The ESMA finding
Between 74% and 89% of retail CFD and trading accounts lose money, according to ESMA data published in 2018. This figure has remained consistent across subsequent analyses.
The question worth asking is not whether this is true — it clearly is — but why. Markets are not inherently zero-sum over the long run. So what accounts for the gap?
The behavioural gap
DALBAR's annual Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behaviour measures the difference between what markets return and what investors actually earn. The gap is persistent, large, and attributable almost entirely to behaviour: buying after rallies, selling during drawdowns, and abandoning strategies during periods of underperformance.
In 2025, DALBAR recorded an 8.48% behavioural gap — an outlier year, but directionally consistent with decades of data showing gaps of 2–5% annually.
What systematic investing changes
Rules-based automation removes the decision in the moment. You define the strategy when you are thinking clearly — what to buy, when, how much, and under what conditions to stop. Automation then executes that plan regardless of what the market is doing or how you feel about it.
This is not about removing judgment. It is about separating the judgment phase from the execution phase so that one cannot contaminate the other.
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