CMC Markets' Australian clients placed 1,193% more Brent crude trades in March 2026 than the month before, the broker's new trading-psychology report shows, as US and Israeli strikes on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent Brent past $115. The same report shows clients also rotated out of Bitcoin and into gold, and leaves out an Australian regulator's own findings on retail CFD losses in that market.
CMC Markets clients in Australia placed 1,193% more Brent crude trades in March 2026 than in the previous month, according to a report the broker published Tuesday. CMC presents the jump as evidence of how fast traders shift focus during volatile stretches.
March was the month US and Israeli strikes on Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz. Brent jumped as much as 13% to $82 at the 2 March open, a 14-month high. It later topped $115.
Clients Swapped Bitcoin for Gold
CMC's report, titled Inside the Mind of the Trader, tracks two other client shifts. Bitcoin trade counts fell 27% between December 2025 and January 2026, while gold trade counts rose 44% over the same weeks.
That rotation followed Bitcoin's October 2025 peak at $126,080 and its drop below $90,000 in November. CMC frames the move as a retreat from risk-on positioning after a period it calls bullish overconfidence.
Average monthly trades in Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares also fell 53% between January and April 2026 against the 2025 average. The stock had closed at A$158 in January 2025 against a Morningstar fair value estimate of A$95. All three figures are percentage changes with no base numbers attached, cover trade counts rather than volume, and apply only to CMC's Australian business.
The Report Cautions Against Markets CMC Keeps Expanding
Sakis Paratsoukidis, CMC's head of quantitative trading for Australia and New Zealand, said in the report: "The challenge for traders isn't a lack of information, it's how they process it."
Yet Bitcoin and gold, the two instruments in that rotation, are also two the Australian unit has been making easier to trade. CMC launched 24/7 crypto CFD trading for Australian clients, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and others without weekend or after-hours restrictions. It followed with weekend gold CFDs, giving clients access to the metal while the underlying spot and futures markets are shut. The report does not address the relationship between that extended access and the reactive trading it describes.
What the Report Leaves Out
CMC builds its case on DALBAR's investor gap studies, citing a shortfall of 8.48% against the S&P 500 in 2024. In the same paragraph, it notes the most recent reading is 0.72%, the lowest since 2012, without addressing what that does to the argument.
Australia's regulator has published harder numbers on the same market. ASIC found that 68% of retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year. It found they lost more than A$458 million including A$73 million in fees.
In a report released 20 January this year, ASIC reviewed 52 licensed CFD issuers and said it had secured close to A$40 million in refunds for more than 38,000 investors. It also found that more than half the sector had breached its product intervention order by offering margin discounts on opposing long and short positions.
ASIC located the problem in how firms designed and distributed the products; CMC's report locates it in how clients think. Neither the review nor the regulator's loss data appears in the report.
Source: Finance Magnates
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