Positive Start to 2021 for Platforms

Early FX volatility in 2021 helps platforms to a positive start for the year with all reporting venues indicating a year-on-year rise except CME Group’s futures and options product suite, which was flat on the year.

It was a similar picture on a month-on-month basis, unsurprising given December is normally fairly quiet, however Integral was an outlier showing a drop from what its second highest month ever in December and CME saw an expected drop from December’s roll month.

Most heartening for platforms is that all but CME and, just, Euronext FX, January was the busiest month since the vol shock of March 2020. CME’s EBS reported average daily volume (ADV) of $72.8 billion, up 2.2% year-on-year and a strong 24% bounceback from December. The Merc’s futures and options notional ADV was $73.6 billion unchanged on the year but down 22% from December.

The Refinitiv era was closed out with a strong month, ADV was $93 billion across the firm, which is now part of LSE Group, a 12% year-on-year rise and up 10.7% from December. Particularly heartening for the firm will be its performance on non-spot products, turnover was $397 billion in January, the second highest since the platform, in its various guises, started reporting data. This represents a 13.8% increase year-on-year and up 12.8% from December.

Elsewhere, FXSpotstream reports ADV of $49 billion, also the second highest in the platforms history, a 32.4% year-on-year increase and up 14.5% month-on-month, while Integral’s ADV was $45.8 billion, down 5.6% from December but up 29% year-on-year. Both FXSpotStream and Integral report volume data in all FX products, not just spot.

CboeFX reports ADV of $35 billion in January, up 4.2% from the previous January and up 7% from December. Firm liquidity on CboeFX was $10 billion per day, down from $11 billion the previous January and up from just under $9.5 billion in December. The average non-firm fill rate on CboeFX was 87.47%, slightly down on the previous year’s 87.79% but the highest monthly fill rate since that month.

ADV at Deutsche Boerse’s 360T was $24.8 billion, a 13.8% year-on-year rise and up 9.7% month-on-month – the exchange group is yet to report its total FX volumes for the month. Elsewhere, Euronext FX reports ADV of $21.3 billion, up 23.8% year-on-year and up 7% from December and 24 Exchange says it handled a new record of $300 million per day in NDFs. The platform also launched spot trading in January which is expected to boost volumes further.