We still have half a month to go. But currency trading activity in the first half of September points to this month being the best one for volumes since 2009.
A good example is Forex ECN Hotspot FX, a unit of KCG Group. Hotspot’s best month for trading since the beginning of the decade was June 2013, at $36.9 billion average daily volumes (ADV). In the first half of 2014 trading averaged $29.1 billion ADV.
But in the first half of September (through to September 14), Hotspot saw volumes average nearly $40 billion ($39.8 billion, to be precise) – more than 8% above Hotspot’s best-ever month and 40% above average daily volumes seen so far in 2014.
September also saw Hotspot’s best ever individual day of trading, with more than $56 billion of trades crossing on September 4 – the day of the ECB’s surprise rate cut and Mario Draghi’s subsequent address on the state of Europe’s economy and finances.
We believe that volumes at many of the leading Retail Forex brokers were similarly up so far in September, although perhaps not as much as seen at Hotspot.