The Financial Futures Association of Japan (FFAJ) on Thursday reported the second-quarter results of member activity. The self-regulatory body established in 1989 was created to govern the Japanese futures market and currently, it has 141 members, three less than the previous quarter.
Overall, FFAJ reported a strong decline in trading activities across all sectors from the April to June period. During the quarter, the member’s of the regulator reported 16,632,485 on-exchange quarter which is 12.39 per cent or 2,253,177 contracts less than the previous quarter. The biggest loss was reported in overseas on-exchange contract which recorded loss of 13.72 per cent or 1,160,056 contracts.
The over-the-counter (OTC) domestic contracts segment also witnessed a slow performance and recorded, ¥10.1 trillion ($91.1billion) worth of contracts traded during the quarter, which is 13.67 per cent less than the previous quarter from ¥11.7 trillion ($105.5 billion) worth of contracts.
Instruments-wise, trade on-exchange domestic futures interest rate contracts fell by whopping 34.1 per cent, to 710,637 contracts this quarter from 1,078,409 contracts in the first quarter of 2018.
The number of futures interest rate contracts also fell by 13.8 per cent during the quarter to reach 6,350,771 contracts. Options contracts also fared poorly in the category with total traded contracts fell by 18.53 per cent compared to the previous quarter to 840,523 contracts.
The foreign exchange segment was bit positive and the downside was limited. In the foreign exchange domestic contracts, the members reported 8,623,653 futures contracts, compared to the first quarter where 9,449,002 were traded in which decline was 8.73 per cent. The decline in the volume of margin forex contract is also the same percentage at 8.73 per cent.
The overseas futures contracts were the only positive segment in the second quarter with total traded contracts at 105,751 contracts which is almost 102.84 per cent increase 52,134 contracts traded in the previous quarter. But, the options contract were down quarter-on-quarter by 74.30 per cent.
Karthik Subramanian
Karthik Subramanian has been a professional trader and fund manager over the last 18 years. He is basically a software developer who made the transition to financial domain around 18 years back as the attractiveness of the financial markets proved too much for him. He lives in Chennai in India along with his wife and son. He began his career as a software developer in 1999 and then gradually moved into the financial industry as he began trading stocks in his pastime. He then moved into the financial markets full time and then shifted his focus to the FX markets due to the liquid nature of these markets. Since then, he has been trading FX diligently and his favourite pair are the EURUSD and EURJPY. Over the last couple of years, he has found blockchain to be of high interest and considering his background in software and finance, he has since assembled a team of highly talented developers who have since worked on a variety of projects like crypto exchanges and blockchain architecturing. Now, he balances his time between trading and commenting on both the FX and crypto markets. He has worked with many publications including FX Street and Finance Magnates, which has helped him gain experience and also recognition across the industry. He loves to write and this passion has helped him to reach out across the FX and crypto industry. Right now, he works on his pet projects in the FX and crypto industry and spends his time writing and managing his blockchain team and helping it to reach higher.
