Daily Forex volumes on currency platforms run by Thomson Reuters rose to a combined $402 billion in March from $355 billion in February for a 13% MoM rise and 8.3% higher then March 2014’s $371 billion, as officially reported today.
The data from Thomson Reuters also showed average spot daily volumes in March rose to $132 billion, from $114 billion in February, for a 15.8% monthly increase, and a tad higher than March 2014’s $126 billion for a 4.7% YoY bump.
Volumes for forwards, swaps, options and non-deliverable forwards stood at $270 billion for in March up from the $241 billion reported in February for a 12% monthly change and 10% higher than March 2014’s $245 billion.
Volumes naturally took a dive in February but have snapped back in March across the industry. The dip in February from January was due to the extra-ordinary volatility and trading which occurred in January that surrounded the move from the Swiss National Bank to de-peg the fixed 1.20 Euro-Swiss Franc exchange rate. The rise in volumes on the Thomson Reuters platforms echoed a similar bump in March on the rival EBS platform, and Hotspot ECN.
Trading on EBS which is the main venue for banks and other major institutions to trade the euro, yen and Swiss franc against the dollar, rose back above $100 billion a day in March, up 22% from February and 30% from a year ago.
The rise in currency trading volumes in March was mainly on the back of euro volatility, which fell to 12-year lows against the dollar, as the ECB eases monetary policy in the face of a stagnant euro-zone economy while the Fed ponders tightening. We’ll have to see how the monetary policy divergence narrative for EUR/USD plays out for the rest of 2015, and if it remains intact, what it means for volumes moving forward.