FX Volumes Hold Firm in January

While there was little improvement over what was a very strong December, historically, the first group of FX platforms to report results indicate that year-on-year activity was notably higher, with 24 Exchange hitting yet another peak in its NDF business.

Euronext FX reports the third highest average daily volume (ADV) in its history at $24.9 billion, slightly higher, by 1.6%, from December and up an impressive 27% year-on-year. Only March 2020 and March 2022 – both very busy months generally – saw higher activity. Euronext FX also saw a bounce in the percentage of anonymous volume that was firm at 27.7% – its highest ratio since August.

The average round trip time (RTT) to the firm’s two engines was 8.8ms to New York, the lowest since September, and 10.5ms to London, the lowest since August. The fill rate on its Skew Safe streams was 82.4% (from 82.7% in December); on Full Amount it was 92.8% (94%); and on the platform it was 82.7% (83.9%).

360T in contrast, saw a small dip from December, with ADV in January down 1% to $28.8 billion. The average RTT for the platform was just over 6.5ms and 54% of volume was executed view the New York matching engine (down from 55% in December), while London had 32% of the action (31%) and Tokyo was unchanged at 14%. The ratio of currency pairs traded was largely steady, EUR/USD unsurprisingly being the most active at 26%, followed by USD/JPY at 15% and Cable and USD/CNH at 8% each.

Cboe FX saw SDV drop 2% from December to $43.6 billion, this still represents a 6.3% increase from January 2023, with $16 billion per day being traded on a firm basis – unchanged from December. The percentage of all volume that was firm rose to 36.7% – the highest it has been since Cboe FX started publishing the data.

The average response time remained steady at 10ms, while 91% of all flow was anonymous, slightly higher than the average over the past six months of around 90%. The non-firm fill rate at Cboe FX was unchanged at 89%.

24X Hits New Peak as NDFs Grow

Meanwhile, 24 Exchange continues to set new peaks in its NDF volumes, reporting ADV of $2.96 billion in January. During the month, the platform reports it traded over $4 billion on two consecutive days – also a new high for the venue, the previous high being $3.1 billion. In response to the two record days, 24 Exchange CEO and founder Dmitri Galinov, says, “The continuing growth in FX NDF trading volume exemplifies the value our clients achieve by using our innovative and efficient platform. In the months ahead, we look forward to helping greater numbers of clients access increased liquidity at the lowest cost on the 24 Exchange platform.”

This represents a 40.6% increase on December and is up almost threefold since January 2023.

Elsewhere in NDFs, both Cboe FX and 360T also reported strong rises in activity. 360T reports NDF ADV of $1.39 billion, up 8.5% from December and up 19.1% year-on-year, while Cboe FX says its SEF handled $1.19 billion, up 10/1% from December and a 21.6% rise from January 2023.