LeapRate’s Retail FX Volume Index, sponsored by Leverate, rose 10.5% in May to $190 billion (as a measure of average daily trading volume) from April’s $172 billion. May 2012 was the best month volume-wise since October 2011’s $193 billion.
Following a very slow beginning to the year as volatility in both the currency and equity markets remained depressed, FX firms saw a significant pickup in volumes during May as volatility soared following the break of the Greece-Euro crisis at the beginning of the month. (It surely seems like more than just eight weeks since that story began dominating the financial press and global trading, but that’s it!). Specifically, May saw the EURUSD dive from above 1.32 to the 1.23 range by the beginning of June.
Gerald Segal, LeapRate Managing Director commented, “May saw Forex traders awaken from a deep six-month slumber, as excitement returned to the currency markets with higher volatility. Anecdotally, we continue to see most of the volume growth in the ’emerging markets’ segments of the market, with some of the busiest desks at FX firms being those that serve Asia-Pacific markets. We have also seen a surge in trading from Turkey, with the Turkish language customer service desk at some firms being among the fastest growing and busiest.”
The LeapRate Retail FX Volume Index, sponsored by Leverate, is a monthly measure of activity, stated in billions of dollars per day. It is calculated using proprietary formulas developed by LeapRate. The data input into the model are based on examining monthly and/or quarterly activity levels put out by various retail FX brokerage firms; similar activity levels announced by other FX aggregators such as Forex ECNs (e.g. ICAP, Thomson Reuters, FXall, Hotspot FX) and FX settlement firms (e.g. CLS Group); as well as anecdotal evidence we encounter as part of our general research activities in the Forex sector.
LeapRate is a leading research and information firm serving the global FX industry. Through its partnership with Dow Jones, LeapRate publishes the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report, a comprehensive review of the retail FX industry. Other LeapRate services include Best-of-the-Web FX Research, the Forex Yellow Pages, Forex Exec Search job listings, and our Approved List of regulated FX brokerage firms worldwide. For more information please see our website at www.leaprate.com.