FX Volumes Drift in Feb, Still at Historical Highs

The first group of FX platforms to report data indicate that while activity inevitably slowed in February from January’s record levels, it remained historically high in spite of the major Asian holiday.

FXSpotStream reports average daily volume across all products of $151.7 billion, down 1.7% from January, which is its current peak, but up 44.2% year-on-year. Spot volumes were largely responsible for the dip, albeit by only 2.3% to $105.6 billion, this is up 40.6% year-on-year. Equally, non-spot volumes at the service fell to $46.1 billion from $46.2 billion in January, this is up 53.5% year-on-year. In all three categories, volumes were the second highest yet reported by FXSpotStream.

360T was another that recorded its second busiest month, again behind January, with spot ADV of $39.9 billion. This is down 1.7% from January, but up 17.7% year-on-year. While the New York matching engine held steady at 53% of activity, London rose by one point to 34%, at the expense of Tokyo, which was probably impacted by the Asian holiday.

The average round trip time (RTT) on 360T was also steady at 7.65ms, while less volume was done in EUR/USD (25% from 28% in January), and one percentage point more in Cable (10%), CNH (7%) and INR (5%).

Cboe FX also held onto most of January’s gains, at $59.7 billion, spot and metals ADV was the third highest yet reported by the exchange group, this is down 5.7% from January’s peak, but up 24.4% year-on-year. Firm ADV was $24.1 billion, up 5.25% from January and up 50.6% year-on-year, while full amount ADV was $18 billion, up from $17.1 billion in January.

Over the last 30 days, so including part of January, the average response time on Cboe FX was steady at 7ms, while 95% of volume was traded anonymously and the non-firm fill rate was 91% – both unchanged from January.

Euronext FX saw a slightly larger dip in February, but still came in with its fifth-highest ADV yet at $31.1 billion. This is down 10.9% from January, which was the platform’s third-busiest yet, and up 5.8% year-on-year. The average RTT dropped slightly to New York at 11.6ms (from 11.8ms in January), and lengthened to London to 15.1ms (12.3ms), while 22.9% of firm volume was traded anonymously. Fill rates were mixed at Euronext FX, while the Full Amount stream was steady at 94.1%, Skew Safe streams filled at 90.3% (from 78.9% in January) and on the platform at 70.1% (71.2%). This is the lowest fill rate on the Euronext FX platform since it started reporting data in April 2023.

NDFs Drop

Meanwhile, the extended Asian holiday meant NDF activity dropped further than spot. 24 Exchange reports NDF ADV of $5.365 billion, down 19.5% from January, which was again a record for the venue, but up 27.5% year-on-year.

Cboe SEF, meanwhile, reports February NDF ADV of $3.7 billion, down 5.8% from January’s record, but up 39.2% year-on-year. The only venue to see a double drop was 360T’s NDF business. At $1.926 billion per day, the venue dropped below $2 billion per day for only the second time in the last six months. This is down 17.3% from January, and also down 5.6% year-on-year.