CMC Client Data Shows Brent Trade Counts Rose 1,193% in the Month of the Iran Strikes

CMC Markets' Australian clients executed 1,193% more Brent crude trades in March 2026 than in the prior month, according to client data released Tuesday in the broker's Inside the Mind of the Trader report.

The surge came as 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, before later topping $115.

The report also shows Bitcoin trade counts fell 27% between December 2025 and January 2026, while gold trade counts rose 44% over the same period. CMC frames that rotation as a move away from risk-on positioning after Bitcoin peaked at $126,080 in October 2025 and fell below $90,000 in November. Separately, average monthly trades in Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares dropped 53% between January and April 2026 versus the 2025 average; the stock closed at A$158 in January 2025 against a Morningstar fair value estimate of A$95.

The figures are percentage moves based on trade counts, not volumes, and cover CMC's Australian business only. The report arrives as CMC expands access to the assets highlighted in its rotation example: its Australian unit has launched 24/7 crypto CFD trading for Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and other tokens, followed by weekend gold CFDs. Sakis Paratsoukidis, head of quantitative trading for CMC in Australia and New Zealand, said the challenge for traders is not a lack of information but how they process it. The report does not address any connection between extended market access and the reactive trading patterns it describes.

CMC's analysis leans on DALBAR's investor-gap studies, citing a 2024 shortfall of 8.48% against the S&P 500 while also noting the most recent gap of 0.72%, the lowest since 2012. It leaves out ASIC's finding that 68% of retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year, losing more than A$458 million including A$73 million in fees, and ASIC's January review of 52 licensed CFD issuers that secured close to A$40 million in refunds for more than 38,000 investors. The regulator found more than half the sector breached its product intervention order.

The report's academic references include Kahneman and Tversky's 1979 prospect theory and Barber and Odean's 2000 study on overtrading, with GameStop in 2021 used as the herd-mentality example. CMC's parent company most recently reported record client assets of £46.3 billion.