One of the big winners from the post-Brexit panic of trading were institutional Forex ECN platforms, which saw a huge ramp-up in trading volumes on Friday in the aftermath of the VoteLeave victory in the UK Brexit referendum.
Thankfully these ECNs – whose income is directly linked to volumes – seemed to operate in a fairly orderly manner on Thursday, despite an initial 11% drop in the value of the GBP in the moments after a Leave victory was all but confirmed, and the volatility which ensued all day.
Not all Forex ECNs report their volumes on a daily basis. However those which do reported either record or near-record FX trading volumes for Friday June 24. These include:
FastMatch – jointly owned by retail forex broker FXCM Inc (NYSE:FXCM) and commercial banks Credit Suisse and BNY Mellon, FastMatch saw record volumes of $39.8 billion on Friday. FastMatch normally averages about $11 billion per day, and its best-ever day before this past Friday was $24.3 billion on (not surprisingly) January 15, 2015, the day of the infamous Swiss Franc spike. That makes Friday FastMatch’s busiest day by a wide 64% margin, and nearly quadruple its normal daily volume.
Hotspot FX – owned by the ever-expanding Bats Global Markets Inc (BATS:BATS), volumes at Hotspot FX hit $59.5 billion on Friday, marking Hotspot’s second-busiest ever day for volumes. Best-ever day at Hotspot? You guessed it, ‘Black Thursday’ January 15, 2015, at $61.7 billion. Volumes at Hotspot FX normally average about $25 billion.
We expect other eFX venues to give some sort of indication of how activity was on Friday, either in the coming days or with their regular monthly volume reports.