TradeStation’s Fee-generating trades rise in May
Monex Group’s US subsidiary, TradeStation has reported mixed trading volumes for May 2022 even as political events globally maintained investors’ interest in financial markets.
According to the investor update published by the company, the number of daily average revenue trades (DARTs), a standard industry metric, were 241,336 last month. This figure was 13.2 percent higher from a year earlier, a sign that trades continue to meaningfully accelerate on the back of volatility triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Additionally, trading activity at TradeStation Group was higher on a month-over-month basis when compared to 226,760 transactions booked in April 2022.
TradeStation’s customer accounts metrics were downbeat in May, having lost more than 50k accounts, lower 22 percent than the prior month. This had decreased its active accounts base down to 186,149, down percent from 240,417 as of April 30.
However, this gloomy picture can be attributed to approximately 57,000 cryptocurrency accounts that were opened through a promotion that began in December and ended in April. During this period, TradeStation made the initial account funding for the customer ($10.00 value in bitcoin) but had no other customer account activity as of May 31, 2022.
The company’s total client assets were around $10.8 billion (unchanged MoM and YoY), while their cash balances grew slightly to $2.9 billion.
TradeStation Securities, the US broker-dealer arm of Japanese financial services giant Monex Group, said in November it will go public through a merger with a blank-check firm in a deal that values the combined entity at $1.43 billion.
TradeStation launches in Puerto Rico
TradeStation Crypto, the digital asset-focused subsidiary of TradeStation Group, announced the soft rollout of its services in Puerto Rico back in March.
Celebrating the new launch, TradeStation awarded new customers a $10 bonus in cryptocurrency, but they can qualify for higher bounties if they deposit at least $5,000. In addition, customers can own cryptocurrency as an alternative investment in a TradeStation Individual Retirement Account (IRA).
Dozens of crypto entrepreneurs and firms have been heading en masse to Puerto Rico as the US territory adopts crypto-friendly policies, including huge tax breaks. In particular, US citizens can keep ahold of their American passports while at the same time avoid paying any taxes on capital gains.
Tailor-made for crypto traders, TradeStation uses global integrations to create a wide pool of liquidity sources that enable better price discovery and transparency. The company further promotes its crypto desk as helping traders avoid lengthy transactions on traditional exchanges, as well as avoid fees charged by other platforms for instant large volume trades.
The crypto-focused offshoot leverages the brokerage industry expertise of its parent, Japanese financial services giant Monex Group, to address what it perceives to be key concerns and certain weaknesses in the current cryptocurrency ecosystem.
