LeapRate Exclusive… In discussions with a variety of retail forex brokers as well as institutional FX platforms, we have been getting a very uniform response to the question ‘how has October gone for you so far’.
With September’s near-record FX volumes still fresh in the rear view mirror for most in the industry, October started off quite well – we even saw some daily records in early October, such as at the CME Group.
However with FX market volatility settling down the past couple of weeks, with the EURUSD back in a tight 1.26-1.28 band, trading volumes have dropped off again in the second half of the month.
Case in point is KCG’s Hotspot FX, which reports daily volume figures. After reporting best-ever volume results in September at $38.2 billion ADV, the first half of October more than kept pace at $38.4 billion. However from October 16 and on volumes have dropped 27% to just $28.0 billion ADV, more in line with 2014 year-to-date.
We’ll begin to see actual October volumes early next week. But we believe that the total/average volumes which many brokers and platforms typically report will hide the real story, of first half versus second half of the month.