Japanese broker Monex continues to slash equities trading fees amid sliding trading volumes

Japanese online trading company Monex Inc, a part of Monex Group, Inc. (TYO:8698), has earlier today unveiled its plans to further reduce the trading fees for US equities trading. The brokerage intends to lower the minimum fee (excluding tax) for U.S. equities trading from US$0.1 (10 cents) to US$0.01 (1 cent) for trades that are executed from July 22, 2019.

Monex has already announced it would reduce the minimum fee for US equities trading from US$5 to US$0.1 from today, July 8, 2019. Starting from Monday, July 22, 2019, Monex will further lower the minimum fee for U.S. equities trading to US$0.01 (1 cent).

The fee reduction happens amid sliding trading volumes in the Group’s Japanese business. In the year to end-March 2019, Monex Inc (the Japanese subsidiary of Monex Group) saw revenue decrease due to lower equities trading volume. The segment registered ¥1.8 billion impairment loss on fixed assets related to Japanese Equities trading tool “TradeStation”, which resulted in ¥1.7 billion of net loss due to reevaluation of book value based on the actual performance, while the service continues to be provided. Monex has said that the impairment and the revision of future amortization for other fixed assets will result in a decrease in depreciation and amortization cost in FYE Mar. 2020 by ¥1.6 billion per year.

In today’s announcement, however, the brokerage did not mention anything about the lower revenue from falling trading volumes in its Japanese business. Instead, Monex mentioned its strategy “For Creative Minds,” a brand statement announced in November 2018. According to this strategy, Monex, Inc. is committed to proposing innovative, “future finance,” with a creative mindset, leveraging new ideas and perspectives that go beyond the traditional framework.