Government shutdown leads to slow institutional trading month.
Forex ECN EBS and derivatives marketplace CME Group each released October volume figures today, and they were scary low (from their perspective, of course). CME Group FX futures volumes decreased by 22% from September, and 9% from last year October, averaging 644,000 contracts per day — CME’s lowest result for FX volumes since 2009.
And EBS fared no better. Spot foreign exchange trading volumes decreased 17% year on year from $92.6 bln to $77 bln USD. The month on month numbers were milder, with the decline from September trading being 5%.
It remains to be seen, whether or not this is entirely caused by the government shutdown induced uncertainty. We will also be keen in finding out whether institutional volumes reduction translated to retail volumes reported by the brokerages. We will keep a close eye on the numbers in the coming days and will inform you swiftly on further volume metrics.
Following are links to the full press releases by the CME Group & ICAP.
For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.