In this feature, we discuss the shifting nature of where today’s modern traders live and work…
Urban Myth #1 Traders Live in Major Financial Cities
Where do modern traders live and work? What’s the first city that comes in to your head when you think of the world of trading and the financial markets? You’ve gone for London or New York, right? OK, so depending on your style of trading, you might have plumped for Chicago, Tokyo, Sydney or Hong Kong.
Those of you going deliberately leftfield might even have thought of Zurich, Singapore, Frankfurt or Shanghai. But we bet not a single one of you thought of…
Bristol.
That’s right, outside of London, Bristol boasts the UK’s highest density of traders, with 262 traders for every square mile of the city. It’s a sign of the rising trend that sees traders increasingly based outside of the world’s traditional finance hubs.
According to the latest research from BrokerNotes, there are now over 13 million traders on the planet, but a whopping 95% of them live outside of a major financial centre, with almost half of all traders being based in Asia or Africa, as the global reach of the Internet continues to decentralise trading on a significant scale.
With 4.6m traders, Asia is now the continent where you’re most likely to bump into a fellow trader, though at the rate of growth in Europe – with a 107% increase from 2017 double that of Africa, the next-highest by growth – its 3.1m traders are likely to gain the top spot from Asia should that trend continue.
And as for which country in Europe tops the table? Take a bow the UK, with 730,000 online traders accounting for 1 in ever 100 Brits.
Are Traders An Ageing Breed?
Let’s now look at the age of the average trader…
Many people outside of trading – and indeed many inside the world of finance itself – are likely to picture the stereotypical trader as a white male in his 40s or 50s. Well, if Urban Myth #1 revealed that widely-held views on trader ethnicity are increasingly wrong (with Asia the most populated continent for traders), and Urban Myth #2 did the same for trader gender, then it’s time to blow out of the water the third element to that stereotype: the commonly-held assumption that traders are an ageing breed.
For a recent report by BrokerNotes found that today’s trading climate is dominated by those aged between 24 – 34. That’s right, the millennials aren’t just coming – they’re taking over, accounting for 58% of all online traders.
As with most of the fundamental changes in trading, the increase in traders in their twenties and thirties is most likely down to the effect of the Internet, not only making it easier for new millennials to trade online, but also being the audience most likely to be effectively targeted online.
The number of traders in this age range has increased year-on-year since 2014, while simultaneously the percentage of traders over 45 has continued to decline, accounting for less than 20% of all traders trading online today.
In addition, given the way cryptocurrency trading has permeated the mainstream in the last year, it’s also no surprise that Bitcoin and co. are also a contributing factor to the fresher and greener look to the modern trading demographic, with over 75% of all cryptocurrency traders aged between 18 – 34.
