It looks like the FX industry’s strong trading start to 2018 which we saw in January has continued, and even strengthened, into the second month of the year.
Data from institutional Forex ECN Cboe FX Markets – formerly known as Hotspot FX – indicates that the company accommodated daily average trading volumes of $44.3 billion in February 2018, 4% above January’s $42.6 billion ADV, which was a record month for Cboe FX until February came along.
Before entering 2018, the company’s previous best-ever month was September 2014, at $38.2 billion. For the full year 2017 Cboe FX averaged $29.6 billion daily.
The strong volumes seem driven by healthy volatility in key currency pairs, as well as in the overall equity markets, which kept traders at their screens for much of February. During the month the benchmark EURUSD currency pair took two round trips from above 1.25 to below 1.22, ending the month at its lowest point of 1.2194.
EURUSD one month chart. Source: Google Finance.
The month also saw one of Cboe FX / Hotspot’s busiest ever days, on February 6, when trading volumes topped $67 billion.
By product, the most-traded pair at Cboe FX in February 2018 was, not unexpectedly, EURUSD at 24.1% of total trading. USDJPY at 16.3%, GBPUSD at 9.5%, AUDUSD at 8.6%, and USDCAD at 6.1% of total were next in line.
It has been exactly a year since Hotspot FX began operating under the corporate umbrella of its new owner, CBOE Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:CBOE). CBOE acquired control of Hotspot FX via its $3.2 billion takeover of Bats Global Markets Inc at the end of February 2017. CBOE initially rebranded its Forex ECN unit as: Hotspot – a CBOE company. And now, as noted above, it has been re-rebranded as Cboe FX Markets, with the ‘Hotspot’ brand being phased out.