend on one broker:

Leverage magnifies normal price moves, and a few large losses can erase many small gains.
Costs — spreads, commissions and swaps — are paid on every trade, win or lose.
Risk per trade that is too large turns an ordinary losing streak into a deep drawdown; the drawdown recovery calculator shows how much harder it is to win back.

What you can control

Size every trade from a fixed risk, keep leverage well below the maximum, know your costs per lot and stop for the day after a set loss. The position size and margin calculators help with the first two.