Beginning our peek into November 2017 trading volumes at leading eFX trading platforms, data from institutional Forex ECN Cboe FX Markets – formerly known as Hotspot FX – indicates that November may turn out to be one of the best months of the year for FX trading.
FX trading volumes at Cboe FX averaged $33.9 billion daily in November, up 6% from October’s $32.0 billion and also slightly better than September’s previous year-best of $33.1 billion. November 2017 was also Cboe FX / Hotspot’s best month since the Swiss Franc spike driven month of January 2015, when volumes hit $34.3 billion ADV. Importantly, November’s results remained well above the $27-29 billion ADV volumes Cboe FX / Hotspot had been seeing throughout most of the the year to date, through to the end of the summer.
By product, the most-traded pair at Cboe FX in November was, not unexpectedly, EURUSD at 22.8% of total trading. USDJPY at 16.1%, GBPUSD at 10.9%, AUDUSD at 7.3%, and USDCAD at 6.4% of total were next in line.
November 2017 marks the ninth month that Hotspot FX was 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. 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 now phased out.