The COVID-19 pandemic is fueling a surge in currency trading by retail investors, who are discovering that working from home means they can moonlight in the market during the daytime.
Trading volume in margin accounts held by individuals more than doubled last month, just as volatility in the dollar-yen exchange rate spiked and Japan began to get more serious about social distancing.
The nation boasts the world’s most powerful force of retail forex traders, with almost 1 million margin accounts, and the recent change in their behavior is significant for global markets. Until now, most of them had been active at night, during European and U.S. trading hours, and their go-to trade was selling the yen to buy high-yielding currencies, often in emerging markets.