Australia's 1:30 CFD cap came with 91% lower quarterly client losses and 29% fewer active accounts
ASIC capped leverage on Australian retail CFDs at 1:30 on 29 March 2021. Aggregate net client losses fell from $372 million a quarter to $33 million in the first six months, down 91%. Active retail accounts went from 504,905 to 357,841, down 29%.
I took the figures from three ASIC documents: CS 64, MIU 179 and 26-004MR. Both series are quarterly, before and after the order.
By FY2023-24, a later window, the average number of retail clients trading per quarter was about 76% lower than in the 12 months before the order. Of those still trading, 68% made a net loss on more than $458 million, including $73 million in fees.
When a broker or an educator quotes a loss-reduction percentage, ask for the client count in the same sentence, then divide. $33 million across 357,841 accounts is about $92 per account per quarter, against about $737 before the order, roughly eight times lower.
That division is my arithmetic on two ASIC series published on different bases, so read all three figures as an illustration. A cap on leverage changes how fast a position can take an account down. It does not change whether the trade loses.
