CME, SGX FX Volume Surges, EBS, Refinitiv Both Higher

As presaged by the first group of FX platforms to report volume data, March was also a good month for CME, SGX, EBS and LSEG’s Refinitiv, although as was also the case with the other platforms, there is a performance dispersion on a year-on-year basis.

CME’s FX futures and options averaged 1.212 million contracts per day in March, which The Full FX estimates to be $115.1 billion in notional volume. CME’s quarterly roll months are always busier than other months, therefore the 39.5% increase in average daily volume (ADV) from February is expected, however at +12.4% year-on-year has outperformed other venues, where only Cboe FX had a year-on-year rise (of just over 9%). In March, CME says it hit a new record volume of 3.15 million contracts on March 8.

The Merc adds that March’s quarterly roll saw open interest transference “surpassing historical averages” as market participants maintained their positions, the open interest transference was 8% greater than historical averages in the G5 pairs, with 78-88% of positions being rolled across major currencies.

CME’s FX Link had average daily notional volume of $2.6 billion, a recovery from recent months when it has lagged below $1.5 billion. This represents a more than doubling of February’s $1.22 billion and is also up 18.2% year-on-year.

At SGX, monthly volume was $255.5 billion in notional, taking a 23-day trading month this amounts to $11.1 billion per day in FX futures, a 53.4% rise year-on-year. For the first quarter, SGX says volume was close to $600 billion – in 2022 full year it transacted just over $2 trillion.

EBS, meanwhile, also saw a healthy bounce from February, but like most other platforms, was down year-on-year. ADV on the firm’s spot platforms was $68 billion, an 8.8% increase month-on-month, but down 9.1% from March 2022, when activity was boosted by the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Elsewhere, LSEG’s Refinitiv turned in another solid month with spot ADV across its platforms rising by 2% to $104 billion – again though, this was down year-on-year, by 7.1%. Refinitiv’s non-spot volume also followed the same pattern, rising 3.6% from February to $370 billion per day, the highest it has been since March 2022, when it was at $379 billion.