Beginning our peek into October 2017 trading volumes at leading eFX trading platforms, data from institutional Forex ECN Hotspot FX – recently rebranded as CBOE FX Markets – indicates that October was a very good month, although not quite as good as September.
FX trading volumes at Hotspot FX averaged $32.0 billion daily in October, down 3% from September’s $33.1 billion – which was Hotspot’s best month since the Swiss Franc spike driven month of January 2015. October’s results were still well above the $27-29 billion ADV volumes Hotspot had been seeing throughout most of the the year to date.
By product, the most-traded pair at Hotspot FX was, not unexpectedly, EURUSD at 24.6% of total trading. USDJPY at 14.3%, GBPUSD at 10.8%, AUDUSD at 7.6%, and USDCAD at 7.2% of total were next in line.
October 2017 marks the eighth 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 an apparent plan to phase out the ‘Hotspot’ brand at some point.