FX Volumes Drift in April: Retain Strong Trend

The first group of FX platforms to report data for April indicate that average daily volumes (ADV) drifted lower from March, but remain historically strong. The data was dampened by two days in the month where activity was sharply lower thanks to the Easter holiday, taking those two days out where possible indicates venues largely retained gains witnessed in March.

Euronext FX reports spot FX ADV of $24.6 billion, a 5.7% drop from March, but up an impressive 37.4% year-on-year – thanks largely to a very subdued April 2021. Taking out the two major holidays, however, the data looks even stronger, with ADV across 19 business days averaging $26.5% – a 1.5% increase from March – which was the platform’s second busiest since it started reporting data in 2013.

Deutsche Boerse’s 360T also had a good month, reporting spot ADV of $25.8 billion – a 9.5% drop from March, but up 22.8% from April 2021. Again though, taking out the two holidays where only part of the world was open, the data changes, with ADV across the 19 days being $27.7 billion, only a 2.8% decline month-on-month and up 31.9% year-on-year. 360T also had ADV of $924 million in NDFs in April ($996 million taking out the holidays) this represents a 17.9% drop (-11.5% without the holidays) from March but up 49.8% year-on-year (+61.4%).

FXSpotStream drifted back a little in April, reporting ADV across all FX products of $61.25 billion, down 12.6% from March but up 25.8% year-on-year. The firm does not break down daily trading volumes, therefore the data includes the two quiet holidays in mid-month.

CboeFX lost a little of its recent momentum in April, reporting ADV of $37 billion, down 16.7% from March, but up 20.1% year-on-year. Again, however, taking out the major holidays, CboeFX ADV rises to $39.9 billion, down 10.1% from March (but second only to that month and February 2022 in terms of the highest since March 2020) and up 29.5% year-on-year.

CboeFX NDF ADV on its SEF was $625 million ($666 million taking out the holidays), a 34.7% drop from March (-30.4%) but up almost three-times what it was in April 2021.

In terms of other metrics, CboeFX reports firm liquidity ADV of $11.2 billion (no daily breakdown is available to adjust for the holidays), this represents a 16.8% drop from March (percentage of overall volume remained broadly unchanged) and a 24.4% increase year-on-year. The non-firm fill rate on CboeFX recovered somewhat after dipping to its lowest since late 2020 in March, in April it was 87.20% – again reflecting the busier nature of markets, this is the second lowest, after the previous month, since late 2020.