Capital.com, the global online trading platform, has published its H1 2026 Pulse Report, drawing on analysis of more than 80 million closed trades between January and June 2026.
The report examines how traders across seven key markets (Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates) responded to two structurally different periods within the same half-year.
Total trading volume climbed 27.7% compared to the previous half to reach $2.45 trillion, while closed trades jumped 47.8% from 54.7 million in H2 2025 to 80.9 million in H1 2026.
Average monthly active traders grew 9.6% to about 96,115, driven by higher activity per existing trader rather than a larger participant base.
Q1 macro uncertainty drove traders into familiar safe-haven instruments
Macro uncertainty defined the opening quarter. Gold hit successive price highs in January, fuelled by central bank purchases, a weaker dollar, and geopolitical tension pushing investors toward safe-haven assets.
February saw regulatory uncertainty around cryptocurrency derivatives pull traders back from engagement rather than forward into it. March delivered an oil supply shock that pushed trading volume up by around 700%, the sharpest single-month surge recorded across the entire H1 period. That momentum quickly reversed: US Crude Oil Spot volume fell 10% in April, a further 5% in May, and 37% in June as the risk premium faded.
Throughout these events, the report identifies a recurring pattern of traders concentrating into liquid, familiar instruments, with positioning driven by news flow rather than underlying directional conviction.
US Tech 100 becomes second most traded market in Q2 as AI earnings drive rotation
The picture shifted sharply in the second quarter. Once the macro forces that had dominated Q1 began to ease, the Nasdaq 100 emerged as the standout instrument.
Even as gold retained its top position as the most traded instrument by overall volume, the US Tech 100, powered by AI-driven earnings results and the resolution of trade tariff uncertainty, climbed to become the second most traded market on the platform in Q2, generating $292.4 billion in volume, or 25.5% of total platform activity, with monthly volumes rising 48% in May and a further 37% in June.
Kyle Rodda, Senior Market Analyst at Capital.com, said:
“Remarkably strong earnings growth from artificial intelligence companies sparked a very strong rebound on Wall Street during the first half, a move that was compounded by an easing of geopolitical risks as the ill-fated memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran temporarily lowered crude prices. The rapid moves in US indices, especially those providing exposure to tech companies, generated significant trading activity in those instruments.The themes in the second half have shifted slightly, although geopolitical risks and company earnings continue to be market movers. US Federal Reserve policy and the path forward for interest rates has become a bigger driver, especially as US inflation proves to be sticky but the labour market continues to deteriorate. ”
Rupert Osborne, CEO UK, Capital.com, added:
“What the first half of 2026 showed clearly is that the conditions traders face shape their decisions in predictable ways. When markets are uncertain, traders tend to crowd into familiar safe-haven assets like gold and react to the news. When the signals are clearer, as they were in Q2, they spread their trading across a wider range of instruments. Understanding which environment you’re operating in matters for the quality of the decisions you make.”
Gold dominated in the UAE while Germany showed the broadest instrument mix in Europe
The report found notable differences across individual markets. The UAE, the largest contributor to client trading volumes among the seven markets surveyed, saw gold account for 54% of total trading activity, a pattern the report attributes to longstanding regional preference for the asset.
Germany was the most active European market by trade count, recording 5.6 million trades, with gold leading at 42% of total volume ($52.8 billion), followed by the US Tech 100 at 22% ($27.2 billion) and the Germany 40 at 11% ($14.2 billion).
Australia stood apart as the only market where two Asia-Pacific indices, the ASX 200 and Nikkei 225, featured in the top five instruments by volume, a profile the report links to the timing of major H1 events falling outside Australian trading hours.
“One of the more consistent findings across European markets in H1 2026 is that traders maintained engagement with regional instruments, even as global macro themes dominated overall activity. That combination of local familiarity and global macro engagement is a characteristic of how European retail traders approach market participation, and it remained consistent across both quarters of the half-year,” said Christoforos Soutzis, CEO Europe at Capital.com.
Featured image via Shutterstock.
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