SGX Hits New FX Peak as More Platforms Report August Data
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: September 14, 2024
The upheaval in FX markets at the start of August helped propel Singapore Exchange (SGX) to a new volume high for its FX product suite, driven largely by a surge in activity in CNH contracts.
The exchange reports total volume across its FX contracts of 5.574 million, up 15.8% from July, and up 32.4% year-on-year. Within this, USD/CNH volume was 3.435 million contracts, up 16.5% from July and up 25% year-on-year, as the spillover from the carry trade blow up was felt across Asia, this was reinforced by the exchange’s second busiest FX contract, INR was also up, at 1.712 million in August, up 8.9% from July, and up 45% year-on-year.
Elsewhere, USD/KRW volume rose by 49.9% to 367,144 contracts – this is also up 64% year-on-year – and represents a new high for the contract.
August was also a good month for LSEG FX in spot, although the platform’s lack of penetration into the yen market – the source of most of the mayhem at the start of the month – meant it failed to keep pace with its peers.
Average daily volume for spot FX across LSEG’s FX platforms was $107 billion, up 8% from July and up 21.6% year-on-year. For comparison, EBS, the primary market for JPY, saw activity rise by 16.2% and 37.4% respectively, and CME saw similar growth. As was the case with other venues, LSEG’s spot ADV was the highest since September 2022.
Meanwhile, non-spot volumes at LSEG FX – again across multiple venues – actually drifted lower in August, to $371 billion. This represents a 3.1% decline on a month-on-month basis, but is up 10.4% year-on-year.
Deutsche Börse has also reported total 360T volumes for August, after the platform saw a slight increase in spot and decrease in NDF volumes, the exchange group says total FX volume across all products was EUR 145.7 billion. This is fractionally up from July’s EUR 144.6 billion, but is up 24.4% year-on-year.
Using a fixed exchange rate to convert to dollars, non-spot volumes rose by $900 million, suggesting swap activity was slightly higher. Non-spot volume is up 25.3%, again on a fixed exchange rate basis, year-on-year.
